Archive - Sep 23, 2011 - Story

The onslaught of half fiction, half lies from Greece continues after the Greek government was forced to deny the latest set of truth leaks, in this case that Greece is preparing for an orderly default, which it obviously is: there is no way the country can hope to implement the terms of the July 21 bail out now, especially with a dead silence on the terms of the bond exchange offer which means it has failed miserably. What it is certainly right about is that there is no truth to a debt haircut being just 50%: it will be far more, and the reality is it the haircut severity probably won't have much of an impact - most French and German banks have long since wound down their Greek exposure. The key question is how long before the other PIIGS follow suit. Another important question is whether the orderly default will come before the next IMF capital injections is provided to the country or after, and if it will be too late for an orderly bankruptcy then, and instead we get a disorderly one. From Reuters: "Greece denied on Friday newspaper reports that one option in the debt crisis would be an orderly default with a 50 percent haircut for bondholders. "Greece denies the reports," a senior government official told Reuters on condition of anonymity." And we all know what official denials mean...

Yesterday's last minute short covering rally has been all but eliminated and then some, on fresh European concerns following a Deutsche Bank report that the agreed writedown of 21% from the July 21 second Greek bailout agreement could be executed, and that instead an orderly default with an up to 50% haircut is being considered. Generally, broad concerns that Greece can and will go bankrupt any minute once again dominate and have undone any favorable market sentiment from yesterday's G20, also known as the Full Tilt Ponzi Group, announcement, which was also followed up by an ECB statement that the central bank would do everything to prevent further contagion. Judging by the risk waterfall this morning, and the liquidations in gold (driven by a vague but ever stronger rumor of a winddown at a GLD-heavy hedge fund that is now down 50% YTD), virtually nobody believes anything coming out of any European institution. Alas, this is what two years of relentless accrued lying will do to your reputation. Adding fuel to the fire is a report from Credit Suisse that the chance of a "general European break up" is about 10% and that European banks would fall by about 40% on a disorderly Euro breakup and that peripheral European banks' net foreign liabilities would rise by €800 billion. In other words, European banks would blow up, which is nothing really new. Next, we hear from Dexia which yesterday got annihilated and today is down another 2.5% despite promises from the Belgian central bank governor Luc Coene that the bank is not in trouble and has not sought dollars from the ECB in a long time: obviously an attempt to prevent an all out attack on the insolvent bank, which as is well known bypasses the ECB and goes straight to the Fed for emergency funding. Overall, there is a very distinct sense that it's the end of the world as we know it, and the market does not feel all that fine anymore.

Remember all those daily rumors (prmarily courtesy of the FT) that either China, or Japan, or Europe itself would bailout Europe (yeah, don't ask). Well we can put them all to rest...for at least a few more hours. Because in the battle of inverse counter disinformation, it is important to refute the rumors you yourself have created just so next time the same rumor is spread it has some impact.... Unfortunately said impact will be less, much less, with every single iteration, until just like central bank intervention, its impact is lost in the noise. Per Businessweek: "Officials from China and Japan, the world’s second- and third-biggest economies, indicated that their support for Europe will have limits  and the region needs to solve its own debt crisis. Japanese Finance Jun Azumi said in Washington today that while his nation can buy European Financial Stability Facility bonds if needed, there is no blank check. “At the margin we can do quite a bit to help,” Chinese central bank Deputy Governor Yi Gang said in a panel discussion yesterday at the International Monetary Fund in the same city. At the same time, “the real solution of the European sovereign debt crisis has to be done by Europeans themselves." Good luck in that whole Europeans coming up with a solution: after all it was mere hours ago that France’s Baroin said that the Eurozone is "open to support from others." Translation: "Show us the money." In other news, the countdown for the latest European bailout rumors from the FT is now on.

Just when it seemed that Goldman's all time unbest sell side analyst, FX "guru" Thomas Stolper, may actually have a strike at bat with his long suffereing EURUSD call which has had a worse Sharpe ratio than even John Paulson's hedge fund over the past 12 months, we are sad to inform our readers that Stolper is and continues to be the perfect contrarian signal (pari passu with that other all time fade: Barton "Notorious" Biggs) with a 0.000 statistical average (which, as everyone knows, is just as valuable as a 1.000). Because just as we predicted earlier today, when we said that "Goldman is about to announce it was just stopped out on its 1.55 EURUSD "tactical" trade", Goldman has just announced that it was "Stopped out of long EUR/$." Something tells us the slow money will not be happy to read this when they roll into the office between 10 am and 1 pm tomorrow.