Archive - Mar 20, 2013

Oh wait... Nevermind

In the last two days, Spot Copper prices have broken below a three-year up-trend line and as Stone McCarthy notes, continue to extend their worrisome divergence from stocks, "this has been one of the primary pieces of evidence [they've] been using to make [their] case that the U.S. equity market is in the final stages of an impulsive rally off of the November '12 lows." They go on to note that, "Due to the fact that copper so closely measures the "pulse" of global economic activity, the tendency for copper to lead equities at market tops and bottoms is something we've covered many times in our writings over the years. This time around, unprecedented efforts to stimulate the domestic economy have left many uninformed investors blind to the weakness that is being experienced in what is seen an important engine of global growth, emerging markets." Every market cycle is different, with leading divergences by copper prices lasting anywhere from a couple of months to several years. The last time the divergence between copper prices and the S&P 500 was as long lasting as the current cycle was prior to the S&P's 2007 price top...

Yesterday, at the close, the most lucrative "strategist" in the history of FX, Goldman's Tom Stolper, moments after he was closed out on his EURGBP long reco with a 2.8% loss in one week, came out with a new note, refuting his previous long-held view that in the long run the EURUSD is going much higher, specifically saying the following: "Once again we face rapidly rising uncertainty with regards to the next leg in the never-ending Eurozone crisis. Many of the features, including the unpredictability of the next headline during the final days of a bailout negotiation have been seen before, many times in fact. Short EUR positioning is not stretched yet and the EUR still looks like the natural hedge in case the situation in Europe derails more systemically. Although EUR/$ implied volatility has risen, it remains at levels that are well below those seen in past periods of stress, so options are not prohibitively expensive. The Euro has already responded and this move has pushed us beyond the stop loss in our long EUR/GBP recommendation. Moreover very near-term risks are once again skewed to the downside and a move to EUR/$ 1.25 or even lower remains entirely possible depending on the progression of the negotiations and the flow of headlines. The lack of clear majorities in the Italian parliament and the inability of the Greek government to deliver the agreed reduction in public sector payrolls all add to tactical downside risks here." We promptly took the hint and the second the note hit the tape, we advised on what is the only logical trade.

The simple fact remains that politicians proposed stealing savings deposits from the people in order to fund a bank bailout. You can dress this idea up however you like, calling it a “levy” or “tax” but taking someone’s personal property without their permission is theft plain and simple.

It is not just that there is a monetary union without a fiscal union, but European monetary union itself is incomplete.

We present readers with a pop quiz: the chart below show the ratio of total financial assets to host nation GDP. The tragic cases of Cyprus and Iceland are well-known, as per Reuters, and highlighted on the chart. We urge readers to guess what the supposedly very stable countries X and Y are on the chart, whose total financial system assets to GDP are approaching those of Cyprus, especially since depositors in their banking systems may be due for a very unpleasant surprise next if indeed Iceland and now Cyprus are the case studies.

As part of its 2013 budget, the UK announced something quite dramatic - a government-funded housing subsidy. The government will to commit GBP 3.5 billion of capital spending over the next three years to shared equity loans. The Loans will be up to 20% of the value of a new-build home. The government will also offer mortgage guarantee to lenders to help them provide more loans to people who can’t afford big deposits. Guarantees will be sufficient to support GBP130b of mortgages, Osborne says. "These guaranteed mortgages will be available to all homeowners, subject to the usual checks on responsible lending,” Osborne says.

"Having faith in policymakers' ability to provide a perpetual put may yet prove to be a serious error; and, with interest rates stuck at zero, investors' ability to easily earn back losses remains severely impaired," is the not so subtle manner in which, Reuters reports, Brevan Howard, which manages $40 billion (and has never had a losing year) describes the current shambles of a market. "Tail risks, which have haunted the markets for the last five years, appear to have receded for the time being, but have by no means disappeared," they go on to say, noting that while policymakers promise to do "whatever it takes," investors betting that actions by policymakers will prop up financial markets indefinitely will face problems as "policy hyperactivity coupled with investor apathy could lead to significant and persistent price moves in multiple capital markets." But that's just an absolute return $40bn fund manager's view as opposed to a day-trading fast money trend masher or asset-gathering index-tracker.

In a follow-up to investigations over alleged wrongdoing surrounding a EUR285mm payout by the then French finance minister and now IMF head, The Telegraph reports, Christine Lagarde's Paris flat has been raided. The fresh (if you're an orange) faced IMF Chief, of course, denies any wrongdoing in the case of a huge 2008 compensation payment to businessman supporter of ex-President Sarkozy. On the bright side, at least there were no indiscretions in hotel rooms involved (yet it seems she is following in the strong footsteps of her predecessor DSK - how can we not trust these people?)

