Archive - Jun 2011 - Story

A harbinger of what the front office doors of various investors in Sino-Forest will soon look like...

In a move that is sure to send the infamous Fed "economist" (Ph.D., never forget) Kartik Athreya over the edge, Obama's nominee for the Fed Board, after unsuccessfully trying to enter the one circle that is just less exclusive than the Goldman partnership ranks for over a year, has decided to pen an Op-Ed in the NYT titled "When a Nobel Prize Isn't Enough", and disgusted with the fact that his utterly worthless Nobel prize in something or another can't even buy him one seat with those who decide the price of money, has pulled his nomination in utter disgust. "Last October, I won the Nobel Prize in economics for my work on unemployment and the labor market. But I am unqualified to serve on the board of the Federal Reserve — at least according to the Republican senators who have blocked my nomination. How can this be? " How indeed: could it be that, gasp, Nobel awards are merely a honorary award in groupthink, presented to anyone who perpetuates the status quo with little regard for actual merit-based contribution (one needs only recall Obama's Peace prize just as the President is contemplating opening up a 4th, or is that 5th, war front?). Most importantly: nobody tell Krugman his one validation of his life's work, has just been downgraded to junk.

• US data chief warns on employment - "Probably the most notable thing about [the jobs report] is there isn’t anything notable about it,” said Keith Hall, commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (FT)
• Geithner May Support Lagarde for IMF to Keep U.S. Leadership of World Bank (Bloomberg)
• Obama Is Focusing on Tax Incentives, Subsidies to Spur Jobs, Goolsbee Says (Bloomberg)
• Socialists ousted in Portugal election (FT)
• Sino-Forest to provide details of tree ownership (Daily Mail)
• New data suggests Iran military link-UN atom chief (Reuters)
• Rain quenches thirst of areas hit by drought (China Daily)
• Obama nominee withdraws from Fed race (FT, Reuters)
• Thousands protest against Greek austerity (FT)
• Plan Focuses on Rescheduling of Greek Debt (FT)
• Iran to send caretaker oil minister to OPEC (Reuters)

Find the outliers in below's SAC Capital monthly performance chart. By the way, wasn't there some SAC porn taskforce or something that was focused on looking at funds that constantly beat the market come rain or shine... Perhaps a fund that has had just 3 down months in the past 29 may be worth a red flag or two?

Absolutely nothing on the US economic docket today means stocks will fluctuate based on liesflow out of Europe, and Greece. Since today's 13th consecutive protest in Athens is expected to commence at around noon, it should be in full swing by the time NYSE circuit breakers are turned off around 2:30 pm EDT.

It seems that some Germans are finally realizing that the way the second Greek bailout package is proposed, will likely never work due to the required voluntary acceptance of 100% of bondholders which gives an essentially infinite value to the nuisance factor of holding out. We were thus not surprised to read overnight that Germany has now once again directly contradicted Juncker's comment from Friday that Bailout #2 was agreed upon "in principle." As Goldman explains: "CDU/CSU floor leader Kauder said in an interview with Bild Zeitung that "it has not been decided yet whether there will be another help package or not". CSU head Seehofer said over the weekend that the approval of the Bundestag was not a given; though it is not even clear whether the Bundestag has to approve another package, depending on which sources are tapped for the program." Look for many more such headline whipsaws as one after another piece of news comes out, now that the troika realizes its last ditch house of cards has finally toppled.

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

For anyone who was hoping that China would be the marginal source of liquidity in QE3 absentia (or until it actually does come, which it will), manifested by a halt to monetary tightening and a relapse into that good old methadone state of loose monetary policy, it may be time to pull those SHCOMP limit bids.  China Daily just announced tha "the People's Bank of China is likely to increase the interest rates banks must pay on deposits and the amount of money banks are required to hold in reserve to sop up the excess liquidity now found in the economy and slow inflation, said analysts. The changes in monetary policy may happen before the National Bureau of Statistics makes an expected announcement this week saying that the consumer price index (CPI), an indicator of inflation, hit a record high in May, they said."As a reminder, yesterday Goldman predicted a multi-year high inflation of 5.5% in May courtesy of the biggest drought in 50 years and surging food prices: it turns out that the PBoC, far more responsible that our own central planning charlatans, will not stand for that.

