Archive - Jan 23, 2012 - Story

Remember when Europe was fixed, if only for a few weeks? Those were the times, too bad they are now officially over. EURUSD is back under 1.30 in thin volume because even as we "shockingly" find that, no, Greece did not have the "upper hand" since Greek bondholder negotiations just broke down (and that over the matter of a cash coupon delta between 3.5% and 4.0%, which implicitly means that from a bondholder IRR perspective, when taking a 15 cent EFSF Bill into consideration, the hedge fund community fully expects the country to be in default even post reorg in at about two years). But it is that "other" European country which was recently junked by S&P (causing the 10 year to soar to new records), that is now the focus point of (re)bailout concerns. Reuters reports: "The euro nudges down some 20 pips to $1.2995 in thin, illiquid trade with Tokyo dealers citing renwed fears Portugal may need a second bailout. Undermining the glow of Lisbon's achievements in reforming the country's labour market is the rapidly rising market concern that it is the next potential candidate to default in the euro zone after Greece -- a point that is fast becoming clear as Athens approaches the end of its debt restructuring talks." And here is the paradox: if Greece succeeds in persuading the ad hoc creditors to accept a 3.5% coupon, which it won't absent cramdown and CDS trigger, Portugal will immediately if not sooner proceed with the same steps. There is however, a problem. Unlike Greece, where the bulk, or over 90%, of the bonds are under Local Law, and thus have no bondholder protections (a fact about to be used by Greece to test the legal skills of asset managers who can retain the smartest lawyers in the world and generate par recoveries on their bonds in due course), in a generic Portuguese Euro Medium Term note Programme prospectus we find the following...

While his colleagues from the Boston Bruins were visitng the White House earlier today, goaltender Tim Thomas was absent. Here is his personal explanation for why he did what he did. We can only hope more role-models follow in his footsteps.

As widely expected by Zero Hedge, barely a few months after the arrival of former Goldmanite Mario Draghi to head ECB, the ECB's balance sheet exploded by nearly $1 trillion. Naturally, such is the way of central banks infiltrated by tentacles of the squid: no surprises. Which brings us to the first Fed meeting of 2012 and its public manifestation: the FOMC's January 25 statement. As is well known, while the Goldman addition to the ECB is a recent development, its agent at the Fed, the head of the FRBNY Bill Dudley has been there for a quite a while - in fact ever since the tax-challenged Mike Judge character impersonator left to become Treasury Secretary. As was suggested on Zero Hedge, it was the meetings of Bill Dudley with Goldman's Jan Hatzius at the Pound and Pence, and of course elsewhere but these are the only public recorded ones, that have shaped monetary policy more than anything. In other words, if anyone can predict, not to say define, US monetary policy, it would be Jan Hatzius. Below are his just released "thoughts" on what to expect on Wednesday. What is odd is that whereas a month ago Goldman was convinced that an LSAP version of QE was imminent, now the firm has become substantially less optimistic. Is it time to manage down expectations? To wit: "Given the improvement in the economic indicators and the easing of financial conditions that has occurred in the meantime, we believe it is less central now. While Fed officials are certainly not targeting a tightening of conditions, we doubt that they will "bend over backwards" to deliver a dovish surprise relative to current market expectations." So just how much QE3 is priced in if Goldman is already doing disappointment damage control. Or did Goldman finally wise up and realize that the only effective Fed statement is the one that surprises. So if Goldman does not publicly expect QE3, and we do in fact get a notice thereof, it will have an immediate knee jerk reaction on risk, and of course, Gold. These and many more questions shall be answered at 12:30 pm on Wednesday.

One of the funny things about the proposed Greek debt exchange offer is that, at least according to most recent fluid rumor, the cash coupon ceiling on the "post reorg" bonds, as dictated by the European finance ministers, will be 4% (hedge funds want more). So let's assume 3.5% for argument's sake. Perhaps the fact that the cash coupon of the US 30 Year note is roughly the same is somewhat concerning, because call us skeptical but Greek credit quality may be just a little worse than that of America - something which should be obvious to most. Except for European leaders of course. But that's fine - one can define cash coupons to be anything. After all the only thing that matters for bonds is yield, which Greece appears to have forgotten is determined by coupon and price. So since the Greek Debt/GDP will still be over 120% according to another set of rumors (after all, only a small portion of the country's debt is really getting impaired), it is 100% safe to say that in 30 years Greece will still go bankrupt. So let's say it deserves a comparable yield to its current 30 year bonds, which are priced to yield about 23%. We are being a little generous and estimate the fresh start bonds will yield 20% post break. Which means that according to a generic bond yield calc, the price on the fresh start bonds post reorg will be... 17.9 cents of par, or immediate losses of over 80% the second these bonds break for trading from par.

