Archive - Feb 2011 - Story

Today's $35 billion 2 Year bond auction priced at 0.745%, on top of the WI. Yet despite the seeming lack of weakness, the internals were not pretty, with the Bid To Cover coming at 3.03, the lowest since the 2.93 at the May 2010 2 Year auction. This alone would indicate a material weakness in the bidside. What is also troubling, is that just like in the 10 Year auction from earlier this month, the Direct Bidders declined notably, coming at just 6.81%, compared to an average of 15% in the last year, and the lowest since November 2009. And while Indirects came in roughly as expected, Primary Dealers took down 61.85% of the auction: the highest amount since July 2009. The dynamic of bond bidding are certain changing as there is a big rotation going on behind the scenes. Alas, there continues to be insufficient information to determine just where the bidding interest is disappearing from. That said, we expect the "UK holdings" in February when they are released some time in May, to be flat or even decline.

Goldman's David Greely released a crude update factoring in the Libyan revolution in his latest estimates. As it hit the tape ahead of the force majeure announcement later in the date, the predictions in it are especially relevant as pertain to future crude price dynamics. Specifically: "We expect Libya’s crude oil production to reach 1.6 million b/d in 2011, 1.8% of global supply. Should this production be lost to the market, it would require over half of OPEC’s spare capacity to replace. This would dramatically pull forward the return to a structural bull market that we saw occurring in 2011H2 and 2012. Already, the spread of political instability to Libya has sent Brent prices to a post-financial crisis high, close to our 12- month target. The continuing spread of protests through North Africa and the Middle East presents a clear upside risk to our forecasts." And while the focus on Goldman's report is on the spread between WTI and Crude, a topic beaten to death previously, and where the firm sees it going, the more important observation is Goldman's updated price forecasts for Crude and WTI. There are as follows: "We are lowering our WTI-Brent spread forecast to -$5.50/bbl, -$4.50/bbl, and -$3.50/bbl on a 3, 6 and 12-month horizon. This lowers our WTI price forecasts to $97.50/bbl, $100.50/bbl and $103.00/bbl and raises our Brent forecasts to $103.00/bbl, $105.00/bbl, and $106.50/bbl on those horizons." For those who are confused by the disconnect between the first part of this Goldman's argument (price surge on Libya), and the second (WTI price drop due to a spread compression), you are not alone.

The purpose of this article – it’s an attempt to bring some transparency to what’s really happening in the precious metals complex by underscoring the words and actions of players in the Central Banking community. Attention is drawn to the fact that these elitists lie as a matter of policy but are prone to making simple mistakes like all humans do. Specifically, light is shone on the degree to which these same elitists will go to keep their surreptitious market activities ‘secret’ and their irredeemable fiat currencies viable.

RANsquawk US Afternoon Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 22/02/11

Even as Crude continues its strength in light of Gaddafi's filibuster that may soon dethrone's Bernie Sanders record-setting speech, other commodities are not sharing oil's enthusiasm. In fact, the Ag board is a bloodbath, after wheat, corn and soybeans have all traded limit down, on what are rapidly becoming pervasive margin liquidations. Perhaps the fact that the market forgot that it can go down and is experiencing its biggest drop since November, is forcing many specs to unwind huge margin positions (remember that margin levels on the NYSE are the highest since Lehman), causing a rout in virtually every risk asset. One thing is certain: even with stocks down for the first time in arguably forever, the vol in FX and commodities continues to be the place to be for those who pursue rapidly repricing asset classes.

Reuters reports that Libya has just declared force majeure on its oil exports. As a reminder, Libya exports (under non-force majerue conditions) about 1.5 million barrels per day. That's a lot of barrels, especially for Italy which relies on 425,000 barrels a day from Libya to keep its economy going.

For those curious what is happening in Italy, where the stock market has been closed for most of the day, here it is straight from the Google-translated horse's mouth (and in the original).

Watch Gaddafi, without an umbrella this time, at the link below. Among the choice quotes, the leader says some Arab TV are "serving satan." Which one: the chair?

