Archive - Jan 11, 2012 - Story

As both anecdotal, local and hard evidence of China's slowing (and potential hard landing) arrive day after day, it is clear that China's two main pillars of strength (drivers of growth), construction and exports, are weakening. As Societe Generale's Cross Asset Research group points out, China is entering the danger zone and warns that given China's local government debt burden and large ongoing deficits, a large-scale stimulus plan similar to 2008 is very unlikely, especially given a belief that Beijing has lost some control of monetary policy to the shadow banking system. In a comprehensive presentation, the French bank identifies four critical themes which provide significant stress (and opportunity): China's economic rebalancing efforts, a rapidly aging population and healthcare costs, wage inflation and concomitant automation, and pollution and energy efficiency.  Their trade preferences bias to the benefits and costs of these themes being short infrastructure/mining names and long automation/energy efficiency names.

They detail their concerns about the Chinese economic outlook (weakening exports, housing bubble about to burst, local government's debt burden, and large shadow banking system), and show that China has no choice but to transition to a more consumption-driven economy leading to waning growth for infrastructure-related capital goods and greater demand for consumer-related manufacturing. Overall they see a hard-landing becoming more likely.

Everyone's favorite oracular-orifice-of-the-oval-office may perhaps have met his match (if not in real terms, in rhetoric) as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Warren Buffett call each other's bluff...again. As reported in Time's Swampland, the cantakerous Kentuckian said that if Buffett was feeling 'guilty' about paying too little in taxes, he should 'send in a check'. The flim-flam improves though, as Buffett mocks the 'Buffett Rule Act' that enables the rich to donate 'extra' money on their tax form as a "policy only a Republican could come up with" and then goes on to lay down the gauntlet, pledging to match one-for-one all such voluntary contributions made by Republican members of Congress. "I'll even go three for one for McConnell", Buffet pronounced (with a metaphorical white glove to McConnell's face) noting that he was not worried about the bill. So there it is, Republicans only have to donate $50 billion toward paying down debt to bankrupt Buffett.

In each of the years 2008, 2009, and 2010, significant worries emerged that Western nations might attack Iran. Here again in 2012, similar concerns are once again at the surface. Why revisit this topic again? Simply because if actions against Iran trigger a shutdown of the Strait of Hormuz, through which 40% of the world's daily sea-borne oil passes, oil prices will spike, the world's teetering economy will slump, and the arrival of the next financial emergency will be hastened. Even if the strait remains open but Iran is blocked from being an oil exporter for a period of time, it bears mentioning that Iran is the third largest exporter of oil in the world after Saudi Arabia and Russia. Once again, I am deeply confused as to the timing of the perception of an Iranian threat, right now at this critical moment of economic weakness. The very last thing the world economies need is a vastly increased price for oil, which is precisely what a war with Iran will deliver. Let me back up. The US has already committed acts of war against Iran, though no formal declaration of war has yet been made. At least if Iran had violated US airspace with stealth drones and then signed into law the equivalent of the recent US bill that will freeze any and all financial institutions that deal with Iran out of US financial markets, we could be quite confident that these would be perceived as acts of war against the US by Iran. And rightly so.

Today saw NYSE trading volumes at their 3rd highest of the year and ES (the e-mini S&P 500 futures contract) saw its second highest volume of the year (though both still well below recent averages) as stocks managed marginal gains, outperformed handily by high yield credit. For the sixth day of the last seven ES closed only a smidge from where it opened but average trade size was dramatically higher (its highest since 8/31) which historically has suggested a short-term top (and certainly seems odd heading into tomorrow's European bond auctions). In a similar manner to yesterday, HY17 (the high yield credit index) surged (absolute and relative to ES and HYG) from the European close to US day session close (index RV to Europe and Index arbitrage seems much more of an effect than rerisking. The major Financials were among the best performers today once again (as XLF managed +1.13%) with BofA now up an impressive (if not ridiculous) 24% YTD (and Citi +19%). Perhaps of note is the fact that the major financial CDS rally stalled today with MS, GS, and JPM all leaking a little wider into the close. Treasuries continued their ain't-no-decoupling rally as the 10Y auction went well (beige Book mixed/weak) leaving longer-dated TSY yields near day (and year to date) lows and ES near day highs (sell EUR, buy anything USD-denominated?). The dollar is practically unchanged on the week now as EUR 1.27 (and GBP more so) weakness dragged it up (even as AUD rallied - helping stocks). Copper outperformed among the economically sensitive commodities as Gold gained modestly (slight beat of Silver) and Oil slid back to $101 and remains down on the week as Silver holds over 4% gains. As an aside, from the 12/30/11 close, Gold is up 4.95%, the S&P 500 is up 2.77%, and the Long Bond is down 0.65%.

