Archive - Nov 10, 2011 - Story

Unlike their French counterparts, it appears the hapless (or sensible) Italian demagogues have decided not to extend the short-sale ban that was enacted three months ago. With the US Treasury market closed and volumes likely thin elsewhere, we wonder what outlet the flight-to-safety flow will take as Italian bank equity reality is unleashed. In general the CDS market took the systemic brunt of the hedging and protection-seeking since the 8/11 ban and it seems likely that Intesa Sanpaolo and Mediobanca have the most to fall to catch up with peers in equity while UniCredit seems to have the most to lose in equity to catch up to CDS performance.

About a year ago, a rather outspoken Irishman told the world what he thinks about what then seemed like a groundbreaking event (and is now a daily occurence): the Irish bailout. A year later, the Financial News has caught up with the same gentleman, and we are delighted to share his latest somewhat politically incorrect thoughts on all aspects Wall Street, with our readers. The language in the video may resemble that encountered at a trading desk a little too vividly - you have been warned.

To print or not to print: the choice of whether to open the European Pandora's box, which as we suggested two months ago is an interesting but ultimately moot thought experiment, has suddenly become the only talking point for TV pundits desperate for eyeballs and suckers to buy their books, who are now experts not only on monetary policy but European monetary policy. And while 99% of these empty chatterboxes should be promptly muted, one person whose opinion we value in any regard is that of Jim Grant. Earlier today, with Bloomberg TV's Deirdre Bolton, he discussed not only the expected ECB response to the ever worsening contagion (while the ECB bought Italian bonds in the open market, and potentially primary against its charter, it is prohibited from buying French bonds which is why the OAT-Bund spread closed at record wides), but all the other developments in the insolvent continent. Here are some of the key sounbdbites, and, of course, the full clip.

Today, for the first time in months, the New York Fed disclosed that in addition to its outstanding $1.9 billion in swap lines with the ECB, it had opened for the first time since the swap line reopening, two new USD liquidity lines with the Bank of Japan, a 7 day and an 83 day one, for 1.1%, or just modestly more than what the 7 Day Drawn line with the ECB costs. The combined is for $102 million which brings up two questions: how much longer will the BBA pretend its LIBOR quotations are even remotely useful: after all today, according to the daily bank matrix, the most expensive 3 Month unsecured USD loan in the interbank market was 0.575% (courtesy of Credit Agricole). Yet the BOJ had to borrow from the 100x levered FRBNY at double that? Amusing. And also, just what the hell is the BOJ doing: after all in the past week the bank supposedly bought over $200 billion worth of dollars (and sold Yen) in order to weaken its currency. Where did all this money go if the bank was forced to serve as a conduit for a meager $102 million. We are sure the explanations will be fast and furious, and none of them will be right.

The inter-relationships between various credit market and equity market instruments is a regular part of what we discuss, and most importantly, using these potential dislocations to our advantage. The last few weeks have been awash with notes where we have pointed to divergences and convergences both within credit as well as across credit and equity - most recently today's credit-equity divergence. Peter Tchir, of TF Market Advisors, takes a deeper dive to address some of the reasons for the dislocations and why following the relationships we so vociferously highlight can be highly profitable.

We launch into our traditional Friday afternoon comedy post one day early courtesy of Iron Mike.

Investment grade and high yield credit spread markets, which typically trade very closely coupled with equities, followed the path of the European session and completely negatively diverged from stocks today. IG and HY credit closed very close to its wides of the day while the S&P managed to limp up on average volume to close near the day's highs - after stagnating around VWAP for much of the afternoon. Into the close, we saw a similar pattern to yesterday as hedgers jumped in to credit and HYG (the high-yield ETF) dropped significantly and IG credit (a cheap hedge) lost ground. ES tracked risk markets (outside of credit) almost perfectly all day long - something we haven't seen in a few days - as today appeared very much a wait-and-see day with Europe's modest outperformance enough to quench sellers in equity positions for today at least. Commodities (ex-Oil) were largely unchanged as the dollar ended modestly lower as EURUSD oscillated on Merkel rumors and correlation trades. TSYs rallied off what was an awful 30Y auction but ended the day higher in yield and steeper in curve.

I have been blind with rage for the last week as I’ve watched the powerful men of Penn State attempt to retain their power and reputations at the expense of truth, honesty, and accepting responsibility for their actions and willful inaction. As I’ve watched this tragedy unfold I was struck by the thought process of rich men in positions of power. They have huge egos and believe they are above the law. They think so highly of themselves they believe they can make the rules and ignore the laws which the little people must follow. They have no moral compass whatsoever. They cannot be shamed. The most despicable behavior by prominent men has been willfully overlooked because these men generate $50 million of profit per year for the university. Their sociopathic desire to protect their reputations and power has led to a scandal of such epic proportions that it will haunt Penn State forever and has permanently damaged the institution. This is an institutional cancer that eats away at the fabric of our society. It is not isolated to Penn State. It is a societal sickness that threatens to overwhelm every facet of our lives. There is a constant thread that runs through every incident that comes to light. In 99% of the cases it is men protecting men. Money and greed always trump morality and truth. The exact circumstances can be observed in the priest abuse scandal that has rocked the Catholic Church in the last five years. Pedophile priests have existed within the Catholic Church for decades. The Penn State situation shows that pedophiles exist everywhere in our society. The bottom line is that they are sick men and need to be locked up and kept away from little boys. There is no more heinous criminal act than a grown man raping a little boy. Anyone who does this is pure evil and must be punished.