Amid the lowest NYSE volume of the year (-24% from Friday - OPEX) and pretty much the lowest non-holiday-period volume in 9 years based on Bloomberg's NYSEVOL data, ES (the e-mini S&P 500 futures contract) ended the day almost perfectly unchanged underperforming 5Y investment grade and high-yield credit indices on the day as both moved to contract tights (their best levels since early August last year) even as their curves flattened. There has been lots of chatter about how the steepening of the short-end of the European sovereign bond markets (Italian 2s10s for instance) is a sign that all-is-well in the world again, well unfortunately the flattening of the short-end of US IG and HY credit markets sends a rather less positive signal than headlines might care to admit (as jump risk in the short-term remains 'high' relative to bullish momentum in the medium-term). At the same time, vol markets are showing extreme levels of short-term complacency as 1m VIX is almost at record low levels relative to 3m VIX (and diverging today from implied correlation). Broadly speaking , risk assets rallied into the US day session open only to sell off into the European close (with Sovereigns leaking back the most). The afternoon saw risk rallying as the path of least resistance appears to be up all the time there is no news. Stocks ended well off their highs of the day, in line with broad risk assets, as TSY yields rose 3-4bps higher, Oil and Copper 1.5-1.75% higher (outperformed) while Silver and Gold hugged USD weakness at around a 0.5% gain from Friday's close.

At least they were kind enough to wait until the close:

• EURO ZONE FINANCE MINISTERS REJECT OFFER OF GREEK PSI REACHED WITH PRIVATE BONDHOLDERS, ASK NEGOTIATORS TO CONSIDER COUPON ON NEW GREEK BONDS BELOW 4 PCT-EURO ZONE SOURCES - RTRS
• EURO FALLS VERSUS DOLLAR AFTER EURO ZONE FINANCE MINISTERS REJECT GREEEK PSI OFFER

Translation: Greece demands that the coupon on its fresh start 30 Year bonds to be below 4%, or roughly in line with US 30 year paper. Good luck guys!

But, but, Marathon promised... And making things even worse, here come the long overdue European S&P bank downgrades

• CREDIT LYONNAIS CUT TO A FROM A+ BY S&P
• BNP PARIBAS OUTLOOK NEGATIVE BY S&P; OFF WATCH NEGATIVE :BNP FP

Sarc-o-bot (that's Sarcasm, not Sarakozy) screaming: "This is all priced in. Buy buy buy."

You know, just in case that whole investment banking, equity research, high frquency trading, hedge fund thing does not work out, Citadel always has a plan B - to become an executive headunter. From Ken Griffen's annual letter: "We actively follow the careers of countless individuals across the competitive landscape in the interest of finding people who will strengthen our team and enhance our performance. Our talent database contains over 150,000 resumes, of which approximately 25,000 were added in the past twelve months. When recruiting for a given position, we often construct our short list from a pool of more than 100 highly qualified candidates. The decision making process for new hires often extends beyond the traditional interviews."And in case that fails, the company will become a certified travel agent: "Consider these statistics: in 2011, the Global Equities team traveled more than 3,500 days, on more than 1,600 trips, conducting 9,000 meetings with 2,000 different companies." Impressive stuff, and just shows you what one has to do when "expert networks" are no longer part of the picture. Then again the "whole hedge fund thing" may work for just a little bit longer: "We are pleased to report that Citadel Wellington LLC (“Wellington”) and Citadel Kensington Global Strategies Fund Ltd. (“Kensington”) have generated net returns in excess of 20 percent for 2011." Which means that Citadel has passed its high water mark for the first time since after 2007 and can actually collect performance fees and pay bonuses for a terrific job well done: victory!

