Archive - May 9, 2011 - Story

On Friday the misinformation floated about the Greek expulsion event hit a fever pitch: while we correctly speculated that nobody would be expelled from the Eurozone, the amount of conflicting info was at an all time record, with glaring inconsistencies between various quoted authoritarians. Now, courtesy of the WSJ blog, we learn that, for the first time in history, a spokesman for Jean Claude Juncker, the PM of Luxembourg, and the head of the Eurogroup council of eurozone finance ministers, admits openly to having lied to media outlets. "In a phone call and text messages with two reporters for Dow Jones and the Wall Street Journal, Mr. Schuller repeatedly said no meeting would be held. He apparently said they same to other news outlets; at least one more moved his denials on financial newswires. Of course, there was a meeting–although not, apparently, to talk about Greece quitting the currency, which would be an extreme step to say the least. Mr. Juncker even said a few words to reporters who had hustled to Luxembourg to stake out the gathering. So why the lie? “I was told to say there was no meeting,” said Mr. Schuller, reached by telephone Monday. “We had certain necessities to consider.”  Necessities? Why yes: such as perpetuating the now open lie that is the ponzi market: "Evening in Europe is midday in the United States. “We had Wall Street open at that point in time,” Mr. Schuller said. The euro was falling on the Spiegel report, which had overhyped the meeting. “There was a very good reason to deny that the meeting was taking place.” It was, he said, “self-preservation.”" And there you have it: the Eurozone itself now admits that it will sacrifice credibility at the expense of a few FX pips and a few basis points in the ES.Everything else is smoke and mirrors. And people think that central bankers will consider the threat of inflation should the Russell 2000 ever retrace back into bear market territory...

Just a ROFL-inducing headline from Bloomberg for now:

• PORTUGAL OPENS CRIMINAL INQUIRY INTO RATING AGENCIES

Are blogs next?

One of the key catalysts that precipitated the perfect storm in precious metals selling last week was the WSJ article that John Burbank, among others, had sold off some or all of his holdings. Today, in a Bloomberg TV interview, Burbank refutes all the skeptics who think the top of gold is here, and makes it clear that while his offloading of the precious metal was merely a temporary trade to lock in profits, the long term fundamentals for gold are as strong as they have every been. So here it is: "The biggest reason to stay in gold is because central banks around the
world can see the writing on the wall long term, which is that the
dollar will be devalued one way or another and that Congress has no
appetite for hard decisions which would be deflationary in nature, and
therefore, make the dollar higher than gold and not as much of a
necessary holding. You also have the Chinese consumer, who has become a
very large buyer, matching almost the Indian consumer and I think quite
clearly, will exceed the Indian consumer. I think ultimately, physical
gold is the story. It is a scarcity story. The more the U.S. dithers and
the more the Fed is willing to print money, as opposed to dealing with
inflation properly, the more this trend will happen. That is the biggest
reason to stay in gold right now. Otherwise, most of the beneficiaries
of quantitative easing will be backing off as most investors get back to
neutral."... "I think that long-term it is clear sovereign yields will be weak and commodities will be strong. It just a question of when we get there and when we price that in." As for risk assets heading toward June 30: "I think risk assets sell off.  I think they sell off now into it and we bottom again in commodities this summer." And there you have it, straight from the horse's mouth, instead of from some FRBNY pre-cleared journalist.

I know there is something deep in our psychology to which Black Swan hedges appeal. It seduces me too. A part of brains are wired to fear the unknown, when they part dominates our rational thinking, we process facts in a fearful way. There is another part that embraces complexity, uncertainty, and conflict. This part most people need to nurture. Why? Because fear on an applied level equals conservatism: when one conserves, there is no expansion, no newness. Instead there is theory and dogma and ritual tinged with worry and despair. A trader snorting coke off a luscious Ukrainian tummy needs the opposite. Says the Preacher: “There is a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.” I think this wise rabbi means this: learn to trust yourself, trust in your ability to rebuild and be awesome. But don’t bet the whole megillah on how big you think your dick is.

In another key note out of Goldman, we now learn that it is not only Jim O'Neill who is the natural hedge to the firm's other diametrically opposing views (as discussed earlier). While it is no secret that the firm's chief strategist David Kostin continues to ignore warnings from Jan Hatzius et al warning that the economy is set for a period of slower than expected growth, we now find that Goldman's Roman Maranets is out with a note in which he says that "the downshift in the macro picture (excluding Friday’s payrolls print) has not been fully reflected in the level of SPX, prompting us to shift the tactical trading stance in equities to neutral." Hmm, it is somewhat odd that nobody else has noticed that Goldman is now, well, neutral (and we all know what that means in sellside lingo) on the market. Now, the question is whether this is an honest opinion, or merely a way for the firm's prop desk to accumulate ES at the expense of its clients. Judging by the market's sudden surge, asset managers seem to be convinced it is the latter. That said, the firm is now proposing a USD long as a "Zero Cost Cross-Asset Hedge for SPX"  due to the firm's motivation "to find application of our framework in construction of “cheap” cross-asset hedges for investors being long SPX." Of course, why not just buy the USD and the market. We are long past the point where anything makes logical sense any longer courtesy of central planning. We wonder how Thomas Stolper feels now that his thunder has been stolen by both Maranets and Fiotakis, who predicted the EURUSD toptick to within minutes of the near-800 pip plunge in the pair in less than a week.

