Archive - May 2011 - Story

The recent sluggishness in equity markets has certainly affected industrial commodities over the past few months, if not gold, which as pointed out earlier is just 2% below its nominal highs and rising despite the 4th margin hike on the Shanghai Gold Exchange overnight - once again gold is seen at the apex of the fiat currency replacement pyramid. So what could cause a rally in industrial commodities in the near term? Sean Corrigan lists the four key catalysts, whose occurrence listed in order of probability, could rekindle the recently faltering rally.

Following electoral upheavals in Portugal, Germany and Finland, it is time to add Italy to the list, after Silvio Berlusconi's center-right coalition appears to have lost the critical election in Italy's financial capital, Milan, which also happens to be the center of the Bunga Bunga man's business and media empire. And while the mayoral election is merely symbolic for now, its outcome has substantial consequences for Italian governance (and thus stability): "With most votes already counted, leftist Giuliano
Pisapia was set to capture Milan city hall with some 55 percent of the
vote against around 46 percent for outgoing center-right mayor Letizia
Moratti. The local elections were seen as a referendum on the billionaire prime minister. "This is the first defeat for Berlusconi's center-right coalition since they came back to power, and it sends a clear signal of voters' disillusionment," said Maurizio Pessato of pollsters SWG. "These results make early elections more likely, possibly next year, and I don't see any chance of meaningful economic reforms being implemented by a lame duck government." As is by now known, while Spain has recently reentered the bond vigilante's scope after its bonds have continued to traded near record highs, Italy has so far been spared. That will change soon: "Italy is the only euro zone economy in which, taking account of inflation, citizens are poorer on average than they were 10 years ago. Berlusconi's government last month cut its growth forecast for this year to 1.1 percent from 1.3 percent and cut next year's outlook to 1.3 percent from 2.0 percent. S&P's lowered its credit outlook on Italy this month due to its weak growth and failure to adopt reforms, although worries of an immediate impact on the markets eased after the Treasury sold long-term bonds near the top of its target range Monday." Will this be the catalyst that is seen as "change" to the status quo by enough bond holders that Italy becomes that last peripheral European domino to fall?

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

Market Recaps to help improve your Trading and Global knowledge

Our descendents will surely look back on this time and wonder how we could have been so foolish– to let these people rob our freedoms; destroy our economies; kill foreigners on their home soil; and shower themselves with Peace Prize medals… all while keeping society quietly subdued with games, tricks, and bombastic patriotism. They tell us to wave the flag, to buy yellow ribbon bumper stickers, and to remember the fallen on days like today. Truthfully, though, the memories of the fallen would be much better honored if the government quit making more of them… and stopped destroying the freedom that they supposedly died to defend.

Turkish daily Hurriyet, which paraphrases German Bild, which in turn references a CIA report, warns that Greece could face a military coup if the "tough austerity measures and the dire situation" escalate any further. On the other hand, one can avoid this belabored hypertextual chain and simply look at what happens practically every day on Syntagma square where yet again we are witnessing record numbers of people protest against what everyone now realizes is a dead end regime (luckily, in a peaceful manner, for now). More Captain Obviousness (thank you Grant Williams) from Hurriyet: "According to the CIA report, ongoing street protests in crisis-hit Greece could turn into escalated violence and a rebellion and the Greek government could lose control, said Bild. The newspaper said the CIA report talks of a possible military coup if the situation becomes more serious and uncontrolled." Luckily, following last year's Athens mob-inspired flash crash, and 2011's MENA revolutions, the market is rather desensitized to this sort of thing, and nothing short of fat-finger driven invasion of Greece by Turkey, in its humanitarian bid to reestablish the Ottoman Empire 2.0, could dent the /ES or EURUSD by more than 0.01%.