With Argentina printing pesos to finance itself, the growth of pesos in the economy has rose 38% in the past year, leading analysts to predict that the currency will depreciate 12.9% through year-end, the highest of currencies tracked by Bloomberg. Banco Ciudad is the only bank left that trades in gold after Fernandez  banned the purchase of certified 99.99% pure gold for savings in July. The bank sells it at 99.96% purity, according to Carlos Leiza, who oversees the lender’s gold trading. There is a 35% gap in the prices to buy and sell physical gold at Banco Ciudad, while there’s no premium to sell the country’s benchmark 2017 dollar bond in the local market, according to the Buenos Aires-based Open Electronic Market, known as MAE. Gold sold by Banco Ciudad also isn’t recognized internationally, making it more difficult to determine its value, he said. The cost of 100 grams of gold in Argentina as of last week was 36,646 pesos. In New York, the same amount based on the benchmark troy ounce (31 grams) sold for about $5,126. The bank multiplies that price by 0.95 to account for the lower quality of the gold to get a dollar price of $4,870.  “Historically, gold has been seen as a store of value, so as long as options for doing that in Argentina are limited, people are going to keep buying it,” Banco Ciudad’s Leiza told Bloomberg.

Blackrocks's Larry Fink "doesn't really care" about Cyprus, "it's really not something of concern," he tells Bloomberg TV. While gesturing that he can't really discuss specifics as Blackrock is an adviser to Cyprus, he then goes to explain how European and US markets have it all wrong and that "It has some symbolism impact on Europe, but it’s not a really major economic issue." This dip is "just clients taking some chips off the table and reaping some gains from the huge rally," he goes on, dismissing the interviewer's question as nonsense, "this is temporary," and adding that he "is hyperbullish on the US economy," and that "global markets will be up 20% this year." However, what is most fun to watch is his arrogant dismissal of the interviewers question over US depositor fears, there are two reasons that is foolish, he notes "a) we have insurance, so that will not happen; [ZH: umm, so did Cyprus]; and b) we have always prioritized the liabilities [ZH: umm, except for GM]." So all good then, storm in a teacup. Carry On - though he has some stern words for the French and for the Russians.

We already reported earlier that the only bid in the overnight session, aside from that of central banks of course, was courtesy of hopes that Russia would victoriously step in and gloriously deja vu bail out Cyprus from the clutches of a despotic (for lack of a better word) Germany. This happened moments before Russia explicitly denied any agreement between Russia and Cyprus was reached. So, in the aftermath of a brief glimpse of reality courtesy of FedEx which slashed its economic outlook across the board leading some to expect an outright decline in full year S&P earnings, what is a foundering insolvent status quo regime to do? Why regurgitate the same old already refuted rumor of course. Sure enough: "Kathimerini Cyprus reported that an agreement has been reached in principle for Russian investors to buy Cyprus Popular Bank (Laiki) in a deal that would reduce Cyprus' funding needs by 4 billion euros." Unsourced, unfounded, idiotic (because why would Russia buy a bank which will be promptly rendered insolvent by the deposit bank run that follows moments after it finally reopens). That was enough, however, to send the EURUSD soaring, and for us to comment on this as follows: "Here we go again with the European rumors ramping EUR, denied 20 minutes later."  10 minutes later, just as we predicted, all has been denied: CYPRUS GOVERNMENT SPOKESMAN DENIES REPORTS OF DEAL TO SELL CYPRUS POPULAR BANK CPBC.CY TO RUSSIAN INVESTORS.

In the below video, I discuss why we’ve all already been “Cyprus’d” to a far greater degree than Cyprus citizens can be Cyprus’d, and how we can stop being Cyprus’d in the future.

Greece was a unique and special case. Cyprus is a unique and special case. One wonders, and with good reason, what or who will be the next unique and special case. The one thing we all know for certain is that when you are tagged with this moniker that it is not good. The other thing we know is that Europe, at any time, is ready to create unique and special cases to further their own interests. Perhaps, to be fair, it might be better to say that Germany will lord over this dynamic because it is generally the German interests which are to be furthered. Therefore when unique and special cases have become the order of the day then the risk factors for investing in Europe have grown dramatically and must be honestly considered. The greater fool theory is expecting different results when performing the same actions again and again. Europe may be fine for hedge funds, for gambling upon events, but for investors; perhaps not so much.

We are lucky that in the new normal earnings, cash flows, news, and broadly reality, are completely irrelevant, and all that matters is the central bank-sponsored S&P multiple expansion (due to monetary dilution), or else the news from moments ago that FedEx once more cut not only its EPS but CapEx (and thus growth spending) may have been negative for stocks, and even mentioned by assorted propaganda networks. And since none of the above will happen, here is the bottom line: FedEx - the bellwether for global trade and logistics - just cut its year EPS from $6.20-$6.60 to $6.00-$6.20, and slashed CapEx from $3.9 billion to $3.6 billion. But at least in keeping with the demands of ZIRP, the company instead of spending on growth, which is obviosuly not there, will instead buy back 10 million shares of stock. This tells you all you need to know about the "recovery."