Archive - Jul 21, 2011 - Story

In a must read Op Ed, Bloomberg's Jon Weil takes another long hard look at the balance sheet of the most undercapitalized bank in America (thank would be Bank of America) courtesy of the worst M&A transaction in history, namely its purchase of Countrywide, observes what everyone, even John Paulson now knows, that due to trading at half its book value nobody in the market gives even remote credit to the bank's asset "marks", and concludes that this organization, courtesy of an extremely lax regulatory and audit structure, which continues to allow it to mark any assets at whatever price it desires, could well be the next AIG: "There’s more
at stake here, however, than whether Bank of America’s shares
are a “buy” or a “sell.” The main thing the rest of us care about is the continuing
menace this company and others like it pose to the financial
system, knowing we never should have let ourselves be put in the
position where a collapse in confidence at a single bank could
wreak havoc on the world’s economy. Here we are again, though.
Curse the geniuses who brought us this madness." Indeed: once again, right before our eyes, day after day we allow various higher status quo-embedded individuals to take advantage of the gullible public by misrepresenting the massive risk that the left side of BAC's balance sheet represents, which can have only one conclusion: the same epic implosion that brought down AIG once the market reality caught up the with book myth. Yet in the case of AIG unbridled risk-taking and book mismarking we can at least put the blame on one person: the man at the heart of AIG FP, Joe Cassano, whose reckless bets nearly brought down capitalism. So our question is: is there someone at or affiliated with Bank of America that could soon double as a Joe Cassano for the 2010s? We have one suggestion (although certainly not exhaustive): Brian Lin of RRMS Advisors.

“I have little doubt that most of the silver that is on the SLV’s web site with a bar number is there somewhere. But what I am really concerned about is if it is hypothecated or not, meaning is there more than one owner on that same bar. And I can almost guarantee that there are multiple owners for almost every bar that they report. It does not mean that that bar does not exist. It takes ten contracts to be a market maker. So I have got ten contracts, I have got fifty thousand ounces, and I ship it to my buddy who is a hedge fund manager over in Idaho. That is my silver. I have just sent it over to him on a lease. I have leased it to him. Now he has taken that silver and he has swapped it with somebody at the SLV, so they have got bars there. And he swapped for those and now those are on the exchange showing as part of the deal. So you can have a lease and a swap, so you could have two or three claims on those same bars. And that happens over and over again." So cautions David Morgan, publisher of The Morgan Report on precious metals and proprietor of Silver-Investor.com. More so than perhaps any other, the silver market has been loudly and visibly accused of rampant price manipulation. And more recently, suspicion is growing that the exchanges and ETFs dedicated to trading the metal do not hold sufficient volume of it to meet their obligations. Is the silver market free and fair? Chris delves deeply into these important questions with one of the best-known silver experts.

Wouldn't you be angry if you woke up to realize that Europe's bureaucrats have pledged between a third and a half of your GDP to continue providing lavish socialist entitlement benefits to the citizens of peripheral European countries who have for years lied about their deficit, not paid taxes, and levered themselves into fiscal oblivion?

Following up to the presentation by Gary Shilling at this year's Strategic Investment Conference, we next move on to an old Zero Hedge favorite: David Rosenberg.

Back in April, some of the most prominent economists and market visionaries took part in the annual Strategic Investment Conference among which such luminaries as Marc Faber, David Rosenberg, Gary Shilling, Neil Howe, Martin Barnes and Jean-Vincent Gave. While a few short months have passed since then we are delighted to present our readers with their comprehensive presentations and summary outlooks on the economy, markets and the world. Today we launch part 1 of this series, by sharing the outlook of Gary Shilling of A. Gary Shilling and Company, one of the original bears and a man who was one of the few to foresee the second great depression. In future posts we will complete the series by presentations the opinions and outlooks all of the above financial legends who, unlike 99% of Wall Street, stick with their opinion regardless of where now completely irrelevant intraday market gyrations push the prevailing conventional sentiment.

RANsquawk Market Wrap Up - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 21/07/11

Gold, silver and the dollar are not the focal point of this email (amazingly). The focal point of this email is what I believe to be the only other major bubble currently in place besides the dollar and that is this absurd view that the “high end” is some sort of great secular investment theme that will carry on forever due to rising incomes in the emerging markets and the bifurcation between haves and have-nots in the West. Like any other bubble, it begins with a real macro trend; a real and powerful story. Then at some point the thing gets stretched beyond its ability to continue and then finally you get to a point where investors confidently extrapolate the trend forever into the future just at the time the trend itself becomes unsustainable. With regard to “high end” I believe we are there now and I think this entire theme will implode on itself in the not too distant future and there are two main reasons why I think this.

For those who may have missed the official statement by the Euroheads and the two official IIF press releases, here they are again. The irony is that far all the pomp, circumstance, and posturing, nobody has any idea how to implement this massive bailout package. And furthermore, if the EURUSD can only ramp to sub 1.44 on this Bazooka plan, the EUR is in very deep trouble.

