Archive - Jun 2011 - Story

There is nothing to excuse last week's once again disappointing jobless claims number which came at 427K, even as the lemming horde was expecting an improvement to 419K. The previous number of 422K was revised as is always the case higher to 426K, in an attempt to make the W/W deterioration seem less than expected. Continuing claims on the other hand surprised to the upside, coming in at 3,676K on expectations on 3,700K, with the previous revised higher to 3,747K from 3,711K. Ever more people continue to drop out of the 99 week category as 52K fell out of EUCs and Extended Benefits. Elsewhere, the US trade balance came in better than expected as the US imported less: the US Trade Balance in April came at -43.7bln M/M vs. Exp. -48.8bln, with the Previous -48.2bln, Revised to -46.8bln. The only number however that matters is the continued deterioration in claims.

The ECB's press conference, which lately has been seeing rather aggressive questions from the press corps (especially if the Finns are present like last time) and very rambling non-answers from Trichet can be followed live below. Expect to see some volatility in the EUR as a result of Trichet's carefully chosen words. Once again, the keyword of note is "vigilance."

Following the dramatic outperformance of Treasurys (compared to stocks) since the beginning of April many have been fast to proclaim Bill Gross wrong (when he is merely early) in his decision to abandon the asset class, while other prominent deflationists have been pounding their chest, claiming how right they have been. Well, as the chart below shows, the recent UST move has to be put in context, and the context is not pretty for "deflation." What is more troubling is that according to a technical resistance levels, the period of abnormal bond strength may be over. On the other hand, should the ratio of the UST/SPX breach above the 0.97 level, the down cycle will be broken and it may be time for a new regime of consistent Treasury outperformance.

While the bulk of the economic newsflow continues to come from outside of America, looking at our own mess today we see jobless claims, wholesale inventories, the trade balance... and Janet.

As expected the main financing rate is unchanged at 1.25% (and by implication the Marginal Lending Facility remains at 2.00% while the Deposit Facility remains at 0.50%). The EURUSD is drifting modestly higher but nothing remarkable. The key continues to be the upcoming conference.

European CDS is wider across the board. SOVX is 203 which is 4 wider on the day, and liquidity seems to have broken down completely as I'm seeing 3 bp bid/offer spreads rather than the more customary 2 bps. That is after it widened 10 bps yesterday. Fins at 163 (+4 on day) and Fin Subs 279 (+12 on the day) are also trading extremely poorly. Fin Subs, although fairly illiquid deserve special mention. They were 15 wider yesterday and although it is hard to tell with the rolls, it looks like they are almost at the widest levels of last March at the height of the first time the market noticed the sovereign debt crisis. The sovereign bond market looks to be in rough shape as well. Greek 10 year bonds are back below 54 on a price basis (16.35% yield). They have given up most of the late May gains. It rallied on the comments that the EU wanted a plan to bailout Greece again. It is fading on the fact that in spite of wanting a plan, it seems very difficult to come up with a workable plan.

• Obama Considering Another Stimulus Tax Cut (New Republic)
• Taxes on the menu in debt-reduction talks (Reuters)
• Americans torn over debt limit (WaPo)
• Dimon Challenges Bernanke on Wall Street Regulation (Bloomberg)
• The Great Property Bubble of China May Be Popping (WSJ)
• Beige Book confirms break in supply chain(FT)
• Trichet May Play ECB Rate Card as Germany Risks Split on New Greek Rescue (Bloomberg)
• Slow growth to anchor Bank rates despite price pressure (Reuters)
• President Obama Authors The Economic Recovery That Isn’t (Forbes)
• New Cracks in Oil Cartel (WSJ)

The key news today is not out of the US, but out of Europe, where the ECB will shortly announce that it will hold its main refinanincing rate flat at 1.25% (in line with the BOE's just announced "unchanged" decision, keeping rates flat at 0.5%), though what everyone will focus on is what will be said in the news conference following the decision, where the key phrase is "Strong Vigilance", whose utterance will send the EURUSD much higher on expectations for another 0.25% hike in July. It will also mean that inflation in the Eurozone continues to run up and is still largely out of control, as stagflation threatens not only the UK, but the core of Europe as well. From Reuters: "The ECB is expected to use higher staff inflation forecasts, to be published during Thursday's post-policy meeting news conference, as justification for higher interest rates to come -- probably starting with a rise to 1.50 percent next month. The ECB's Governing Council began meeting at 0700 GMT. The bank raised its main refinancing rate to 1.25 percent from 1.0 percent in April, its first tightening in two years. In the post-meeting news conference, ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet is expected to say the bank will exercise "strong vigilance" over price pressures, using a phrase that in the past signalled a hike was a month away. He used that code in March to flag April's rate rise." There is also a very minor chance that the ECB will hike rates today: "Firming cost pressures -- euro zone producer prices rose by more than expected in April -- mean a rate rise cannot be ruled out this month though the ECB's decision not to signal a hike makes it very unlikely. "I don't think the door to a hike in June is completely closed but given that the ECB has historically pre-announced a rate hike, a hike in June would be a surprise and would assume a change in communication strategy," said Nick Matthews at RBS." The problem is that every incremental rate hike simply means that the interlocked PIIGS markets will be further locked out of markets, as short term funding rates continue rising ever higher: the irony, stated simply, is that by fighting inflation for the healthy countries, the ECB is making the unhealthy ones even worse.