Moody's Investors Service has today placed Greece's B1 local and foreign currency government bond ratings on review for possible downgrade...Moody's says that a multi-notch downgrade is possible if it concludes that there is large risk that Greece's debt metrics are on an unsustainable path. In Moody's view, such conditions would materially increase the risk of debt restructuring over the short to medium term. Under such conditions, euro area policymakers have stated that future loans from the Exchange Stability Mechanism would be extended only if private creditors were to bear some of the losses. If the path of Greek debt-to-GDP were to appear unsustainable, then Greece might itself have an incentive to seek a change in the terms of its debt obligations.

A snapshot of the US Afternoon Briefing covering Stocks, Bonds, FX, etc.

Market Recaps to help improve your Trading and Global knowledge

And so the battle of propaganda begins: on one hand we have the US government demanding the population take a leap of faith that Osama was killed then promptly converted into lead-containing fish food, now Iran has stepped up to the plate claiming it has 'evidence' that bin Laden was in fact dead long ago. From RIA: "Iranian Intelligence Minister Heidar Moslehi said Tehran has evidence
that al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden had died of disease long before the
United States' alleged raid on the terrorist, FARS Iranian news agency
said. "We have accurate information that bin Laden died of illness some time ago," Moslehi said."  And since Osama's body was promptly dumped at sea, and Obama decided to not release any pictures of the corpse, the conspiracy brigade will surely have a field day with this one. We can only hope Iran's evidence takes a shorter time to produce than WikiLeaks' Bank of America "killer" expose.

And so we see why the proverbial 15 minute inflation reduction, even achieved though such brute force methods as relentless margin hikes everywhere except in the ES and 100x forward P/E stocks, is nothing but hot air. After dropping by over 10% in a few days, crude is now trading at a level that corresponded to gasoline in the low $3.00 range. Instead, as AAA reports, average gas prices did decline.... by $0.006. Apparently in his extended Princetonian studies, Printocchio never got to the class which says that prices are sticky on the way up, and refuse to plunge with the same enthusiasm, especially when involving margin starved companies which are more than happy not to undercut each other on overhead prices for a long, long time.

And another major source of physical demand in the already very undersupplied silver market appears. Just released from Sprott Asset Management, who recently added to the perfect storm in silver by cashing out on the record PSLV premium and converting proceeds to miner stocks: "The Sprott Silver Bullion Fund is an innovative offering, being the
first mutual fund in Canada to invest primarily in unencumbered, fully
allocated silver bullion. The Fund's objective is to seek to provide a
secure and liquid investment for investors seeking exposure to silver
bullion without the inconvenience associated with direct investment." We can't wait to discover how many tons of silver this mutual fund will soak up imminently, and where the always exciting adventure of "COMEX registered silver" takes us next...

A tremendous report by Reuters' Matthew Goldstein, Svea Herbst, Jennifer Ablan, Emma Farge, David Sheppard, Claire Milhench, Zaida Espana, Robert Campbell and Josh Schneyer, identifies that while the shaky macroeconomic conditions and an overbought market were among the key reasons for last week's history crude rout, the match that caused an unseen before plunge in commodities was, you guessed it, "computers." Naturally, this is not unexpected to Zero Hedge readers who have been warned about the massive instability of a market comprised almost entirely of unsupervised algos, since the spring of 2009 (a phenomenon which the CFTC and SEC will not "comprehend" and/or change, until it is too late). Additionally, in addition to the previously identified losses at Clive Capital and Andrew Hall's latest plaything, Reuters also identifies BlueGold, Winton Capital and FTC. Basically, throw out a name that has energy exposure (let's not forget Touradji or Centaurus) and you likely have a winner. Must read.

As gasoline prices passed $4 per gallon in Connecticut, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Joseph D. Courtney joined President Obama in denouncing "speculators" and urging investigation of manipulation in the oil market. There are a few problems with this.

Enjoying WTI at sub $100? Since we have at most two months of WTI trading sub $115 (and Brent at $130, assuming the WTI-Brent spread does not finally collapse) according to JP Morgan, enjoy it while you can. From Lawrence Eagles: "Although oil prices fell sharply last week, on Friday we raised our Brent crude price forecast to $130/bbl for 3Q2011 due to a tight supply/demand outlook. While product cracks and crude differentials also saw some readjustment, we do not expect a major realignment in differentials going forward as the underlying pressures remain intact." In other words, as we said last week, nothing has changed (except for some margins). And since all commodities correlate as one, and since Jim O'Neill was out earlier today bashing commodities (the surest contrarian sign ever), time to load up the boat courtesy of the CME's persistent banging the speculator is likely here.

Because you wouldn't want to miss lots of empty words being delivered with the appropriate dose of pathos (or is that pathology?) and hypocrisy.

Yes, Geithner, and the US "strong dollar policy" take center stage again... Hilarity (at least for Chinese students) ensues.