Archive - Mar 7, 2013

• French unemployment rises again to highest since 1999 (Reuters)
• BoJ rejects call for monetary easing (FT)
• North Korea threatens pre-emptive nuclear strike against US (Guardian)
• Firms Race to Raise Cash (WSJ)
• Time Warner Will Split From Magazine Unit in Third Spinoff (BBG) - slideshows, kittens, "all you need to knows" coming to Time
• U.S. economy, world's engine, remains in "neutral": Fed's Fisher (Reuters)
• BOE Keeps QE on Hold as Officials Weigh More Radical Measures (BBG)
• Jobs start to go as US sequestration cuts in (FT)
• BofA Times an Options Trade Well  (WSJ)
• Congress Budget Cuts Damage U.S. Economy Without Aiding Outlook (BBG)
• Dell’s Crafted LBO Pitch Gets Messy as Investors Circle (BBG)
• Dell says Icahn opposes go-private deal (Reuters)
• Portugal Rating Outlook Raised to Stable by S&P on Budget Plan (BBG)
• China’s Richer-Than-Romney Lawmakers Reveal Reform Challenge (BBG)

In today's overnight trading, it was all about Europe (and will be with today's BOE and ECB announcements), where things continue as they have for the past six months: when it is a problem that can be "solved" by throwing bucketloads of money, and/or guaranteeing all risk, things appear to be better, such as today's EUR5.03 billion Spanish bond auction (the 0.03 billion part being quite critical as otherwise how will the authorities indicate the pent up demand by the Spanish retirement fund and various other insolvent ECB-backstopped Spanish banks for Spanish debt). And while events that can be "fixed" with massive liquidity injections are doing better, those other events which rely on reality, and the transfer of liquidity into the real economy, are just getting worse and worse. Sure enough, today we also learned that French unemployment rate just hit a 13 year high. But it wasn't only the French economy that continued to slide into recession: Germany wasn't immune either following "surprising" news that German January Factory Orders tumbled -1.9% M/M on expectations of a 0.6% rise, down from a revised 1.1% in December. The great equalization in Europe continues, as the PIIGS, kept still on artificial life support do everything in their power to drag down the core.

With Europe once more unfixed, its economy mired deep in a double, and in some cases, triple-dip recession, Italian elections leading to many months of political uncertainty (and according to a new Corriere poll, Beppe Grillo now has 28.7% of the vote, his popularity soaring +3.1% since the election, ostensibly making him the biggest party in Italy), the French finmin saying the outlook for Euro area growth outlook is "very worrying" a few hours ago, and otherwise every indication that the European "fixing" has thoroughly failed once more, following the massive miss in German Factory Orders which printed at -1.9% on expectation of a +0.6% January number, many will be looking to today's ECB meeting to see if Draghi will cut European rates further. The EUR has tumbled 700 pips in a month (with Goldman having shorted it all the way on the way up) on fears the Italian may do just that, although the sell-side consensus is less confident. Of all the banks polled, only JPM and to a lesser extent Rabobank believe Draghi will announce another 25 bps cut today. What will Europe do today, and will it proceed to take some of its interest rates negative for the first time ever, proving once and for all its economy is the worst its ever been? Find out in just over an hour.

About a year ago we warned that in a world devoid of bond vigilantes, long emasculated by the Fed's relentless attempt to bring inflation back or go bust trying, the only forces left willing to stand up to Bernanke are the Brent Vigilantes TM, who succeed in crushing every recent reflation attempt whenever Brent reaches $130 or above (and US gas at the pump rises above $3.80) yet which are rather leery and susceptible to the CME's surprise margin-hike counterattacks, and of course China, the same China which every other lemming said last summer would scramble to join the global reflation except for us, as we made it very clear that all hopes of an RRR or interest rate cut are unfounded. Because all the inflation that China (did not) need would be exported to it courtesy of Bernanke and Company's deliberate and now open-ended printing. For a long time China kept its mouth shut, however, when Japan also joined in this pathological central bank pumping, China may have just had enough. As the WSJ reports,"The president of China's giant sovereign-wealth fund warned Japan against using its neighbors as a "garbage bin" by deliberately devaluing the yen, joining growing international griping about a potential currency war."

Bankers have turned the paradigm of monetary truth upside down. People believe in fiat paper & digital money that is counterfeit and have always ended up in massive collapse to their intrinsic value of zero, and have zero belief in real money, like physical gold and silver, that has served civilizations as money and kept price indexes constant and stable for over 5,000 years.