Archive - Jun 2011 - Story

Today's 7 year auction capped a miserable week, in which the 2 and 5 Years auctioned off placed at very ugly terms, although none probably quite as ugly as today's 7 Year. The $29 billion QT0 priced at a 3 bps tail to the when issued, replicating yesterday's action, and pricing at 2.43%, the same as last month, but at a Bid To Cover of just 2.62, the lowest BTC since March 2010 when QE1 was ending and the future was unclear. And like during the past two auctions, the internals were decidedly ugly as Dealers had to take up 56.07% of the amount offered: the most since May 2009, when however the Direct bidder category was a non-factor. Indirects continued their trend of stepping away from all issuance and bought just 32.17% of the bond, the lowest since March 2009. Additionally the hit rate on the indirect bid was a whopping 86%. If anyone has figured out just how foreign banks will step in to fund US bond issuance, please let us know, because we are confused. And Dealers will not be all that excited to have to convert risk assets into paper yielding just over 2%, in the absence of the Fed's vacuum pump... Certainly not at these rates. Slowly, the realization that OT2 is not coming a week ago is starting to soak in as the Treasury complex is finally realizing that Gross was right all along. Exhibit A for the past statement: the performance of the 5 year in the past 3 days, whose 32 bps blow out is the 3rd biggest such move. Ever.

Yesterday, I noted that Greece Is a Kleptocracy; the U.S. is a kleptocracy, too. Before you object with a florid speech about the Bill of Rights and free enterprise, please consider the following evidence that the U.S. is now a kleptocracy worthy of comparison to Greece: 1. Neither party has any interest in limiting the banking/financial cartel; 2. Our stock markets are dominated by insiders; 3. The rule of law in the U.S. has been divided into two branches: one in name only for the financial Elites and corporate cartels, and one for the rest of us mere citizens; 4. Just as in Greece, taxes are optional for the nation's financial Elites.

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

A few days ago, when we explained that the current iteration of the European bailout plan is nothing but a repeat of the failed MLEC off-balance sheet plan, which was supposed to prevent the subprime bubble from exploding, we wondered just why Europe has settled on this plan. Now we know: it appears that it was the rating agencies, arguably well-padded with $100 bills to compensate their collective conscience, who suggested that this is the only format of perpetuating the global ponzi without Greece being declared an Event of Dafault. Per Reuters: "The whole charm of the French model is that it was worked out in a such way that it will be fine with the rating agencies." There it is: expect headlines to slowly start leaking from S&P et al that the MLEC part deux will actually not be an Event of Default, and so Europe has the all clear to continue kicking the can down the road for several more years courtesy of money that is literally created out of thin air, and pledged by assets that no longer generate virtually any cash flows.

The teleprompter is expected to prompt stuff about the debt ceiling or something or another momentarily. Nobody really knows or cares. Readers can follow it here.

Update: It appears the blaze has been put out for now.

All in a day's work for a country whose people have to carry the fat kleptofascists on their backs. Next up: all other institutional buildings. And yes, this is starting to look like May 6. In the meantime, this should be good for another 100 pips in the EURUSD.

Italian banks and other companies refuse to relinquish the top volume spots on the world's most active dark pool, Goldman's Sigma X. As a reminder, non-open ATS venues like dark pools, represent what the big money is trading when not masked with the churn volume of HFT darlings that provide easy liquidity rebates, and thus massive volume (but absolutely no liquidity). As we reported in the past two days, Intesa, Unicredit and Banca Monte dei Pasci have been consistently among the top traded names, and continue to be so for the third day in a row. Today it may be time to add Enel SpA. Also, Italian CDS in the 175 bps range are likely very cheap now that the law of communicating insolvent vessels means the bond vigilantes will finally shift their attention to an increasingly troubled Italy.

This report lays out an investment thesis for gold and one for silver. Various factors lead me to conclude that gold is one investment that you can park for the next ten or twenty years, confident that it will perform well. My timing and logic for both entering and finally exiting gold (and silver) as investments are laid out in the full report. The punchline is this: Gold and silver are not (yet) in bubble territory, and large gains remain, especially if monetary, fiscal, and fundamental supply-and-demand trends remain in play.

If the green line passes 200 for any extended period of time, we just may have conditions that are very to quite very reminiscent of the first flash crash. We will warn readers if we see any persistent quote stuffing/churning activity on the NYSE, whose poor Liquidity Replenishment Points just may not be able to take it.

The world's most insolvent bank, Belgium's Dexia of course, is happy to bring this message of solidarity with the disenfranchised people of Greece who will be a fund flow conduit to keep Dexia alive for 3-6 months, via its subsidiary, the European Council: "With today's approval by the Greek Parliament of the revised economic programme, the country has taken an important step forward along the necessary path of fiscal consolidation and growth-enhancing structural reform. But it has also taken a vital step back – from the very grave scenario of default. This was a vote of national responsibility." No point in even pointing out the unbearable hypocrisy there.

Some curious language in the BAC settlement: “…In addition, because the settlement is with the Trustee on behalf of the Covered Trusts and releases rights under the governing agreements for the Covered Trusts, the settlement does not release investors’ securities law or fraud claims based upon disclosures made in connection with their decision to purchase, sell, or hold securities issued by the trusts. To date, various investors, including certain members of the Investor Group, are pursuing securities law or fraud claims related to one or more of the Covered Trusts. The Corporation is not able to determine whether any additional securities law or fraud claims will be made by investors in the Covered Trusts and, if made, to reasonably estimate the amount of losses, if any, with respect to such asserted or potential claims…” Uh, just how is that a settlement.

Wish you had some guidance with the confusion on whether what just happened is good or bad for the EUR and thus for the S&P? Well, don't read this post, which presents two diametrically opposite opinions on what is next for the euro, one from Goldman's Thomas Stolper (not Jim O'Neill or John Noyce, both of whom are massively short the European currency), and another from Citi's Steven Englander. The two couldn't be more diametrically opposite. That said, some of the mea culpas in the Stolper piece (the same guy who got not a single FX call right in 2010) are worth the $0.00 price of admission alone.

As we predicted yesterday, the knee jerk bounce in the second Greek bailout was already largely priced in. And now: heeeeeere's selling the news, led by a USDJPY carry unwind first, and soon spreading to other risk metrics.

Fascism wins again, this time by a 4 vote margin. The world is saved... for a few hours.

The EURUSD just plunged after an announcement that the Greek ruling party deputy has just voted against the austerity package. 100 pip kneejerk reaction. Imagine what will happen when the house of cards finally collapses.