Archive - May 2011 - Story

• PBOC Reiterates Inflation Control Is Its Top Priority (Shanghai Daily)
• Portugal Reaches Deal on €78bn Bail-Out (FT)
• China Allows Firms to Sell Bonds via Private Placement (WSJ)
• Demand for Bank Loans Mounts in Emerging World, Survey Says (WSJ)
• China 2011 Growth Seen Solid, Inflation to Quicken: Reuters Poll (Reuters)
• Yemen-based Jihadist Has Potential to Fill Role (FT)
• Netflix Said to Seek TV, Film Rights for Latin America Service (Bloomberg)
• Palestinian Factions Prepare to Sign Deal (FT)
• Outcry Over Syria Rises Amid Wider Crackdown (FT)
• Waiting for Dollars in Belarus Puts Lukashenko on Unrest Alert (Bloomberg)
• U.K. Regulator Expands Its Reach (WSJ)

And so the first warning shot for this Friday's NFP comes, which we believe will be substantially below consensus, in the form of the ADP report, which comes at 179K, down from a revised 207K, and well below expectations of 198K. And while the number is very disappointing, both construction and financial activities posted a solid up month, with financial jobs posting a second consecutive monthly increase after over 3 years of drops.

ADP today (8:15AM) , followed by services ISM (10AM) carry unusual risk for markets today. In particular a downside surprise may be more broadly risk-off than has been the case recently on negative economic surprises. Positioning remains long risky assets and risk correlated currencies but there are growing concerns about pressures on oil and other commodities. ADP has been resuscitated as a payrolls indicators so there will be some reaction to a big surprise. Market expectations are very concentrated at 200k -- with modest downside extension to 180k and upside to 220k. Our economic surprise index for G10 is diving sharply and our economists are on the soft side as far as payrolls go. Net, net we think the downside risk outweighs the upside and that a downside surprise today is more risk off than normal.

Another sign of the increased appreciation of gold as an important asset came from Germany today where Angela Merkel’s budget speaker and his opposition counterpart have urged Portugal to consider selling their gold. Norbert Barthle, Germany’s governing coalition budget speaker and his counterpart Carsten Schneider from the Social Democrats, the biggest opposition party urged Portugal to consider selling some of its gold reserves to ease its debt problems. They called for a review of Portugal’s request for financial aid to include gold and other potential asset sales. The German lawmakers did not specify who should buy the gold from the Portuguese central bank but given the challenges facing Germany and the Eurozone it is likely that the Bundebank and the ECB would be willing buyers – if the gold is not already encumbered due to Portugal’s membership of the Eurozone. Meanwhile creditor nation central banks continue to accumulate gold reserves as seen with the breaking news from the Financial Times that the central bank of Mexico has been diversifying their currency reserves (largely in dollars) into gold with the purchase of 100 tonnes of gold bullion in February and March.

ADP, the non-manufacturing ISM, and the first policy speech from the new president of the San Francisco Fed. Also a bunch of other non-dissenting yet hawkish, and extremely hypocritical Fed presidents are speaking elsewhere warning how dangerous the printer's policy is even as they vote for its with every FOMC meeting.

In what could be the watershed news event of 2011, Dow Jones reports that Asean+3 governments (virtually every Asian country including China, Japan and South Korea), "have been concretely studying the idea of a common currency, though an internal paper shows anything like a euro for the region is still far off." In what appears to be Asia's attempt to recreate the Euro, "an Asian "regional monetary unit" could provide a helpful macroeconomic monitoring tool and its use could in time be expanded to include official and private transactions, according to a study by a high-level research group reporting to Asian officials." So for all those complaining that the Yuan would not be able to compete with the dollar as a reserve currency, how about a basket of currencies which includes the Yuan, the Yen, and virtually every other growth currency. It is only fitting that as a last ditch effort to save the current globalized system, as we see the last days of one failed "aggregator" currency, we get the inception of another.

Even though Portugal announced somewhat sparse details of a €78 billion IMF/EU bailout late yesterday, the market was only modestly impressed, and even though Portuguese CDS dropped 29 bps to 620, according to CMA at 10:10 a.m. in London, the country still saw the yield on its just issued 3 Month T-Bills surge to a fresh all time record. From Reuters: "Portugal sold around 1.12 billion euros ($1.66 billion) in three-month T-bills on Wednesday, above the indicative offer, with yields rising from an auction late last month even after the country said it agreed a 78 billion euro EU/IMF bailout. The average yield rose to 4.652 percent from 4.046 percent in an auction on April 20. Portuguese debt premiums in the secondary market had risen sharply in the past two weeks on jitters about a possible Greek debt restructuring and concerns about Portugal's own fate, but retreated after the bailout deal." And to confirm that the market no longer really beleives in the bailout fairy, the Bid to Cover dropped from 2 to 1.9.

The rumormill around who is buying and selling precious metals is getting more ridiculous than daily Radioshack LBO speculation. The latest comes from the WSJ which informs that based on "people close to the matter" Soros and Burbank are now dumping their gold and silver: "George Soros's big hedge fund, a firm operated by high-profile investor John Burbank and some other leading firms have been selling gold and silver, according to people close to the matter, after furiously accumulating precious metals for much of the past two years." Greg Zuckerman's conclusion, assuming a multi billion hedge fund will actually let its competitors know what it is doing concurrently as it is doing it, is merited: "Their selling suggested the sharp, nine-month run-up for precious metals could be entering more dangerous territory." Of course, something tells us that just like Goldman, whose prop desk has a nagging tendency to buy as its sellside "analysts" say sell, we would rather hold off until we see respective 13Fs on the matter. In the meantime, we fail to see where over the past week the central (pardon the pun) thesis has changed: namely that central banks will not print more linen/cotton when the time comes. And if the market is indeed starting to price in QEasing's end, then the deflationary scare will certainly see the RUT plunge and undo months of carefully executed (by NYU interns) POMO operations. For a Fed which equates the economy with the RUT, this is simply unacceptable.

