Archive - Aug 2010 - Story

One of the most beloved phenomena of Fed intervention is the "miraculous" ramp in stocks on days in which the Fed's Permanent Open Market Operations (POMO) occurred: while this was a requisite in 2009 when the Fed monetized $700 billion in Treasurys, it had gradually disappeared from the public consciousness after the termination of the Treasury portion of QE1 in October 2009. Well, now that POMO is back courtesy of QE Lite, and with the help of various sellside analysts, Primary Dealers knew precisely which Treasury CUSIPs to purchase in advance of the auction for a quick leveraged pick up of a few hundred bps. And now that the money is funded back to the PDs, as of the end of the POMO operation at 11am Eastern, it needs to find a new home. And with the PDs providing the initial impetus for a risk asset (read stock) ramp, and momo quants picking up the sloppy seconds as they jump over each other to send the momentum driven ramp ever higher, the result is presented below. What this means is that going forward, every single day that the Fed is monetizing bonds via 10:15-11:00am POMOs, it will be very foolhardy to short into the Fed's stock surging offensive. As a reminder, here are the immediately upcoming POMO days through the end of August: August 19, August 24, August 26, and September 1. Shorting on those days has once again become implicitly illegal.

Update: and, lo and behold, the market was more than prepared to front-run the Fed: the issues prescribed by MS for prepurchasing (and then selling into the Fed's bid), account for 92% of the $2.551 billion in total Bids Accepted (out of a total $20.949 billion in Bid Submitted). The result: a stunningly low 12.2% hit ratio as everyone was more than happy to sell to the Fed. And guess where the cash the PDs just got from the Fed for selling into its bid is going...

This weekend we presented an analysis by Morgan Stanley which attempted to anticipate precisely which bonds will be bought, and which will be excluded (in How To Front Run The Fed With The Best Of 'Em) in today's FRBNY Open Market Operation. To Igor Cashin's credit, his projection was spot on: his suggested 10 issues expected to be monetized all made this list. And, more importantly, the six exclusions were all correct as well, yielding his prediction a 16 out of 16, or A++ score. The full list of securities to be purchased at 11am this morning is presented below. To those who bought in advance of this action as we recommended, congratulations. To those who missed, it, the schedule of upcoming CUSIPs most likely to be purchased in the next 4 auctions through September 1, is recreated below. Once the actual results of the auction with notional amounts is disclosed post auction, we will update this post. Regardless, the massive rip in Treasurys over the past week begs the question: was the action merely one massive frontrunning attempt, and is today's weakness in the Treasury complex just the unwind of that trade...And as for equities, now that POMO is back, it is worthwhile to remember that on POMO days, the market is up about 99.9999*% of the time.

During the live hearing, Bill Gross stated the obvious: private players in the MBS space will never participate as long as long as the government accepts zero down payments. Of course, he is absolutely correct - the only entity stupid enough to gamble with its seemingly endless resources in such a manner is the US government. And in doing so, it continues to widen the schism between public and private interests, and makes the return of private businesses in this most important segment of US credit markets an impossibility. In fact, Gross urged a move one step further, with the full nationalization of the GSEs - as the GSEs are nationalized now in all but writing, this would be logical. Alas, the fact that US Debt to GDP would jump from 90% to 140% may make this proposal a little difficult to implement.

In light of the entrenched way of perceiving things, especially in the U.S., it is difficult enough to convince some people that the economy is in fact not providing the security they desire, but is actually destroying their future completely. To explain to them that this is deliberate, that the economy is designed to self-destruct, that is another prospect altogether. Many people hit a proverbial wall on this issue because they simply cannot fathom that certain groups of men (globalists and central bankers) view money and economy in completely different terms than they do. The average American lives within a tiny box when it comes to the mechanics and motivations of finance. They think that their monetary desires and drives are exactly the same as a globalist’s. But, what they don’t realize is that the box they think in was BUILT by globalists. This is why the actions of big banks and the decisions of our mostly corporate establishment run government seem so insane in the face of common sense. We try to rationalize their behavior as “idiocy”, but the reality is that their goals are highly deliberate and so far outside what we have been taught to expect that some of us lack a point of reference. If you cannot see the endgame, you will not understand the steps taken to reach it until it is too late. - "Giordano Bruno"

Today's portion of political theater is kindly brought to you by Tim Geithner's endless treasury issuance authority, and is currently in progress (and close captioned). The conference can be watched live at the link below. And yes, as expected, and much to Bill Gross' delight, Geithner has noted that the GSEs will need some type of government guarantee. So much for reform.

