Archive - Oct 23, 2012 - Story

They may yield nothing (technically 0.295% nominal yield), and they may be still sold by the Fed, but today's 2 Year bond auction had a blistering metric that showed that something is very much unwell with the market. Coming at a Bid to Cover of 4.02, broad demand for today's $35 billion in 2 years was the second highest only below November 2011's 4.07. What happened on November 21, 2011? Well, the world was ending for one, or if not the entire world, then certainly Europe which for those who remember, had to be rescued one short week later courtesy of a coordinated global central bank intervention when the Fed and Europe not only renewed their FX swaps, but lowered the rate paid to OIS+50. So do the bondholders know something about today's market plunge that is not being said? We will find out soon.

In recent months there has been a lot of incorrect speculation that because Iran has been shut off from the petrodollar, SWIFT-mediated regime, its economy will implode as the country has no access to the all important greenback and can thus not conduct international trade - the driving factor behind the international sanctions that seek to topple the local government as Iran dies an economic death. And while there have been bouts of substantial inflation, which so far the local government appears to have managed to put a lid on by curbing gray market speculation, Iran continues to more or less operate on its merry ways with international trade most certainly taking place, especially with China, Russia and India as main trading partners. "How is this possible" those who support the Western-led embargo of all Iranian trade will ask? Simple - gold. Because while Iran may have no access to dollars, it has ample access to gold. This in itself is not new - we have reported in the past that Iran has imported substantial amounts of gold from Turkey, despite the Turkish government's stern denials. Today, courtesy of Reuters, we learn precisely what the 21st century equivalent of the Great Silk Road looks like, and just how effective Iran has been as a lab rat in escaping the great petrodollar experiment, from which conventional wisdom tells us there is no escape. Presenting: petrogold.

While many are blaming today's weakness on DuPont and a final awakening that earnings might not hockey-stick as consensus believes, CNBC's Gary Kaminsky has an interesting angle that is gaining ground among desks. We can argue all day long that central bank actions have driven a 'wedge' between fundamentals and market prices (as we did here) and as Gary himself notes "printing money around the world does not help corporate profits" but Kaminsky's view of today's weakness is more nuanced to the outcomes of the election. Critically, he makes the case that the market is starting to realize that whoever wins in two weeks, there is a more negative bias post-election. From Obama's higher taxes and more-of-the-same sluggish economy to Romney's potential China-Trade-war, an implied strong-USD-policy, and potentially the end of the 'Bernanke-Put'; Kaminsky says "the easy money days are gone" and warns of a 1000 point correction being possible.

Debt.  There isn't a day that passes as of late that the issue of debt doesn't arise.  Federal debt and consumer debt (including mortgages) are of the most concern due to its impact on the domestic economy.   Debt is, by its very nature, a cancer on economic growth.  As debt levels rise it consumes more capital by diverting it from productive investments into debt service.  As debt levels spread through the system it consumes greater amounts of capital until it eventually kills the host. The problem is that during a “balance sheet” recession the consumer is forced to pay off debt which detracts from their ability to consume.   This is the one facet that Keynesian economics doesn’t factor in. It’s time for our leaders to wake up and smell the burning of the dollar – we are at war with ourselves and the games being played out by Washington to maintain the status quo is slowing creating the next crisis that won’t be fixed with monetary bailout.

No matter what you are told by the mainstream media, peripheral government bonds have seen the worst 2-day sell-off in over a month with Spanish 10Y spreads +27bps this week so far and 2Y breaking back above 3% yield in a hurry. Just as we warned - this rally is not capital flowing back into 'tail-risk- removed govvies, it is simply fast money front-running actions and now momentum gains for the exits. Swiss 2Y rates fell their most in a month to -20bps as safety was sought. Europe's equity markets dropped for the third day in a row (hhmm more profit-taking we are expected to believe?) with the broadest BE500 index down 1.65% today and almost 3% off its recent high (the biggest 3-day drop in three months) and now at critical support once again. Equities are underperforming credit - as credit suffered the epic short-squeeze last week and we suspect remains a little gun-shy. EURUSD cracked back below 1.30 (down over 100pips to 1.2950 as Europe closes) and Europe's VIX jumped notably back above 23% - its highest in 6 weeks. GGBs lost their most in 3 months...

The theme of buying real estate to rent out is nothing new, in fact courtesy of the government subsidized securitization gimmick known as REO-To-Rent, America's biggest asset managers have been able to load up on real estate virtually cost free, and hold on to it in hopes of renting it out to a US consumer. Alas, there is a qualifier: the "tapped out" US consumer. Case in point is Och Ziff, which as we wrote, after dabbling in the space for a year, has called it quits, and pulled out of the REO-to-Rent game. And they are the smart money, which means the returns for everyone else are only "downhill from here." That said, for now the meme is one of renting. In fact, as Reuters Insider points out, "Renting is the new American Dream." The problem is 'owning' was the old one. That ended in tears. This one will be no different. The only question is when. We think that when Brazilian model brothers come to Florida to buy up condos so they can rent them out, that's about as toppy as tops get (It is unclear if the two models also demand to be paid in EURs back in the homeland, like another infamous topticking supermodel and financial expert).