Two things of note in today's Rosie piece. On one hand he breaks out the 10 good and bad things that investors are factoring, and while focusing on the positive, and completely ignoring the negative, are pushing the market to its best start since 1997. As Rosie says: "The equity market has gotten off to its best start in a good 15 years and being led by the deep cyclicals (materials, homebuilders, semiconductors) and financials — last year's woeful laggards (the 50 worst performing stocks in 2011 are up over 10% so far this year; the 50 best are up a mere 2%). Bonds are off to their worst start since 2003 with the 10-year note yield back up to 2%. The S&P 500 is now up 20% from the early October low and just 3.5% away from the April 2011 recovery high (in fact, in euro terms, it has rallied 30% and at its best level since 2007)." Is there anything more to this than precisely the same short-covering spree we saw both in 2010 and 2011? Not really: "This still smacks of a classic short-covering rally as opposed to a broad asset- allocation shift, but there is no doubt that there is plenty of cash on the sidelines and if it gets put to use, this rally could be extended. This by no means suggests a shift in my fundamental views, and keep in mind that we went into 2011 with a similar level of euphoria and hope in place and the uptrend lasted through April before the trap door opened. Remember too that the acute problems in the housing and mortgage market began in early 2007 and yet the equity market did not really appreciate or understand the severity of the situation until we were into October of that year and even then the consensus was one of a 'soft landing'." Finally, Rosie steps back from the noise and focuses on the forest, asking the rhetorical question: "Isn't this still a "modern day depression?" - his answer, and ours - "sure it is."

By his own admission in an interview today with Bloomberg TV, Barton Biggs is "elderly and not as sprite as he used to be" but for our purpose he is perfectly placed. As the almost-perfect contrarian call (bullish into August here and bearish in September here for example) notorious flip-flopper Biggs is now both "terrified he is not long enough" and yet "fears that an apocalyptic end to the Euro could occur within the next 3-6 months". According to Bloomberg, Biggs is net-long around 65% equities and noted he is "terrified I'm too long if the apocalypse is coming in Europe." Yet another canary in the seemingly 'ever-more-full-of-canaries' coal-mine (but now perhaps post OPEX and facing IMF/Greece/IIF reality we will see contrarianism at its best).

As I was writing this past weekend's newsletter "A Technical Review Of The Markets" it really dawned on me just how complacent investors have become on the economy, the markets and risk in general.  The mainstream media, and most of analysts, are looking at recent improvements in the economic data as a sign that the economy has begun to make a turn for the better.   This view is further supported by the rise of the stock market. With a couple of breadcrumbs, a sprinkle of "hope" and a cup of optimism - analysts, economists and investors have whipped up the perfect concoction by extrapolating recent upticks into long term future advances.  However, this is a game that we have seen play out repeatedly before. 

We knew things are worse than presented... But this much worse? And in Chicago of all places - the city of (aggressively enforced) spin?

Time for a mea maxima culpa: I've been wrong about everything: the stock market, the economy, globalization, energy, everything. Heck, I've even been wrong about the American diet and poor fitness; it's now clear that ice cream sundaes are health food that have been shown to extend life dramatically. Fast food is nutritious and cheap, a great combination, and there is basically nothing in the mind-body that can't be fixed in a jiffy with a handful of pills, all of which are almost free once you qualify for government healthcare programs. The economy has not just dodged recession, it's in full-blown recovery. The only two indicators that are going down are the VIX volatility index, which might just fall to near-zero as investors realize there's no longer any downside in the market and therefore no need to buy hedges, and the unemployment rate, which is steadily declining. 2012 is like 1956, 1964, 1984 and 1996: the economy is booming, and a sitting president has wisely overseen the application of brilliant policies by the Pentagon, State and Treasury departments and the Federal Reserve. The policies were simple: when "more of the same" didn't work, do even more of the same. That did the trick in everything from waging war to finding new energy sources to stabilizing the financial and housing markets.  This quote from President Calvin Coolidge neatly sums up 2012: If you see ten troubles coming down the road, you can be sure that nine will run into the ditch before they reach you.

The US Justice government reminds us that it still does exist. One wonders with the passage of the NDAA just what comparable lawsuits will look like when applied to regular US citizens charged with such crimes as talking to journalists and leaking photos from Guantanamo. Now we can all wait with bated breath as the DOJ i) finds where the MF Global money went, and ii) who is actually accountable. Or maybe not. From the DOJ: " A former CIA officer, John Kiriakou, was charged today with repeatedly disclosing classified information to journalists, including the name of a covert CIA officer and information revealing the role of another CIA employee in classified activities, Justice Department officials announced."

How does the current recovery compare to those of the past? The following charts from the Council on Foreign Relations puts the current (un)recovery in context and despite some apparently bright news recently, the pictures underline the economy's weakness since the NBER's recovery began in June 2009.