Archive - Sep 9, 2011 - Story

Cue popular REM song...

Short dated Greek bonds remain weak. They have not bounced. You can buy the 2 year bond at 50. With a 4% coupon, that is 8% current yield with the chance to double in price in 2 years. Clearly the bond market is expecting a default or massive write-offs for Greek debt. I have heard the argument that equities must be pricing that in at this stage. That is possible, but I find more equity people believe that "something" will be done to avert default than credit people. Looking back at 2007 and 2008, it often seemed like equities had to be hit over the head with a stick before they would price in problems in credit. Stocks hit their high in October 2007 - after strong signs of problems in the credit markets had appeared. They also managed to shrug off the Bear Stearns problems after JPM bought them and rallied hard after that, completely missing the impending doom of FNMA, LEH, GM. I would not feel comfortable that stocks have "priced in" the problems in Europe. I think they have failed before on credit problems and with such a high percentage of daily volume just "churn" from traders and computers who go home flat every day and funds trying to avoid showing a monthly loss, the value of stocks as a pricing mechanism seems diminished.

It was a momentous week for markets and the ramifications of the German constitutional court decision and the SNB currency intervention have yet to be realized. The German constitutional court decision has effectively ruled out Eurobonds which has massive ramifications for the European monetary union and the euro. While promoters of Eurobonds suggest that Eurobonds may still be possible – most objective analysts believe they are now highly unlikely. The SNB decision to peg the Swiss franc to the beleaguered euro, thereby effectively devaluing the franc, stunned currency and wider financial markets. It is one of the most significant currency interventions in modern history and led to violent volatility the like of which have never been seen in foreign exchange markets. Incredibly and not widely reported the Swiss franc fell more than 7% against the euro, dollar and gold in just 15 minutes (putting gold’s relatively minor recent price fall into context). Such volatility in currency markets was not seen during 911, the Lehman’s collapse or for any other major macroeconomic or geopolitical event in modern history. The collapse of the Swiss franc in minutes greatly surpassed the collapse of sterling seen on “Black Wednesday” in 1992, when the British pound fell by 2.7% against the German mark on one day.

And so once again Greece, and Europe in general, reminds the markets it exists, and in doing so sends risk lower across the board. The most specific reason cited why the Euro is in multi-month freefall, and French and Italian banks are tumbling is that today is D-Day for the Greek bondholder debt swap, which expires later in the day. As a reminder, as part of the Greek Bailout #2, about 90% of holders of Greek bonds are expected to tender their bonds in order for the "bailout" to be successful. There is one problem: this is not happening, and now the backtracking begins. Adding fuel to the fire is another wolf in sheep's clothing report from Goldman which while saying the same banks will be ok at the end of the day, implies that many others will be locked out from capital markets, and will force many of the smaller banks to liquidate: to wit - "If the governments choose to impose haircuts on banks’ sovereign debt holdings, capital will need to be raised. We see banks that trade at reasonable valuations being able to do so in the market. However, those most likely to be effected (GIIPS domiciled) would need to source capital in the public sector; their low valuations would likely make this prohibitively expensive for existing shareholders." Read - bankruptcy... Not the word Europe needs to hear today.

Gold managed to get back to unchanged from last Friday's close and has now last over $50 in the last 45 minutes. Interestingly dropping like a stone to exactly the levels pre-spike on that day. Few rumors of margin calls out of Europe but nothing specific to drive this other than the levels and the opportunity for the QE3-hopers to cover their weak longs from Friday? Or perhaps the rumor that the ECB did not rule out using gold-backing for EuroBonds is off the table now that Greece looks unlikely to meet its necessary debt exchange participation rates?

Peripheral country bond yields (and CDS) continue to rise unwaveringly towards the endgame where European leaders are forced to actually do something as opposed to paper over gaping cracks with piecemeal solutions that are seen through by market participants within hours of release. Greece 5Y CDS rose 210bps to 3235bps (running equiv.) Portugal 5Y CDS rose 50bps to 1110bps. Perhaps more worryingly Germany 5Y CDS rose 3bps to 81bps as we see similar risk transfer transmissions as were evident during the US (private to public) crisis three years ago. EUR just broke through the mid-July lows of 1.3837, taking it back to mid-March lows.