Dow Jones down 250, and a new bearish letter from Bob Janjuah? Lucky coincidence? Or conspiracy? You decide. From Bob: "How to play it? The SPX is the obvious pure risk short because of how rich it is against other equity markets. Outright is fine, so are options. Take a look at January 1350 puts for example currently trading at 20. If doing outright we would recommend a stop just above the recent highs at 1475. We also like the USD and Treasuries because the market has seen time and time again US problems do not lead to selling of (safe) US assets and it can and we think will be the same again."

Since just after the US equity day session opened, Intrade's Obama and Romney markets have seen volume explosions. In what can only be described as HFT-driven chaos, perhaps someone is seeking a 'cheap' hedge on the equity market's freefall? or more likely, yet another rogue algo got loose and is toying with another market. Romney's odds exploded from 41% to 48%, crashed back down to 42% and are leaking higher once again. Obama's odds (and note the market was crossed for a while) have fallen off a cliff to their lowest since before QEtc at around 57%...

Twice this year we have seen the US equity market become enamored of its own hope-holding, momentum-trapping, liquidity-driven, success while the bond markets (Treasury and High Yield) have remained a little less sanguine. This lack of exuberance among all but the equity players perhaps better reflects the sad reality of fundamentals (as we noted here) or perhaps this time it is different. To wit, the following two charts as a gentle reminder that gravity still exists and where the short-term floors might be...

Greg Smith's 15 minutes of fame has come and gone, but the muppet crushing at Goldman is only starting to ramp up, courtesy of the man who singlehandedly has made sure Goldman's FX prop trading team should be the most profitable one in the entire universe by simply doing the opposite of what Goldman's clients do. As a reminder, sent out at 5 pm yesterday, as we alerted our Twitter followers: "Go long EUR/CAD on further risk premium compression in the EUR and a more dovish BoC... We recommend going long EUR/CAD at a current level of 1.296 with an initial target of 1.37 and a stop on a London close below 1.26." Big Oops (see chart). Then again, after Stolper epic failure to Impala the muppets on his last EURUSD trade reco, it is great to see him back to 0.000 batting form.

Last week, the misty eyed reminiscences were recalling the 25th anniversary of Black Monday. Today, we look even further back. 83 years back to be precise to this date in hallowed antiquity, when in 1929 the selling had officially begun, with what would ultimately culminate as the Great Crash. Cue Art Cashin: "on this Thursday morning, the market opened nervous but relatively steady. Within the first half hour, prices began to fade and the tape began to run late. By noon the tape was nearly an hour and-a-half late in reporting transactions in a market that had opened only two hours before. To speed the reporting digits were deleted and so "Radio" which had opened at 68 3/4 now showed on the tape at 8 3/4. But prices were moving so fast that the price was not 58 3/4 but 48 3/4 on its way to 48 1/4 before it would bottom in the afternoon at 44 1/2. To avoid confusion the Exchange published flash prices of selected securities on the slower moving bond tape." By early afternoon the cascade of prices caused an emergency meeting at the offices of J.P. Morgan across the street from the Exchange...."

The debates are over; and perhaps last night's 'chat' was the least interesting from any substantive angle of any of the interactions given the candidates tendency to agree on virtually everything (apart from bayonets) - and still say absolutely nothing. In the interests of being fair and balanced - as we always are - we present two sides of this epic farce. First, the Asian animated interpretation - for some light-hearted insight into just how our potential leaders are perceived across the ocean after last night's debate; and second, a more retrospective view by Ben Tanosborn on the three 'meaningless' debates - and the questions that should have been asked. "Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have shown to be equally adept at dealing with trivia and secondary issues... and equally inept at dealing with every substantive issue."

S&P futures are trading down around 18 points in the pre-day-session market. This would be the largest gap-down day in three months, and only the third largest gap-down open in 2012. The market has broken to its lowest since QEtc was announced and retraced more than half of the Draghi 'Believe' moment spike...

With the entire world engaged in global coordinated easing, slashing, burning, and overall lowering rates and printing money by the wheelbarrow, the Bank of Canada just fired a shot across the bow. Here is the kicker: "Reflecting all of these factors, the Bank has decided to maintain the target for the overnight rate at 1 per cent. Over time, some modest withdrawal of monetary policy stimulus will likely be required." Surely they must be punished for this blasphemy in the holy church of Saint John Maynard and the apostles of collapsing fiat.

With Greek tax-collectors under increasing pressure to squeeze their quote out of an increasingly bombastic population, Italy's Rossi arguing for the need to fight VAT evasion, and France taxing anything and everything that moves - all in the name of austerity; it seems, as Bloomberg Brief's Niraj Shah notes today that attempts to bring burgeoning debt levels in Europe under control - by tackling the unofficial, or gray, economy - may backfire. It seems, given the large and growing (average 17.3% of euro GDP or EUR1.5tn) size of the gray economy that the more governments try to capture 'gray' externalities (or hike VATs - up from 18.1% to 20% on average), they merely succeed in pushing more transactions into the gray area. A study by Schneider of Linz University finds that focusing on the gray economy may be counter-productive as some of the activities may act as a safety net and contribute to growth - in a counter-cyclical way - serving as a cushion for people facing wage cuts and job losses. With as much as 24% of Greece's economy now estimated to be 'unofficial', the Troika-inspired 23% VAT rate is having quite the unintended consequence it seems.