In an interview with Fox Business News, former US envoy to the UN, John Bolton, told the channel that if Israel wants to prevent Iran from acquiring a working nuclear plant, then a military strike must be launched against the Bushehr nuclear power facility within the next eight days. Specifically, Bolton was envisioning the projected August 21 launch date of the nuclear power plant, which Zero Hedge noted previously. According to Bolton, once the Bushehr facility is operational it will be too late for a military air strike against Iran because such an attack would affect too many Iranian civilians due to the spread radiation.

Gold is following Monday’s buying through this morning and is up 2-3 dollars after yesterday’s solid gain of over $9.00. Stocks and the rest of commodity complex are broadly higher so far today. The USDX is weaker as well. Soros made some comments that investors should buy gold and Goldman Sachs made a buy recommendation last week. The market has behaved strongly since that recommendation, despite the concerns that GS may be creating an exit strategy for itself and/or some clients. But that would be the point wouldn’t it? I mean who takes the cover of Barron’s touting a stock he hasn’t already bought, right? The question remains, is there enough interest and discretionary capital left to spur another buying spree?

Even as the PPI data came out as expected, both on a MoM (0.2% vs exp 0.2%), and YoY basis (4.2% vs exp 4.2%), from a previous reading of -0.5%, and thus serving as no market moving indicator in either direction, housing starts of 546k came in well below expectations of 560k. And in keeping with tradition, the US government once again revised the prior period data, to make today's print seem like an improvement: the previous reading of 549k was revised to 537k. As the Census Bureau reported, "Privately-owned housing starts in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 546,000. This is 1.7 percent (±9.7%)* above the revised June estimate of 537,000, but is 7.0 percent (±7.5%)* below the July 2009 rate of 587,000." Completing the trifecta of economic data, Housing Permits also missed expectations of 580k, coming in at 565k. Far less relevantly, we also find that "privately-owned housing completions in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 587,000. This is 32.8 percent (±6.8%) below the revised June estimate of 874,000 and is 25.4 percent (±7.3%) below the July 2009 rate of 787,000." In other words, houses really are not being built.

• Bulls on parade: Latest JPM Treasury client shows longs rose to 27% from 24%, shorts unchanged at 14% and neutral holdings fell to 59% from 62%
• Debt Virus Spreads During Make-Believe Recovery (Bloomberg)
• Ben should make banks lift savings interest rates (Post)
• Merkel to Stick With Cuts Despite Growth (FT)
• China tries to downplay signficance of July trade number: China's July trade surplus a rare case: expert (China Post)
• Japan govt to discuss stimulus steps Aug 20 (Reuters)
• Our thesis of a European slowdown coming to fruition: German Data Point to Slowdown (WSJ)
• Stellar German Recovery Masks Euro Zone Strains (Reuters)
• Australia, Korea Central Banks Harbor Doubts on Global Outlook (Bloomberg)
• Uncle Sam, Venture Capitalist: Meet the battery company that Obama visited yesterday (WSJ)

• Australia, Korea central banks harbor doubts on global outlook.
• Big banks ease standards on small-business lending - Fed survey.
• BOJ doesn't see threat in recent Yen rise.
• China cuts long-term US Treasuries by most ever as yields drop.
• German investor optimism may drop to 16-month low on weaker growth outlook.
• U.K. July annual consumer price inflation up 3.1%.
• Yen falls versus Euro on rebound in Asian stocks, intervention speculation.

Economic Calendar: Data on Housing Starts, Building Permits, PPI, July Industrial Production, Capacity Utilization to be released today.

Irish CDS, which recently was trading wide of 300, tightened materially after the country, most likely with a very direct ECB intervention, managed to place two €0.75 billion auctions, the first a 4% due 1/15/2014, and the second: 5% due 10/18/2020. The Bid To Cover on the first was 5.4, compared to a BTC of 3.1 at the last auction held in May, explained simply by the surge in the rate from 3.11% to 3.627%. The 2020, however, saw the BTC drop from 3.0 to 2.4 as the yield dropped from 5.537% to 5.386%. In other words, the ECB overbid for the near maturity, and likely just put in for a token amount. And for some odd reason, CDS traders see this latest central bank intervention to extend and pretend as a favorable development, and have decided to run away from Irish risk for the time being. The question of how long the ECB can continue this charade is relevant: after all the Fed has just one country to deal with. And continuing with Ireland, the country's central bank stated that the net cost of Anglo-Irish to the government may be €22-25 billion, even as it cleared up hypocritically that capital raising via taxing banks' excessive reliance on short-term borrowings would be preferable. Of course, the central bank should keep its mouth shut, and be happy that the ECB will continue to support any part of the curve, as in its absence the country would be long insolvent.