Wondering why the EURUSD is surging once again and is now on its way to 1.45? Because as Sarkozy just said Europe is preparing to launch a European Monetary Fund, which would be used to recapitalize insolvent banks and bankrupt countries. In other words Europe just passed its own TARP and trillions and trillions more of taxpayer money about to be sunk down the drain. As the summit has now ended, the Europarliament conference recapping the resolutions of the summit can be watched below. If anyone gets a sense of deja vu from early May when we had an identical development after the first Greek bailout, you are forgiven.

The speculative headlines on the debt ceiling status are now coming in fast and furious. The latest is from Reuters according to which President Barack Obama and U.S. House Speaker John Boehner are discussing a possible deal that would include $3 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years to avert an unprecedented U.S. default, a senior Democratic congressional aide said on Thursday. Their potential agreement would include a promise of tax reform in 2012, the aide said. In other words, this is not a deal at all, but merely promises of cuts at some point in the future, coupled with tax reform...in 2012.

After two years of ridicule for his ludicrous bet that Bank of America (about which we will have much more to say shortly) would triple, John Paulson has finally capitulated on his rose-colored glasses call that there is nothing but smooth sailing ahead for US financials. Reuters reports that "he pseudo-mutual fund manager "told investors on Thursday he was "too aggressive" with some of the stock bets in his flagship funds and he is trimming back some of his riskiest holdings. The hedge fund manager told investors in a conference call that he is limiting his funds' riskier stocks by moving away from bank holdings with heavy mortgage exposure." Translation: goodbye Bank of America. For those wondering what caused the drop in BAC from $14 to $9.5 in the past several months, now you know: VWAPed selling of 100MM+ shares of BAC stock will do that to you.

Print. Lie. Borrow. Deceive. Deny. These are a the principal tenants of the Greek restructuring plan that were released today from Brussels… it’s as if EU policymakers put it together after shaking a Magic 8-ball. With limited debate and even less fanfare, Europe has just officially signed on to destroy its own currency. Utterly worthless, quasi-defaulted Greek debt will become perfectly acceptable collateral, much in the same way that the US Federal Reserve took every scrap of toxic paper it could find off banks in 2008 and 2009. Given the favorable market reaction, European politicians must be feeling pretty proud of themselves. The euro is up. The stock market is up. Oil is up. Well, never mind about oil, they’ll blame that on evil speculators… just like food prices. The European sovereign default SOP has just been set. When Spain, Italy, Portugal, and Ireland’s time of insolvency arrives, it will be handled just like this: Print. Lie. Borrow. Deceive. Deny. This is going to kick inflation up another notch as anyone holding on to Greek debt is going to trade out of it as quickly as possible. All that money has to go somewhere… and it’s a sure bet that a lot of it will feed rising commodities price (which translates into more inflation). This is going to kick inflation up another notch as anyone holding on to Greek debt is going to trade out of it as quickly as possible. All that money has to go somewhere… and it’s a sure bet that a lot of it will feed rising commodities price (which translates into more inflation).

Somehow, in all the confusion, the endangered species known as the American "consumer" missed the economic recovery. The reason, as Bloomberg writes, is that consumers are increasingly "using credit cards to pay for basic necessities as income gains fail to keep pace with rising food and fuel prices." The data comes from credit card transaction processor First Data which reported that the dollar volume of charged purchases rose 10.7% in June (a 6.8% increase in the number of transactions). "The difference probably represents the increasing cost of gasoline, said Silvio Tavares, senior vice president at First Data, the largest credit card processor. "Consumers, particularly in the lower-income end, are being forced to use their credit cards for everyday spending like gas and food,” said Tavares, who’s based in Atlanta. “That’s because there’s been no other positive catalyst, like an increase in wages, to offset higher prices. It’s a cash-flow problem." Alas, it gets worse. As Bank of America's Joshua Dennerlein
reports today, the end of the year will see 3.7 million Americans stop
receiving jobless benefits. "This will act as a hit to consumption in
the first quarter of 2012." This number is completely independent of any
possible new legislation to extended jobless benefits for new
unemployed labor pool entrants, as it merely affects those about to hit
the 99 week cliff. Unfortunately even more "growth" over the next 6-9
months will have to come from the Fed and the only thing it knows how to
do: print, print, print.

The best analogy I have heard so far about today's European Solution is that EFSF is being asked to do a lot of what TARP did for the U.S. I cannot disagree with that assessment. The EU is clearly pushing it well beyond it's original design. The question that remains to be answered is, who would fund the EFSF? There are stories that EFSF might buy assets from the ECB at cost. It is clearly going to lend to countries at rates that are massively off-market. It may buy debt in the open market? It may recapitalize banks? I am not sure it can have such a broad mandate and get the rating it needs or to get outside investors. What private investor would have lent to TARP? I think for this program to work, Germany and France will have to suck it up, skip the whole CDO methodology and just fund the EFSF directly. TARP only worked (or got the money it needed and was flexible enough) because the U.S. government gave the treasury carte blanche to do what they wanted.

If someone is hell bent on breaking the bond market, they are doing a bang up job.