In an almost verbatim repeat of Carl Icahn's words of caution which we noted yesterday, Templeton's legendary chairman Mark Mobius said that "another financial crisis is inevitable because the causes of the
previous one haven’t been resolved" during a luncheon (menu included herb crusted chicken breast with cheese and tomato sauce, mashed potato and green vegetables, seasonal salad) at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo. Bloomberg reports: "There is definitely going to be another financial crisis around the corner because we haven’t solved any of the things that caused the previous crisis,” Mobius said at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Japan in Tokyo today in response to a question about price swings. “Are the derivatives regulated? No. Are you still getting growth in derivatives? Yes." Unlike Icahn, Mobius stopped short of calling for a return to Glass-Stegall and a repeal of the abominable Gramm-Leach-Bliley which unleashed the era of zero margin derivatives and financial system neutron bombs. On the other hand, it is nice of Messrs Icahn and Mobius to speak up now, two years after the ongoing systemic instability transferred $3.5 trillion in capital from current and future taxpayer generations to the present financial elite. We do, however, forgive them because in their better late than never contrition, they join the likes of Zero Hedge who since January of 2009 have warned, over and over, that nothing in the structure of capital markets has changed, and that the market could any day open not only bidless, but broken beyond even Brian Sack-ian band aid repair.

China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) has released its breakdown of 2010 international investments. In summary: financial assets abroad rose 19% last year to $4.126 trillion from $3.457 trillion. That includes the country's $2.914 trillion of foreign reserves at the end of 2010 as well as other assets such as direct investments, securities, and gold. As for gold, it increased by $11 billion from $37.1 billion to $48.1 billion, or a 29.6% increase (it is unclear if this number is at a fixed gold price or accounts for MTM). On the liabilities side, which increased from $1.946 trillion to $2.335 trillion, the biggest change was as a result of a surge in Foreign Direct Investment into China which increased by $162 billion to $1.476 trillion. Netting liabilities against assets leads to a net position of $1.79 trillion in external net assets.

Another weekend, another secret, and failed, meeting between the EU and Greece to find a bailout solution that simply does not exist. Reuters reports that while America was out camping, barbecuing and all around vacationing, the European Union was feverishly working on a second bailout package, holding another round of emergency talks with the Greek government, to prevent a June 29 default by Greece when money runs out. Alas, it is now too late: with austerity protests now a daily event, the political opposition has the upper hand and it seems that Greece's conservative opposition has demanded lower taxes as a condition for reaching a political consensus with the Socialist government on further austerity measures, a move which Brussels would not agree to, since unlike in America, cutting revenues does not lead to an reduction in the deficit, and anyone with a 2nd grader's education is aware of it. Punctuating that Europe's idealist unitary vision is about to be torn to shreds, even as the US and UK are out for the day, is the Greek 10-year Bund spread which rose by 20 basis points to 1,387 while two-year yields were up 58 bps to 26.23%.

Gold and silver are flat in US dollars but higher in euros this morning. Trade is thin with the UK and US markets closed for spring holidays. Gold and silver were 1.75% and 8% higher last week and the precious metals and especially gold appear to be on solid footing due to the continuing debt crisis in Europe and concerns about a slowdown in the US and global economy. Despite gold being only some 2% away from the record nominal highs seen at the end of April ($1,563.70/oz), sentiment remains lackluster at best with little or no coverage of gold in the international financial press and media over the weekend. In the last two weeks we have experienced a lot of sell orders and the ratio of sell to buy orders has been the highest since our foundation in 2003. Value buyers emerged last week but much of the buying was by existing clients adding to their holdings. The threat of sovereign default and contagion increases by the day.

A snapshot of the European Morning Briefing covering Stocks, Bonds, FX, etc.
Market Recaps to help improve your Trading and Global knowledge