Last week, an article by Fred Kaufman in Foreign Policy magazine ripped off a gangrenous scab: the topic of Goldman manipulating markets, a theme extensively dissected over the past two years, only in this case a rather sensitive one: that of food prices. Since the topic of Goldman being involved in market manipulation is nothing new to Zero Hedge, which first exposed the firm's prop trading shenanigans in 2009, a trope that was merely validated when Lucas van Praag responded to our allegations, to be promptly followed by Volcker making prop trading by banks semi-illegal, we were not surprised to read this piece. What did surprises is that Goldman once again exhibited horrendous PR sense by issuing yet another Lucas van Praag response, literally minutes ago, in the same venue. While van Praag does touch upon some valid points, the overall response is beyond weak and along the lines of the traditional excuse: "we generously provide liquidity/markets/capital, etc." which merely exacerbates the overarching theme: Goldman's relentless condescension, and assumption that it always is dealing with idiots who have no idea how the firm operates. As Goldman is about to find out, this will do nothing but generate a firestorm of angry responses by the "non-faceless" crowd which will now have a scapegoat to blame, since by taking he defensive, Goldman once again validates the allegation. What happens next to Goldman, and the GSCI, is unclear but will likely not be favorable in light of Obama's recent witchhunt against "speculators." Yet at the end of the day what can one expect from a firm that will always have to live with the following classical example of shooting itself in the foot: "When asked about these emails, Mr. Swenson also denied that Goldman had attempted to squeeze the CDS short market. He claimed that the cost of single name CDS shorts had gone too high, and the purpose behind Goldman’s actions was to restore balance to the market. Mr. Swenson could not explain, however, why in an effort to restore balance to the market, he used the phrases “cause maximum pain,” and “this will have people totally demoralized".”

Carl Levin wasn't kidding when he said he would refer Goldman to another set of Goldman subordinates: The DOJ and the SEC. Sure enough, as Bloomberg reports, "Senators Carl Levin and Tom Coburn, the Democratic chairman and senior Republican on the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, have signed a referral letter asking the agencies to examine the panel’s report, Levin said today in an interview." And now Goldman can finally pull all those high-CPM paying ads (for which the FT is very grateful) with photos of puppies and Ethiopian kids on them: obviously the humanitarian PR campaign has been an abysmal failure, and in fact is making the firm appear even shadier. "The scrutiny is a setback for Goldman Sachs, which hired lawyers, lobbyists and public relations specialists to monitor the two-year investigation and tamp down any controversy that arose from the subcommittee’s conclusions." On the other hand, as presaged in the first sentence with the keyword "subordinates" it is obvious that absolutely nothing actual will come out of this. Sure, someone may end up paying a fine that will amount to less than one day's worth of Goldman prop profits, but someone going to jail? Please...

Just like yesterday and the day before, 6:30pm is now the official precious metal "bang the afterhours" launch time. As we predicted minutes ago, silver just got taken to the cleaners on what is now an apparent attempt to push silver around in the no volume part of after hours trading, in the 6-7 pm no man's land. We expect an imminent rebound after this latest attempt to trigger stop losses, probably those around $40, fails. If it succeeds in pushing silver below $40 it is very possible that the metal can promptly trade down to the mid $30s as a result. And while banging the close has been investigated by the CFTC for years (resulting in some modest smacks on the wrist recently for the ex-Moore trader who did this with impunity), we are confident it won't be before 2015 that the CFTC's commissioners investigate this particularly odd behavior in silver and gold. By then it, of course, won't matter.

And now for something different. From Omid Malekan, the brains behind "the Bernank", and the xtranormal short clip cottage industry, comes this clip of proposed replacement sayings for that old adage of "Sell in May and go away." Alas, since the market is no longer, free, rational, or for lack of a better word, a market, but merely a plaything of the central banks, it is indeed time to provide a new set of slogans, especially since "BTFD" is getting a little stale. Among our favorite proposals: "Buy today's cause it's early May", "Buy tomorrow with funds you borrow", "Buy next week when the market is at a peak", "Buy like crazy when the outlook is crazy", "Buy all commodities without hesitation, but don't dare we have inflation", "Buy the REITs cause real estate is on fire, but don't you dare become an actual home buyer", and, without doubt the best: "Buy everything and laugh all the way to the bank, cause if any market ever goes down, you can sell to the Bernank." As usual, readers are encouraged to provide their own.

One would think that following the total "annihilation" (as it has already been pegged by some) in silver over the past few days, that Comex would promptly reverse its "temporary" reclassification of Registered into Eligible silver, or so the believers in Comex holdings claim. Which is why to our surprise we noticed that today, the Comex announced that the ongoing inverse reclassification from Registered into Eligible continues, with Scotia Mocatta seeing another 186 thousand ounces of physical silver moving into that dark pool known as "eligible" holdings.

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 03/05/11