Archive - Aug 2011 - Story

And so the comedy circle is complete yet again after none other than former White House budget chief Peter Orszag throws cold water in the face of the White House, the Treasury and everyone else who has so far been so stupid to continue to deflect blame for America's horrendous fiscal situation purely on S&P and its "colossal $2 trillion mistake." Because if the guy who up until a year ago personally came up with the White House's voodoo numbers is telling you they are full of shit (the numbers, not the White House), perhaps it does put the administration's claim that it is all S&P excel spreadsheet skills that are at fault, in a slightly different light.

By now every Zero Hedge reader should be familiar with the two step process that is supposed to rescue Europe. First, the ECB will do more of the same whereby its SMP program will purchase billions in bonds, this time Italian and Spanish (after it already tried the same with Greek, Irish and Portuguese bonds) for temporary stabilization. Then, the EFSF will take over, and acquire up to the entire outstanding debt of all the PIIGS and whoever else afterward, with Germany ultimately footing the bill following the French downgrade from AAA which would make it an ineligible funder (and, hence, shortly thereafter: a drain). Well, the ECB is already pregnant to the tune of €74 billion. And shortly, this number will likely double, and taper out there in advance of the EFSF launch in 2 months. Yet as Bloomberg's Michael McDonough demonstrates, the current ECB intervention has been nothing short of an abysmal disaster, with the ECB spending the abovementioned amount only to see average 10 Year peripheral rates double over the same time period. Alas, this is precisely what the chart will show once the SMP resumes and another €150 billion in worthless Italian and Spanish bonds is purchased (yes, none of our Centrally Planned leaders still get that IT.IS.ALL.ABOUT.CASH.FLOWS.... and far more importantly the lack thereof). Net result, spreads will likely double yet again, at which point Germany will say enough as the risk of cumulative 100% loss becomes non-trivial and the potential loss of up to 133% of its GDP forces Germany to close the curtains on the euro experiment. So prepare for a rip in bond yields tomorrow morning as the ECB goes hog-wild in secondary markets, only to be followed by a bleed wider in spreads first slowly, and then very, very fast.

Earlier we speculated that the one thing that could throw this whole fiasco into a complete tailspin is for China to float the renminbi, which would catch an already frazzled America unawares, as China submits a formal bid for its currency to become the de facto global reserve. Well, that didn't quite happen. However, at a massive 0.23% change in the fixed overnight rate, a move that very much hurts China, it is about as symbolic of an intraday change as can be. The PBoC set the Monday USDCNY fixing at a record high of 6.4305, up from 6.4451. While it is unknown whether this near record rate of FX change will be sustained, China just sent a very clear message to the US, following the previously noted opeds in both Xinhua and FT, in which various Chinese individuals blasted the current situation America finds itself in. The only question now is whether China will proceed with a very demonstrative dump of US bonds tomorrow to reinforce the purely political statement it just made in FX.

While the impact on Treasurys as a result of the downgrade may be limited (after all the other side of the Atlantic is about as ugly as the US, so where could $8 trillion in marketable USTs practically go... at least for now), the same may not be said about the far smaller, $2.9 trillion municipal market, which is about to see a blanket downgrade tomorrow as S&P warned on Friday night, and of which Matt Fabian of Municipal Market Advisors earlier said that "There will be hundreds and hundreds of municipal downgrades, which will not do well to bolster investor confidence." The scary bit: "Treasuries may be able to shake off a real impact from the downgrade. Munis I’m less sure about." Indeed, with futures already trading, and most risk assets experiencing a brief knee jerk reaction on a global coordinated PPT response by the G-7, there is still little clear understanding of what will really happen to not only the traditional system but to shadow liabilities such as repos and money markets. And munis are just one part of all of this. So what will happen if tomorrow the muni market starts unravellling, as Whitney, among so many others, has predicted? For that we turn to JP Morgan's Peter DeGroot for some quick observations.

The first of many gold price upgrades is here, as Goldman's David Greely finally catches on to what has been all too obvious to anyone with a frontal lobe: "Gold prices hit a new record high last week, closing at $1,663/toz on August 3. Despite this rally, the rise in gold prices has continued to lag the plunge in US real interest rates, with 10-year TIPS yields trading below 30 bp. With our US economics team lowering their outlook for US economic growth, implying US real rates will remain lower for longer, and with sovereign debt issues in both the United States and Europe intensifying, we are raising our gold price forecasts to $1,645/toz, $1,730/toz, and $1,860/toz on a 3, 6, and 12-month horizon, respectively." Next up: everyone else.

Highlights from the just released G-7 statement:

• G7 Says Will Take Every Action to Stabilize Financial Markets
• G7 says it will commit to secure liquidity in market
• G7 will cooperate closely on currency market actions
• G7 says it will be in close contact next few weeks
• G7 says disorderly moves in markets hurt economy
• G7 says currency rates should be decided by markets

But the winning bullet point of the year is...

Citi is currently holding an impromptu conference call discussing the US downgrade and its implications. Attached please find the notes from the call.

It is still not too late to submit one's thoughts of what the US downgrade means for various asset classes and for the economy, and world, in general. Here is one of the few worth reading, courtesy of QBAMCO's Paul Brodsky and Lee Quaintance. Their conclusion: "the downgrade is effectively a currency downgrade, which seems very reasonable, overdue and, in real terms, insufficient. We would argue that in real terms, US Treasury obligations are non investment-grade. We think Treasury obligations today and always will be money-good, but principal and interest will be repaid with bad money."

Geithner was on NBC and when discussing the massively overdue S&P downgrade of US debt, shared the following pearl of wisdom: "S&P decision to cut U.S. credit rating shows stunning lack of knowledge about basic U.S. fiscal budget math." Listen to Tim: when it comes to stunning lacks of knowledge about things, Tim is the absolute expert, although in his case it is mostly the US tax code. He added that S&P made a "terrible judgment" and reached the wrong conclusion. He is right. The cut should have been at least several more notches. But there is time... Lastly, and most expectedly, he added that the S&P decision changed nothing on the safety of Treasuries and that China remains a strong investor in the US. Perhaps. We shall see after the TIC statement from October is released, which will detail August transactions. Alas, by then the world will have other issues to deal with.

...Not too happy to start based on the early bid/ask.

The first prints are in: ES down 31, DJIA down 274, and gold, natural, welcomes our new centrally planned overlords by hitting an all time high of $1692.

A few more minutes until ES futures open fully. In the meantime enjoy the indicative bid/offer.

Statement two out of three. Next up: the G7, which will also reiterrate its forecfullanguage that nobody needs to sell anything, anywhere.

For an early look at the risk aversion gripping the market look no further than the USDCHF and the USDJPY, the first of which just took out 0.75, and the second now almost at BOJ intervention levels. Ironically, since the math Ph.D.s have still not recalibrated their models, it is very likely that the collapse in the dollar will lead to an explosion in ES courtesy of the inverse correlation, which will once and for all confirm that global capital markets and now nothing but a robotic circus.

Below is the full text of the joint French-German statement attempting to prevent another European market collapse. Next up are comparable statements from the ECB and from theG7. We expect many more before the night is out.