Let's face it: with the Iranian invasion foreplay having gone on about 3 years too long, everyone is just waiting for the flashing red "GDP boosting" headline. But to know how close we are to I-day, there is one question needing an answer: where are the boats? Below we share the latest weekly update of US naval positioning, as usual courtesy of Stratfor. The chart is self explanatory: the 5th Fleet AOR is getting just a little too crowded.

Comments from the EFSF's CEO Klaus Regling that they will issue short-dated debt to ensure they will be ready to help - for instance, Italy - is extremely worrisome and smacks of desperation in our view. Peter Tchir of TF Market Advisors agrees noting that shifting to shorter term funding for EFSF is a sign of weakness and creates real risk of contagion much sooner than if they stuck to the higher cost, but longer term funding programs. The dramatic widening in EFSF spreads that has occurred since some clarity on risk transfer, post EU summit, was made suggests market participants are extremely skeptical also.

Every day we are blugeoned with a variety of economic reports from various government agencies about the state of the economy.   Most of these reports have some form or another of "seasonal adjustments", speculations, estimations or just flat out "guesses" about what is going on in the economy.   What we tend to find out over time is that these numbers are generally overly optimistic during recessionary periods as we are in today. Today, we are going to look at three different polls from the Gallup organization on consumer spending, the economy and employment.   The Gallup organization has studied human nature and behavior for more than 75 years and focus on what people "think and feel" about various issues.   They employ many of the world's leading scientists in management, economics, psychology, and sociology, and other consultants to identify and monitor behavior. The key difference between Gallup and the various government agencies is that these polls are direct questionnaires to individuals and the responses are tallied and reported.   There are no adjustments, assumptions, guesses, etc.   In the famous words of Bill Clinton; "What is...is."

Yesterday we wrote that according to a Handeslblatt report, Angela Merkel is "investigating ways to enable countries to leave the Euro." Today Handelsblatt has a follow up with some very critical clarifications which change the equations of the European bailout all over again. Yesterday, the Handelsblatt reported that the CDU "wants to make it possible for European Union members to exit the euro area....A commission within the party, that is crafting a framework to be presented at a party meeting, has proposed allowing a euro member who doesn’t want to or isn’t able to comply with the common currency rules to leave the euro region without losing membership in the EU, the newspaper." In other words, the transition out would be "voluntary." So it is somewhat surprising that in under 24 hours we discovery that this proposal has just escalated substantially: according to the just released Handelsblatt update, "The CDU wants to change the EU treaties to not allow the departure of a debt-ridden country from the euro zone, but also their expulsion. From the request for the party on Sunday evening at Leipzig, by the Handelsblatt (Friday edition), the crucial word "voluntary" was deleted."

The correlation between SPX and EUR has been high, but it seems to have hit unprecedented levels today. All you need to know is where EUR is and you can pretty much nail where treasuries, SPX, and an assorted number of other assets are. Credit is also totally divergent from equities today once again.

Minutes ago the Treasury auctioned off yet another block of $16 billion in 30 Year bonds. The auction was pretty horrible: the When Issued was trading at 3.155% when the press release hit that the bond cleared at only 3.199%, a huge 4+ bps tail for the longest duration paper. Internals were not pretty either: the Bid to Cover dropped from 2.94 to 2.40 and Dealers had to buy well over half again or 55.7% with Indirects taking a meager 28.4%, and the remaining 15.8% going to Directs, nearly half of the 29.5% from October. Obviously this is the inverse of what happened in Italy today, when the tail was a negative 150 bps and the 1 year Bill closed at just over 6% with the WI trading in the mid-7%'s. Perhaps the global banks, in an attempt to preserve the Ponzi one more time, pushed all their freely allocatable and repoable capital into Italy and had far less left for long US paper. Nonetheless, the yield at 3.199% was just the second lowest. We salute anyone who believes that as central banks are about to set off on a record printing episode to bail out Europe, that inflation will not rise. Needless to say, the weak auction pushed the entire treasury complex lower, as senn by the second chart of the 30 Year following the auction. With this auction, the refunding trio of issuance for the week is over and when all is settled on Monday, total US debt will be just shy of $15.1 trillion. We are so lucky that the Supercommittee is working up to snuff even as the next debt ceiling hike is rapidly approaching.