Even as the general market, dumb as a doorknob, had been following every headline out of Europe, soaking up the BS that Greece may after all end up being bailed out in some miraculous way, there were those who wondered about the legal basis of the Greek bailout #2, also known as a redux of the "Vienna initiative." The problem with the second "Deux Ex Machina" bailout is that there is absolutely nothing Deus about it, no Ex, and most certainly no Machina. In fact, as it now clearly appears, the whole rescue package is flimsier than a house of cards and a quick read through the indenture makes it all too clear. The key reason why the voluntary Vienna Initiative worked back in 2009 is that the alternative was the end of the world, and nobody would profit from not going along with the herd. This time things are diametrically different. The key phrase (or two) in the proposed package: "Voluntary" and "Collective Action Clauses"... Well as the following excerpt from Citi explains, both of these critical (as in binary: without them, Greece is dunzo) assumptions are unworkable, and explains why every single Greek bond in recent weeks has been purchased by hedge funds who have remembered that the economics of "nuisance value" when the upside of bluffing the EUR printer is virtually unlimited. Which means that not only is Bailout #2 in jeopardy of not passing the Greek parliament, but that we may suddenly find ourselves in the biggest "activist" investor drama, in which voluntary restructuring "hold out" hedge funds will settle for Cheapest to Delivery or else demand a trillion pounds of flesh from the ECB in order to keep the eurozone afloat. In other words, the drama is about to get very, very real. And, most ironically, a tiny David is about to flip the scales on the mammoth Goliath of the ECB and hold the entire European experiment hostage...

Back on December 1, 2010 Goldman announced it was "fundamentally" shifting its "bearish" outlook on the economy, when Jan Hatzius said "This outlook represents a fundamental shift in the thinking that has governed our forecast for at least the last five years" we accused the Goldman economics team, which we had previously respected, of "jumping the shark" and in describing the piece of fluff said it was nothing but "Hopium", concluding that "Jan Hatzius used to have credibility." Ten minutes ago, Hatzius just threw in the towel and apologized for this horrendous call. "Six months ago, we adopted the view that the economy was
transitioning to a more self-sustaining recovery and predicted
sequential real GDP growth of 3½%-4% (annualized) in 2011-2012. There
were three reasons for our shift: a) a pickup in “organic” growth—GDP
excluding the estimated impact of fiscal policy and inventories—to more
than 4% in late 2010; b) visible signs of progress in private sector
deleveraging, and c) another round of fiscal and monetary stimulus....It hasn’t happened." Needless to say, this apology has made us regain some confidence in Hatzius. Of course, we fully expect that he and his entire team will relinquish their 2011 bonus (and possibly a 2010 bonus clawback) following this massively wrong call, which only Zero Hedge had the guts to call out. Anyway, we can now move on... to QE3. Just as we predicted in January (but were late by a month, expecting this preliminary discussion would occur in May at the latest), Hatzius has just launched the first shot across Bill Dudley's bow. "So what is the hurdle for QE3?" Hatzius asks... And a very dovish Bill "You can't eat iPads" Dudley will answer very shortly. Next up: QE 3.

While the dominant topic of conversation when discussing margin hikes (or reductions) usually reverts to silver, ES (stocks) and TEN (bonds), what everyone so far is ignoring is the far more critical topic of real margin risk, in the form of roughly $600 trillion in OTC derivatives. The issue is that while the silver market (for example) is tiny by comparison, it is easy to be pushed around, and thus exchanges can easily represent the illusion that they are in control of counterparty risk (after all, that was the whole point of the recent CME essay on why they hiked silver margins 5 times in a row). Nothing could be further from the truth: where exchanges are truly at risk is when it comes to mitigating the threat of counterparty default for participants in a market that is millions of times bigger than the silver market: the interest rate and credit default swap markets. As part of Dodd-Frank, by the end of 2012, all standardised over-the-counter derivatives will have to be cleared through central counterparties. Yet currently, central clearing covers about half of $400 trillion in
interest rate swaps, 20-30 percent of the $2.5 trillion
in commodities derivatives, and about 10 percent of $30 trillion in
credit default swaps. In other words, over the next year and a half exchanges need to onboard over $200 trillion notional in various products, and in doing so, counterparites, better known as the G14 (or Group of 14 dealers that dominate derivatives trading including Bank of America-Merrill Lynch,
Barclays Capital, BNP Paribas, Citi, Credit Suisse, Deutsche
Bank, Goldman Sachs, HSBC, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley, RBS,
Societe Generale, UBS and Wells Fargo Bank) will soon need to post billions in initial margin, and as a brand new BIS report indicates, will likely need significant extra cash to be in compliance with regulatory requirements. Not only that, but once trading on an exchange, the G14 "could face a cash shortfall in very volatile markets when daily margins are increased, triggering demands for several billions of dollars to be paid within a day." Per the BIS "These margin calls could represent as much as 13 percent of a G14 dealer's current holdings of cash and cash equivalents in the case of interest rate swaps." Below we summarize the key findings of a just released discussion by the BIS on the "Expansion of central clearing" and also present a parallel report just released by BNY ConvergEx' Nicholas Colas who independetly has been having "bad dreams" about the possibility of what the transfer to an exchange would mean in terms of collateral posting (read bank cash payouts) and overall market stability, and why a multi-trillion margin call could result in the biggest buying spree in US Treasurys... Ever. 

