Archive - Sep 28, 2011 - Story

Earlier today Bank of America released a presentation and a conference call in which the firm's head of China equity strategy David Cui spoke about the dreaded "China Hard Landing" or the event that would kill all decoupling dreams for ever and ever, and probably lead to a world depression. It seems that the latest down move in the market is being partially attributed to just this notification finally making the rounds as can be seen in the note below: "BofAML’s David Cui is the Markets’ #1 rated China Strategist according to the 2011 Institutional Investor All-China Survey. While he is not responsible for our China GDP forecast, he sees significant Chinese specific financial market risks that could trigger lower than expected Chinese growth. He sees that those financial market risks as having increased considerably. He will expand on this on the call, but he sees these financial stresses as having a very high probability of triggering lower than expected growth. That lower growth could well be sub 7%, and therefore by Chinese market standards would be termed a “hard landing”, clearly a HUGE issue for all global markets." Granted this is not news to those who have been following the Chinese situation (as fringe blogs have been for over a year), but the market does tend to have a habit of being about 12-18 months behind the curve. Here is what Bank of America had to say...

As realization settles in that levered EFSF may not be the best solution since it is circular and puts the ratings of every country in Europe at risk, along comes another proposal to save Europe.  The "Eureca" plan which can be found at www.rolandberger.com has made its way around the market the past couple of days. The premise of the plan is that speculators are to blame and that Greece should sell its state assets "such as ports, airports, highways, and real estate". The market seems to be grasping at straws. Plan after plan seems to catch a brief following, but falls apart under any scrutiny.  Why are any plans on how to manage a Greek default completely ignored?  I remain convinced that a Greek default could be dealt with.

In his typically anti-prosaic manner UBS' Art Cashin draws the parallels between Caesar's political alliances & apolitical dalliances and the refreshing honesty of Dallas Fed's Fisher with the hope of a new spirit of cooperation blossoming among European leaders and how we lost some belief yesterday afternoon.

Today's core durable goods number is being desperately spun as yet another inflection point for the economy. Alas, nobody buys it any more. Enter Goldman Sachs, which says that while encouraging, is quite dubious if the "recent growth rates will be sustained." Growth of what? Stainless steel scaffolding for lies and rumors that reach to the sky? If so, then yes absolutely. Otherwise, with China rumored to be gearing up to downgrade the CNY (and finally push Schumer over the cliff), we wish the optimists the traditional dose of good luck with their daily hopium.

Either the YesMen have infiltrated Italy's biggest, and most undercapitalied, bank, or the stress of constant, repeated lying and prevarication has finally gotten to the very people who know their livelihoods hang by a thread, and the second the great ponzi is unwound their jobs, careers, and entire way of life will be gone. Such as the head of UniCredit global securities Attila Szalay-Berzeviczy, and former Chairman of the Hungarian stock exchange, who has written an unbelievable oped in the Hungarian portal Index.hu which, frankly, make Alessio "BBC Trader" Rastani's provocative speech seem like a bedtime story. Only this time one can't scapegoat Szalay-Berzeviczy "naivete" on inexperience or the desire to gain public prominence. If someone knows the truth, it is the guy at the top of UniCredit, which we expect to promptly trade limit down once we hit print. Among the stunning allegations (stunning in that an actual banker dares to tell the truth) are the following: "the euro is “practically dead” and Europe faces a financial earthquake from a Greek default"... “The euro is beyond rescue”... “The only remaining question is how many days the hopeless rearguard action of European governments and the European Central Bank can keep up Greece’s spirits.”...."A Greek default will trigger an immediate “magnitude 10” earthquake across Europe."..."Holders of Greek government bonds will have to write off their entire investment, the southern European nation will stop paying salaries and pensions and automated teller machines in the country will empty “within minutes.” In other words: welcome to the Apocalypse...