Gold is marginally lower while silver is showing strength again today after yesterday’s 'worst ever' OPEC meeting ended in disarray and saw oil prices surge. Markets await today’s ECB rate decision and signs as to whether interest rates are set to rise sooner rather than later. Signs of an interest rate rise in July should see the euro and gold rally versus the dollar. The precious metals are also likely to be supported by further sharp falls in peripheral markets bonds, particularly Greece, this morning. While all eyes are on the ECB today, there was a reminder late yesterday that it is not just the Eurozone that is struggling with debt. Fitch Ratings said it would put US debt on watch in early August if Congress fails to raise the federal debt limit. OPEC, the oil cartel’s increasing impotency was seen yesterday when Libya, Iraq, Angola, Ecuador and Algeria sided with increasingly influential Iran and Venezuela rather than Saudi Arabia and its allies Kuwait, Qatar and United Arab Emirates. Also, Japan’s nuclear crisis is leading to a decline in nuclear energy production, possibly long term in nature, and China’s massive drought has led to marked decline in hydroelectric energy production. There is increasingly the real risk of an oil crisis especially given the very tense geopolitical situation in North Africa and the Middle East. Separately, Iran announced it planned to treble its capacity to produce highly enriched uranium which alarmed western powers and was deemed ‘provocative’ by one international relations analyst. Oil prices have risen over 10 times since 1999. For gold prices to just catch up with the price increases seen in ‘black gold’, gold would have to rise over $2,500/oz (10 X $250/oz).

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

For the n^th time, China let loose that "excessive" holdings of US dollars are risky because "Washington could pursue a policy to weaken the dollar, a senior currency regulator said in comments published on a website that briefly pushed the dollar lower." Oddly this time, the statement which came from Guan Tao of China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE) which is the entity responsible for managing the country's $3+ trillion in USD FX holdings, was promptly retracted, following an announcement by Tao to Reuters "that the comments had been made in private academic discussions and represented his personal view only." In other words this is an identical episode to the one when the BOC's Mark Carney told "a private circle" that the US is going to hell in a handbasket. While the announcement briefly pushed the dollar lower, is the take home message that everyone is secretly hating America, while in public keeping a rosy appearance? The answer, of course, is a resounding yes.

Just when we thought we had seen it all, along comes another 19 year old math Ph.D. with the latest demonic-cum-fractal algo to show us just what cavemen we truly are...

Jim Rogers spoke to a very dramatic and even more hoarse Bartiromo, touching on old and well-known themes, namely that the administration is essentially using up its last stimulus bullet with the current recession: "When the problems arise next time what are they going to do? They can’t quadruple the debt again. They cannot print that much more money. It’s gonna be worse the next time around." Alas, as Obama appears to be preparing, "they" will simply do more of the same: the same payroll tax that was supposed to cure all evils in December. The fact that nobody anticipated something so stupid is probably indicative of the administration's genius. Or lunacy. Followed by more dollar printing of course. On what needs to be done to avoid the debt ceiling breach which will shut down the government, Faber believes that nothing short of Draconian measures will be relevant: "We’ve got troops in 150 countries around the world. They’re not doing us any good, they’re making enemies. They’re costing us a fortune." On the other hand he acknowledges: "we can never pay off these debts." As usual, Rogers saved the best for Bernanke: "Since the first day Mr Benanke went to Washington I knew he was going to be a disaster. He has never been right about anything in the 7 or 8 years he has been there. I hope he doesn't come back with QE3 but that's all he knows. The only thing he knows to do is to print money. He doesn't understand finance, he doesn't understand currencies, he doesn't understand economics. He understands printing money. It's the wrong thing to do but that's what he'll do... They're gonna bring QE back because he will be terrified and Washington will be terrified," he said. "There's an election coming in November 2012. Washington's gonna print more money." Lastly, in terms of investments, Rogers is long the dollar but only "for a rally", and also owns Chinese stocks and commodities, would be buying more gold and silver if the price were to go down, and is short tech stocks and JP Morgan. Like we said nothing new. With one addition: the republicans will now get tax cuts, so democrats get QE3. As we have been saying - 2011 is nothing other than 2010 all over again.

It just never changes:

• OBAMA AIDES SAID TO DISCUSS EMPLOYER PAYROLL TAX BREAK
• PAYROLL TAX BREAK FOR EMPLOYERS AMONG IDEAS TO BOOST HIRING
• ADMINISTRATION CONSIDERING MEASURES AS RECOVERY SLOWS

Bolded bullets aside, good luck passing another fiscal stimulus Dear President when you can't even issue debt without stealing money from government retirees.

The latest soundbite from Bill Gross comes from the Morningstar fund conference, where he again repeated his conviction that there will be no QE3. Reuters reports: "Pimco co-chief investment officer Bill Gross said the Federal Reserve would not be able to start a third round of quantitative easing after the second round expires at the end of this month. The members of the central bank's open market committee are "balanced but divided," Gross, manager of the world's largest bond fund, said on Wednesday in a speech at the Morningstar fund conference. "It will be difficult to initiate a QE3." Instead, the Fed will try to keep interest rates low with its official statements, Gross said. Gross's fund, the $243 billion Pimco Total Return Fund, has gained 3.24 percent so far this year, trailing 58 percent of similar funds, according to Morningstar data."