Archive - Jul 27, 2011 - Story

Today's economic docket consists of Durable Goods numbers (if the Paris Air Show was indeed as bad as we expect, Boeing, i.e., aircraft, orders may slip substantially), the Beige Book, and $35 billion in 5 Year Notes (+$20.065 net). All of it irrelevant: the double whammy of major headline risk out of both Europe and the US (Europe bailout 2 unwinding, no deal 24 hours ahead of the Thursday congressional deadline) will be the key driver of the market once again.

Gold is trading at USD 1,620.40, EUR 1,120.50 and GBP 989.08 and CHF 1,298.50 per ounce. Both the dollar and the euro are under pressure again today and gold has reached another new record nominal high of $1,625.70/oz in early European trading. Economists in the U.S. believe that the U.S. will lose its vanguard AAA credit rating according to a recent poll conducted by Reuters. A survey of 53 economists showed 30 believed that one of the three leading credit rating agencies will downgrade US debt. The economists do not believe that the U.S. will default. A downgrading of the U.S. is inevitable given its very poor fiscal position – the question is by how much the U.S. is downgraded and AA looks possible in the coming months. The widening in U.S. CDS has so far been modest but the bond vigilantes may be awakening from their slumber as net notional CDS on US debt has risen above that of Greece and Italy. They either believe that the U.S. government will default on its debt or are taking out insurance against of this happening. Investors internationally -- including everyone from individual consumers in their pension funds, to hedge funds, to the Chinese government -- currently hold $9.3 trillion (with a T!) in Treasury bonds, and they're counting on Uncle Sam paying up when those contracts mature. The U.S. government will have a three-business-day grace period to make good on any default before credit default swaps are triggered, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association said Tuesday.

When we first summarized our take on the second European bailout package we completely ignored the specifics of the rollover mechanism and the private investor participation scheme because they were entirely irrelevant. We said: "This is merely a red herring that attempts to confuse the issues associated with the first, and far more important concept: the nuances of the EFSF and its imminent expansion. And expand it will have to, because in reality what is happening is that the net debt of the countries will end up growing even more over time for one simple reason: this is not a restructuring of existing debt from the perspective of the host country! Simply said Greek debt will continue growing as a percentage of its GDP, meaning it, and Ireland, and Portugal, and soon thereafter Italy and Spain will be forced to borrow exclusively from the EFSF. Therein lies the rub... The bottom line is that for an enlarged EFSF (which is what its blank check expansion today provided) to be effective, it will need to cover Italy and Belgium." We further said that "by not monetizing European debt on its books, the ECB has effectively left Germany holding the bag to the entire European bailout via the blank check SPV." We concluded with the rhetorical: "what happens tomorrow when every German (in a population of 82 very efficient million) wakes up to newspaper headlines screaming that their country is now on the hook to 32% of its GDP in order to keep insolvent Greece, with its 50-some year old retirement age, not to mention Ireland, Portugal, and soon Italy and Spain, as part of the Eurozone?" Well, German Finance Minister just gave us an answer, and it is the reason why various European banks are once locked limit down, and the entire banking industry in Europe is bleeding: "German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said the euro zone's rescue fund should only purchase bonds on the secondary market in exceptional circumstances, according to a letter obtained by Reuters on Wednesday. "The government rejects a 'carte blanche' for widespread purchases on the secondary market." Translation: Germany finally realized the horrors of the fine print and just said no. This means that the entire second bailout package has now been unilaterally unwound courtesy of German which has realized it was the patsy, and will not agree to the clause giving the EFSF unlimited PPT powers. Time to start planning bailout #3.

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