Even as the peanut gallery debates whether or not the dollar is the reserve currency of choice for the world, China continues to diversify away from the USD. After last week's news that Beijing had not had enough of Portuguese bonds, in a repeat of the same scenario from January 2011, and was preparing to bid up Eurozone bonds across the curve (aka double down) we now learn that China, or rather third-party London-domiciled banks doing its bidding, is now the actor behind "massive Japanese bond buying" seen over the past month. Per Reuters: "Foreign investors have flocked to Japanese government bonds in the past five weeks, finance ministry data shows and market sources say China was among the main buyers, although a large part of buying was made through banks in London." That said, even Reuters appears unable to get its story straight: "Foreigners bought a net 4.696 trillion yen ($57.7 billion) of Japanese bonds in the five weeks to May 20, a record amount of purchases for any five consecutive weeks since data began to be compiled in its current form in 2005. One source said China appears to be buying the four to five-year sector after having sold a large amount of short-term bills earlier in the month. But other sources said foreign investors, including China, were buying long-dated bonds with less than one year left to maturity, effectively the same as buying short-term bills." Wherever in the curve China is focusing, the fact that it continues to actively buy JGBs after 5 consecutive months of declines in its UST purchases (coupled with the news broken by Zero Hedge that Fed custodial accounts of foreign UST holdings suffered the largest one week drop in almost 4 years) is sending a very clear political message to the US. One that certainly got some airplay when the Treasury once again declined to brand China an FX manipulator, despite rhetoric out of very brave Geithner at the first possible opportunity this week, that China is precisely that.

So after one year of beating around the bush, it is finally made clear that, as many were expecting all along, the ultimate goal of the Greek "bailouts" is nothing short of the state's (partial for now) annexation by Europe. According to an FT breaking news article, "European leaders are negotiating a deal that would lead to unprecedented outside intervention in the Greek economy, including international involvement in tax collection and privatisation of state assets, in exchange for new bail-out loans for Athens. People involved in the talks said the package would also include incentives for private holders of Greek debt voluntarily to extend Athens’ repayment schedule, as well as another round of austerity measures." Thus Greece is faced with the banker win-win choice, of not only abandoning sovereignty, a first in modern "democratic" history, in the pursuit of "Greek" policies that are beneficial for Europe, or not get a bailout, which would only serve to prevent senior bondholder impairments. How could Greek leaders and its population possibly not accept such an attractive option which either leaves the country as another Olli Rehn protectorate, or forces it to not bailout Europe's overleveraged banker class. In essence Europe is now convinced, just like Hank Paulson was on September 14, 2008, that the downstream effects from letting Greece implode are manageable. But the key development is that the Greek bankruptcy, which from the beginning, and as Peter Tchir's note below demonstrates, was always simply a Greek choice, was just made that much easier.

Who needs birds and stones when you have an insolvent fiat-based world and a IMF head fond of single (and/or) double-dipping. If anyone is still confused about the ritual sacrifice of the head of the world's bailout organization (if only on paper), here is Bill Buckler explaining how the immaculate timing of DSK's being dragged out of a plane and made into a full blown media farce achieved two very substantial targets: "First, it removes the “international” aspect of the moves the EU is
making to damp down the ongoing Greek (and others) debt crisis. That
turns the “sovereign debt crisis” into a strictly European problem and
makes sure the headlines keep coming. Second, the stoush of who the next
IMF head will be is now predicted to last until (at least) June 30.
This takes the spotlight off the winding down of the Fed’s QE2, which is
scheduled to end on - that’s right - June 30." David Copperfield would be so proud...

The first confirmation of protests expected to sweep across Europe tonight from Greece to Spain, France and Italy comes from Syntagma square where up to 100,000 people are protesting at this moment. Ekathimerini reports: "Greeks inspired by the Spanish “Indignant” or “Indignados” movement held their largest protest so far in Athens on Sunday, which some estimates put as high as 100,000 people, although a more accurate assesment seemed to be that those taking part exceeded 30,000. No official figure was given for the number of people packing into Syntagma Square in front of Parliament but it was clear that the protest was by far the largest since the movement began on Wednesday." For now the Greek protest is peaceful, but with the US on vacation, and the EURUSD about to be very volatile, we urge readers to follow the real time update at the following live webcast.

Another indicator of what the US "recovery" looks like come courtesy of the Chicago Fed National Activity Index. As can be seen in the chart below, one can only wonder just what recovery the US would have if it did not spend $3 trillion to kickstart the virtuous (or better make that virtual) economic cycle when it did. And by the looks of facts (and not Tim Geithner spin), the downward inflection point has now arrived. Next up: another $1-1.5 trillion in monetary stimulus, although admittedly in a form that may be slightly different from the LSAPs we have all grown used to love and expect each and every day at 11:00 am EST.