Presented with little comment, if only to add that at the current rate of degradation in NYSE total trading volume - from post US downgrade to now, Birinyi's Ruler implies volume will entirely disappear by December 11th 2012 - perhaps the Mayans were right after all...

While we have long asserted that any attempt to be bullish this market (and economy) by necessity should at least involve the thought experiment of eliminating such pro forma crutches as trillions in excess liquidity from the Fed, not to mention direct and indirect intervention by the central planners in virtually all asset classes, which in turn drives frequent periods of brief decoupling between various geographies and asset classes (which always converge) and thus economic performance (because as Bernanke will tell you gladly, the economy is the market), an exercise which would expose a hollow facade, a broken market and an economy in shambles, in never hurts to ask just what, if anything, do the bulls "see" and how do they spin a convincing case that attempts to sucker in others into the great ponzi either voluntarily, or like in China, at gun point. Alas, our imagination is lacking for an exercise such as this, but luckily David Rosenberg has dedicated his entire letter to clients from this morning precisely to answer this question. So for anyone who is wondering just what it is that those who have supposedly "climbed the wall of worry" see, here is your answer.

The most popular talking-head on financial TV (after Bill Miller and Byron Wien), Whitney Tilson, has not had a #winning year so far. In fact the simple pair trade Anti-Tilson (Long GMCR-Short Netflix which we closed when it returned 50% in just over a month), that was so popular last year, has been expanded to include his biggest shorts (as we promised yesterday). While we do not know weightings (obviously), on an equal-weighted basis from today's price, Tilson's 10 largest shorts have managed an impressive 7.37% gain on the year, handily outperforming his 15 largest longs which have managed a sub-market performance gain year-to-date of 1.45%. So being long Whitney's shorts and short the-ever-smiling manager's longs (on an equal weighted basis) would have made you around 6% year-to-date - considerably better than the +2.5% move in the S&P itself.

While we await for Stratfor's website to get back up and be fully operational, and provide its weekly aircraft carrier location updates, we have to go low tech, and rely on the Navy itself for an update of US naval aircraft carrier assets. We were not surprised to discover that the solitary CVN 74 John Stennis which for the past 2 months has been all alone in the Arabian Sea, just off the Straits of Hormuz, has finally found its new soulmate CVN 70 Carl Vinson which has arrived by way of Hong Kong, now that CVN 77 Geroge H.W. Bush is back in port. And so the US now has two carriers where there was one, and the US is quite ready to proceed with its joint-Israeli wargame operation titled simply enough "The Great Prophet".

Since late November and more so mid-December, the US equity market (and broad risk drivers) have decoupled from Europe's woes. The fundamental unreality (as we discussed here, here, and here) of this lagging performance and over-enthusiastic economist extrapolations has pushed the S&P to over 235 points over a 'fair-value' of 1050 (based on EURUSD's price). Even on a conservative basis - from the last real-decoupling point on 12/21, the S&P still stands almost 150 points 'rich' to a global-slowing European recession-dragging USD-based-earnings crushing 1.27 EURUSD.

After soaring yesterday, Orange Juice is plunging today, which more than anything should remind us that despite all the "financial innovation" and Fed intervention and manipulation, there is nothing really "new" on Wall Street.

America may have breached its debt ceiling, but that is certainly not preventing it from issuing debt, placing another $21 billion in 10 Year bonds in a reopening, which priced 1.5 bps through the WI tail of 1.915% or at 1.90%. This is merely the latest record low yield in the history of the auction. The Bid To Cover came at 3.29: not a record, but certainly one of the top 5 highest. Oddly enough, while the Directs disappeared from yesterday's 3 Year auction, today they surged, coming at double last month's 8.4% at 17.4%, the highest since the August post-downgrade auction. Primary Dealers accounted for 44.3% with Indirects coming in at a very weak 38.3%. Still, the take home is that in the past two days, the US has raised over $50 billion in debt with no capacity, and instead is plundering from government retirement accounts, just like it did back in July 2011 at the first, but not last, debt ceiling theater. SSDD.At least we know what it takes to get new record low yields: just keep breaching the debt ceiling - guaranteed way to raise 30 Year debt at 0.00% in a few months.