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 17/08/10

The monthly CBRE Cap Rate survey is out, and unlike recent months, the outlook for commercial real estate is turning more dour. CBRE's commentary: "As the US economy slows from its growth over the past six months, activity is expected to be more moderate for the remainder of the year. This is partly due to the fact that a few government stimulus programs are coming to an end, along with the fact that job growth remains slow. According to Economy.com the gross domestic product is expected to grow 2.7%, which is a reduction from the 3.0% that was originally projected for 2010. On the upside, corporate profits are steadily increasing and business capital spending is expected to continue to rise. Commercial investment activity and interest have increased in the first half of 2010, but the prevailing challenge continues to be a shortage of suitable product." None of this takes away from the fact that commercial real estate, which has long been the bubble within a bubble, continues to subsist purely on the premise of the (ever) greater fool theory, in that ML's research and underwriting desk will be able to find those to sell equity to in an attempt to delever almost a trillion in REIT debt maturing by 2012. Failing that, the firm will merely extend maturities and roll the debt when the time comes: as recent weeks have taught us, there is no shortage of lunatics chasing yield, believing that High Yield is fixed income, when it is really just a high beta equity play on distressed names.

Tomorrow, a variety of luminaries, such as Bill Gross and Mark Zandi, will be panelists in a worthless and futile spectacle titled "Conference on the Future of Housing Finance" which has the aim of doing something or another to extend and pretend the ticking timebomb that are the bankrupt GSEs. It will most certainly succeed in that regard. What it will definitely fail at, is to provide some resolution to the $7 trillion mortgage "holding" problem, which incidentally was the first domino to fall in 2008, which just so happened nearly took down western-style capitalism with it (and morbidly, it should have: the result would have been a system infinitely better). Yet as we prepare for this hearing (and try to track down Mr. Gross' testimony to validate his previous statement that absent an implicit government guarantee he would buy MBS/Agency securities only with 30% down), here is another view, this one from none other than Edward Pinto, who himself was an executive vice president and chief credit officer at Fannie Mae in the late 1980s. As Pinto says, echoing the previous high dB statements by Rick Santelli, "We'll never get a rational mortgage system until the government's affordable housing mandates are ended." We couldn't agree more.

As we pointed out on Friday, implied correlation closed at an all time high. While this phenomenon is likely the most concerning indicator of a wholesale market meltdown (not to mention that market neutral funds continue on their rapid progression to oblivion: for reference check HFRXEMN and HSKAX), more so than even the Hindenburg Omen (which however does make for a cool soundbite) as there are no endogenous safe-haven sectors within stocks (the safe haven is simply known as bonds, and stunningly high yield also applies even though HY, especially B2/B and lower, and stocks probably differ in some way, but we still haven't quite figured out what), the threat level will only be obvious in retrospect. The very curious topic has incentivized some in the sellside realm to present their own cautionary tales about the trade off and the cost-benefit analysis of a record high cross asset correlation. One among these is BNY's Nicholas Colas, who points out that due to the subliminal perception of record low stock dispersion (or liminal if such people read sites like Zero Hedge), investors have decided to diversify on their own not within stocks, but outside of stocks, the result being record inflows into bond funds (and outflows out of equities). His summary is very concerning: "Investors, even if they have not learned it formally, understand that diversification means lower correlations. As long as stocks, bonds, precious metals, and other assets all move in lock step, retail investors will most likely favor less risky assets." This statement captures the problem better than most: stocks, and their liquid, synthetic, nouveau-CDO cousins, the ETFs, continue to trade higher on ever greater vapors, as the underlying asset base is increasingly devoid of cash. And when the margin call-based liquidations set in, and they will, stocks will collapse more violently, and with far greater amplitude than they did on May 6 (incidentally a date which is an anniversary of the real Hindenburg disaster). Only in retrospect will the current record correlation levels be perceived for the loud alarm bell they truly are. But, courtesy of our idiot regulators, this will certainly not occur sooner, or before it is too late.