• Euro Crisis Makes Fed Lender of Only Resort as Funding Dries Up (Bloomberg)
• Germany Slams 'Stupid' US Plans to Boost EU Rescue Fund (Telegraph)
• US Inflation Expectations Lowest for a Year (FT)
• Chinese Banks Raise Cash to Cushion Against Bad Debts (WSJ)
• Banks Wary of Financing Big Projects (FT)
• German Ruling Coalition Faces Tricky Bailout Vote (WSJ)
• Health Insurance Costs Deal Blow to Obama (FT)
• China Warns Asia Not to Hide Behind U.S. Military (Bloomberg)
• Japan Ruling Party Proposes $120B Tax Increase (Bloomberg)

Peter Tchir writes in: "After a recent trip to Disneyland the kids decided we should move there. The vote amongst the children was unanimous. So, are we moving to Disneyland? No! There votes don't count. They are not the decision makers. What does this have to do with anything going on in the markets? I think everything. I think it may provide the best lens with which to watch the noise out of Europe....I think the European leaders should go to some management bonding exercise and spend a weekend with a psychologist who tries to talk them out of their fear of default. Their fear of default is bordering on irrational, and maybe they need to be reminded of it. Maybe they should also be reminded that they represent their people and have some shred of responsibility to do what their citizens want.Anyways, back to the headlines, but I think if you filter out who to listen to, the outcome becomes more clear. In the meantime, it seems like 3% daily moves with big intraday volatility will be the norm."

If you thought that last night's news that Greece had been consulting (and paying) the far more "stable" Irish Central Bank on how to, oh, avoid bankruptcy, this may jus top it. In an FT article describing the new set of austerity measures most of which are very loud threats that Greece will very soon (really) take austerity seriously (they promise), we stumble across the following gem: "The conservative opposition New Democracy party said a shortage of ink had prevented the computerised tax centre at the finance ministry from sending out claims to taxpayers over the last 10 days. There was no response from the finance ministry to the claim."...

When it comes tho the stock market we have two things to focus on: very relevant unsubstantiated bold, double underlined headlines, rumors, lies, innuendos, and month end window dressing, and extremely irrelevant facts and economic high frequency updates. Here is the run down of what to expect in the latter category today. Yes it is completely irrelevant but for those who collect economic trivia, it may be useful.

While futures soar on whatever the latest rumeur de l'heure is (soon to be refuted by Germany although with month end window dressing to be done, nobody will care) the relevant facts are once again being largely ignored. In this case, Otmar Issing, former chief economist of the massively undercapitalized hedge fund known as the European Central Bank, has told Stern magazine that "Greece will find it “impossible” to get back on its feet even after the country implements austerity measures and it is inevitable that Greece will have to leave the euro-zone. He added that Greece needs a debt haircut of at least 50%, and even so preventing contagion will be very complicated. His biggest warning pertains to the deus ex machina which everyone knows is the last thing up Europe's sleeve: the prospect of issuing Eurobonds (aka the suicide button for any German ruler at the time when these are implemented). To wit: "Eurobonds will prove the gravedigger of a stable euro." Luckily, that is already priced in, as is the subsequent resurrection, which explains why the EURUSD is back to one week highs on nothing but, well, rumors.

It was fun while the Liesman rumormill lasted:

• Italy CDS +12 bps to 460
• Spain CDS + 8 bps to 375
• Portugal CDS + 10 bps to 1,110
• Ireland CDS + 18 bps to 736
• Greece CDS: Many points upfront but running joke

And in other news Germany just barely auctioned off E5 billion in 5 year bonds (Bobls) at the lowest Bid To Cover since the inception of the Euro.

Yes, we have written and written on the topic of the levered-EFSF / Geithner-fest / EuroTALF seemingly ceaselessly, and still some are confused. So here, in a brief 3 minute video, is an explanation of how the ECB plans to make money appear out of thin air, and how all shall be well. Alas, if you are right now thinking that this plan relies on nothing but credibility, and are confused because the ECB has none left...you are correct.

An intriguing research note from Goldman's Global Economics team tonight brought up the subject of 'unconventional' unconventional policies and how they ended the 'first' Great Depression. This gentle push towards softening the inflation leg of the Fed's mandate 'stool', while interesting in its own right given Goldman's policy-leading record, reminded us, by contrast, of a paper discussing how deflation is perhaps the more likely outcome when one shifts perspective from Keynesianism to a more Austrian view of the Fed's options. We are not choosing sides but for a quiet evening following a hope-shattering sell-off in risk assets, we thought it worth reflection.