The week ahead brings a barrage of IP data for April from all round the world, the momentum of which will be closely examined after the sharp drops in the manufacturing business surveys last week. Expectations – both ours and the consensus – are a mixed bag, but broadly, we expect momentum to slow in April. The data will be dissected for evidence of supply chain issues – which probably should be faded given the Japanese production plans published last week – and for evidence of a broader slowdown. In addition, manufacturing orders data from Germany, Taiwan, Japan and Sweden will be watched similarly. Away from IP, the week brings a bunch of inflation prints, which are all broadly expected to show a further rise in the headline readings. Outside of the data, developments in Greece will remain on the radar screen, particularly any colour on a new package.

In today's Europe, the people are no longer in control. Instead, politicians have become slaves to financial institutions and the markets. We are partly to blame -- and changes are urgently needed to nurse European democracy back to health.We are doing well. In fact, we're doing splendidly. The economy is booming, with 1.5 percent growth in the first quarter. We are as prosperous as we were before the crisis, which has finally been overcome. Congratulations are in order for everyone. The banks, Deutsche Bank above all, deserve particular congratulations. In the first quarter, it earned €3.5 billion ($5.1 billion) in pretax profits in its core business, and by the end of the year the bank will likely report a record €10 billion in pretax profits, its best results ever. That number is expected to rise to €11 billion or even €12 billion in two or three years. Less than three years after the peak of the crisis, it seems as if it never happened. That is true of the economy, but it also true of us as economic subjects. But is that all we are? No, we are also citizens and participants in a democratic society. As such, we have no reason to be celebrating. Instead, we ought to be sad and outraged. Democracy, after all, is not doing splendidly, or even well. It is gradually becoming a casualty of the financial crisis.

The halo of invincibility surrounding the world's largest hedge fund/smallest mutual fund (because last we checked a hedge fund that is $37 billion in size has about the same turn radius as Vanguard), Paulson & Co., is starting to wear thin. According to the FT's Sam Jones, Paulson's flagship fund, the $9 billion Advantage Fund, dropped "close to 6 per cent in May, echoing losses across the industry." May’s loss means that in the year to date, the $9bn Paulson & Co Advantage Plus fund is down 7.6 per cent. The average hedge fund lost 1.39 per cent over the month according to preliminary data from Hedge Fund Research, with “event-driven” strategies such as that operated by Paulson & Co’s main fund down on average 0.62 per cent.  Investors in the firm's other fund have little cause for cheer: "The Paulson & Co Gold fund dropped 6.39 per cent in May, erasing much of its 8.5 per cent April gain. The fund is up 0.9 per cent in the year. Paulson & Co is the world’s largest non-sovereign gold investor. Performance was better for the firm’s other funds. Its Credit fund was down 0.05 per cent for May, while the Recovery fund, which is geared to the prospects of the US economy, dropped 0.69 per cent. Paulson & Co declined to comment." Naturally, Paulson, who once upon a time saw Bank of America, soon to be embroiled in multi-billion dollar litigation to settle the fact that an unimaginable number of its mortgages are fraudulent through and through (thank you Agent Orange), would hit $30/share by the end of 2011 and soon will need a reverse stock split to get there, continues to be bullish: "In the firm’s most recent correspondence with investors Mr Paulson said difficulties for US banks had been a particular drag on his portfolios but that he remained optimistic...The US stock market could rally as much as 40 per cent from its first quarter level this year, he said." Sorry, John, not without QE 7 it won't.

As expected, the Portuguese elections appear to be a massive victory for the Social Democrats' Pedro Passos Coelho, who is now guaranteed to replace Socrates as Portugal's next PM. The latest results indicate a 41.08% lead for the PSD compared to 28.77% for the PS. What will this change in terms of national policies for this latest IMF vassal state? Absolutely nothing (as discussed earlier). Follow the latest district by district data live here.