Archive - Feb 20, 2015

Remember: any time Goldman tells you to do something, do what it does, not what it tells you (thank you Tom Stolper for teaching us that lesson) and as the case may be, Goldman's prop, pardon, flow (because those are illegal under Volcker wink wink) traders have some AAPL shares to sell to you, to wit: "We increase our 12-month target price to $145 from $130 previously which is based on a 16X (up from 15X reflecting our increased confidence in Apple’s outlook) multiple applied to our CY2015 EPS estimate of $9.03 ($8.64 previously)."

Following numerous rate cuts and backdoor QE (halting government bond issuance), Denmark's Krone is collapsing this morning following the head of Denmark's Economic Council, Hans Jorgen Whitta-Jacobsen said:

DENMARK'S CENTRAL BANK WILLING TO USE CAPITAL CONTROLS IF NECESSARY TO DEFEND DKK PEG

This has sparked the biggest drop in DKK against EUR since 2001 and as SEB chief strategist Carl Hammer exclaimed, "currency markets are extremely nervous."

An important announcement from the ECB..

"I accepted this position, as I said at the time, to work side-by-side with Bill Gross, as economic counselor, doing the three things that I love: think, write and speak macro. My mission here is complete. I will continue doing the things I love in other spaces, possibly in the academic arena. PIMCO will always be Camelot in my heart."

** Greek Bank Runs Accelerate as Possible ‘Grexit’ Looms
** Fatigue with Greek Crisis Breeding Massive Complacency
** Ukraine a Significant Setback for NATO
** India Demand To Rise To 35 - 40 Tonnes This Month
** Gold Oversold - Fundamental and Technical Position Good 

While markets remain in "well it is Europe and it's OPEX so BTFD" mode, entirely ignorant of what Goldman describes as the risk of a systemic shock, the EU-Greece negotiations continue... to go badly. As Bloomberg reports:

*EU OFFICIAL SAYS GREECE DEAL FRIDAY NIGHT LOOKING UNLIKELY

In fact, the official dropped his expectations so low as to say "it is possible that they could agree on progress." Which at least is one better than the no-progress meeting last week.

"It is a fluid situation"

• Greece Should Not Give In to Germany’s Bullying (FP)
• Greece Can Pay Its Debts in Full, but It Won’t (WSJ)
• Early Friday humor: Euro Region Economy Strengthens Amid Wrangling on Greece  (BBG)
• Euro zone may need extra summit to clinch Greek deal (Reuters)
• Oil-Drop Pain Spreads to Saudi Arabia’s Energy Behemoth (WSJ)
• Yellen Confronts Economists’ Ignorance (BBG) - where does one even start with this one
• ECB Plans to Push Greek Banks to Shed State Debt If Talks Fail (BBG)

This is what peak bluffing looks like.  Moments after there was much hope for a deal, suddenly ze Germans yanked the carpet from under any potential leverage Greece may have though it had when the Maltese foreign minister said:

• GERMAN-LED BLOC WILLING TO LET GREECE LEAVE EURO, SCICLUNA SAYS
• "I think they’ve now reached a point where they will tell Greece if you really want to leave, leave"

This in turns follows minutes after a Spigel article said that the ECB prepares for Greek euro exit.

Start #Eurogroup rescheduled to 16.30. Very brief statement president Dijsselbloem somewhere around 15.00 at VIP entrance.

— Jeroen Dijsselbloem (@J_Dijsselbloem) February 20, 2015

For the past quarter century; the most effective “stimulus” for the U.S. economy has been a fall in gasoline prices. This is no great surprise, given that the United States had been the most gas-guzzling nation on the planet – and by a wide margin. But times have changed!

With the new and revised (until it is re-revised again to some future date), Greek D-Day set for today's third in the past 2 weeks Eurogroup meeting, every favorable headline serves as a springboard for ES-buying algos, while every negative headline is promptly ignored. And since this is Europe's style trial ballooning, there have been many of both with just these two hitting in the last hour:

• GREECE, EURO ZONE NEAR DEAL ON PACKAGE, REUTERS CITES UNIDENTIFIED GREEK OFFICIAL
• GREECE DID NOT GO FAR ENOUGH IN THEIR LATEST PROPOSAL: GREEK GVOERNMENT SPOKESMAN

Guess which one pushed ES into the green?