We have long claimed that in advance of the great "to be or not to be QE3" decision in June, there will likely be a major market swoon in March/April. The reason for that is that, as David Rosenberg explains in a very coherent fashion, the market will soon realize that the case for another bout of monetization is increasingly shaky: "when you go back to August 2010, when QE2 was announced, U.S. core
inflation was 1.1% and headline was 0.1%; by June of this year, we will
probably be looking at 1.5% on the core and as high as 3% on headline
inflation. That combined with the reality that the S&P 500 is 300
points higher now than it was then would certainly suggest that the case
for extension of the Fed’s QE program will not be there, at least not
by the time QE2 runs its course. So this is what we would be looking for
in terms of chronology (it may be too late to sell in May this year)." So unlike before, the context this time around will be one of much higher inflation, making the stimulation case that much more difficult. The downside? 300 points of downside due to a marginal hole that will no longer be plugged by the Fed. And with a fiscal contraction coming for more (see Koo's notes from yesterday), one can see why as Rosie says "it may be too late to sell in May this year." We agree that there will be a return to market volatility in the months ahead of June, but we believe that the Fed will have no choice but to continue monetizing sooner or later courtesy of the $4 trillion in bond issuance over the next two years. There is no way around it. What it means for the "inflationary" thesis we leave it up to readers.

Reuters reports that according to Canal authority officials, the Iranian ironclads are now in the Mediterranean. Priced in. BTFD.

In another TV interview that is supposed to air any minute, the Libyan leader, hopefully in a less surreal presentation than that from last night, will announce the devolution of power, and will provide local governments with semi-autonomy and their own budgets. Per Al Arabiya: "Gaddafi will announce on new provincial ruling to govern Libya with independent budgets." Next thing you know, some Sahara warlord will be forced to explain to his people how $10 trillion in budget deficits over the next decade is an incremental positive for regional employment trends. Needless to say, this attempt at recreating Feudalism will do absolutely nothing to pacify the population that by now is likely rather sick and tired of getting shot at by the Libyan airforce.

This has to be some sick joke...

As of December, so almost three months ago, the housing double dip was getting increasingly worse. This was confirmed by the latest Case Shiller data, according to which the 10- and 20-City Composites posted annual rates of decline of 1.2% and 2.4%, respectively. The 20 City Composite printed at 142.16, the lowest since June 2009 when it was 141.75. Luckily, NAR's now completely disgraced Larry Yun is nowhere to be found in this release, from which we quote: "Data through December 2010, released today by Standard & Poor’s for its S&P/Case-Shiller1 Home Price Indices, the leading measure of U.S. home prices, show that the U.S. National Home Price Index declined by 3.9% during the fourth quarter of 2010. The National Index is down 4.1% versus the fourth quarter of 2009, which is the lowest annual growth rate since the third quarter of 2009, when prices were falling at an 8.6% annual rate. As of December 2010, 18 of the 20 MSAs covered by S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices and both monthly composites were down compared to December 2009." Bottom line: the chart says it all.

Today's rumor mill will apparently focus on whether OPEC will or will not miraculously push the "gush" button. After earlier we reported rumors that OPEC would raise oil supplies, and quoted the Kuwait oil minister, now the Saudi oil minister was caught on tape saying there will NOT be an extraordinary meeting. Which means that the Italian guy was spreading false rumors. Which means that whatever the offer for Italian CDS is, it is cheap. WTI, naturally, rallies on the news.

Despite indications that the US would attempt to forcefully box the Iranian warships in the Red Sea, first observed here, this strategy, if that was indeed the plan, has failed, and according to Egypt's state-run MENA agency, the Suez crossing for one (very old) Iranian frigate and one (very old) supply ship has commenced. Bloomberg reports: "The ships entered the canal early today after the approval of Egypt’s Defense Ministry, the state-run Middle East News Agency cited Ahmed El Manakhly, head of traffic at the Suez Canal Authority, as saying. The crossing usually takes 10 to 12 hours, El Manakhly said." Israel is, needless to say, unhappy: "Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor today said that Israel would consider the presence of the warships sailing through the canal to the Mediterranean Sea “a provocation” that should be “dealt with by the international community.” Palmor said he was citing previous comments by Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman." Yet with tensions already on edge, the possibility that this latest war of words escalates into anything more is quite remote.