Last week, the US government’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), an agency of the US Treasury Department, published its 2011 annual report. There are a few numbers that are pretty startling. We’ve discussed before that FinCEN is the executive agency tasked with ensuring that every US banker is an unpaid government spy through Suspicious Activity Reports. A Suspicious Activity Report, or SAR, includes details of any transaction that may be deemed ‘suspicious’. Naturally, there’s no clear guidance on what is/is not considered suspicious. Banks, brokerages, money service businesses, precious metals dealers… even casinos are required by law to fill them out. If you withdraw an unusual amount of cash from your bank account, that could be deemed suspicious. If you set up a new payee in your billpay service, that could be deemed suspicious. Anything and everything is fair game. Banks and other businesses who do not fill out SARs face hefty penalties, including imprisonment. If they disclose to a customer that s/he is the subject of a SAR, they have hefty penalties, including imprisonment. When push comes to shove and they have to choose between a nasty penalty, or submitting a SAR about your unusual cash withdrawal, which option do you think they’ll pick? Unsurprisingly, nearly 1.5 million ‘suspicious activity reports’ were filed across the US banking system in 2011, well over twice the number reported in 2004. On top of this, there were an additional -14.8 million- ‘currency transaction reports’ filed in 2011, a 6% jump over last year. It’s an unfortunate trend which highlights not only the end of financial privacy, but also the massive amount of data being collected by the government to keep tabs on its citizens.

Following yesterday's extravaganza in European credit markets, which saw XOver (European high-yield credit) surge to highs year-to-date (wiping out a week's worth of leaking wider in one fell swoop), today's open suggested some follow-through but as macro data combined with France downgrade rumors (denied rapidly) sovereign and corporate credit markets sold off quite rapidly into the close. Interestingly, financials (senior and sub debt) managed to hold gains from yesterday's close as XOver and Main (Europe's investment grade credit index) along with the broad stock market lost ground to close near their lows (though well off yesterday's open still). EURUSD (holding under 1.27 at the EUR close) weakened fairly consistently after Spanish industrial output and German GDP did nothing to inspire and while sovereign spreads (Spanish and Italian mostly) were outperforming, as the French rumors hit, they sold off rapidly (France and Italy back to unchanged). As usual into the close there was a modest risk rally and sovereign spreads leaked modestly tighter (by around 6-9bps) with France underperforming but we did not see that bounce in corporate credit. The weakness in 'cheap-hedge' investment grade credit suggests risk appetite is not returning and decompression trades are back in vogue after yesterday's snap and perhaps a growing realization that no PSI agreement is looming anytime soon.

Over the weekend, and before it became a popular topic in the mainstream media and an issue of political debate, UBS first among the "non-fringers" discussed the topic of not only a coercive Greek restructuring (i.e., one in which there is no "agreement" of the bondholders) but that it is, in fact, imminent. Since then, the din over this issue has escalate with reports over the past two days, that Greece may enforce collective action contracts as well as force bondholders into a deal, since various hedge fund hold-outs have been holding Europe hostage, a development foreseen here in mid-2011. Unfortunately for Europe, which apparently has no idea what is going on, and whoever is advising it financially is certifiably an idiot, the coercive path is precisely what the end outcome may end up being. Naturally, while this is preciseley what should have happened long ago (and saved taxpayers everywhere hundreds of billions in Greek bailout funds), the fact is that it goes contrary to everything the imploding status quo and collapsing ponzi house of cards is doing to prevent an all out catastrophe, as a coercive transaction actually will have unpredictable and adverse spill over effects in virtually every aspect of European financial markets, which in turn will migrate to the US. The good news is that CDS, despite the constant attempts of the crony and corrupt ISDA otherwise, will once again become an instrument of hedging, which ironically in the long run will be stabilizing. But not before some serious short-term fireworks. UBS explains.