Archive - Oct 2, 2012 - Story

• RBA Cuts Rate to 3.25% as Mining-Driven Growth Wanes (Reuters)
• Republicans Not Buying Bernanke’s QE3 Defense (WSJ)
• Spain ready for bailout, Germany signals "wait" (Reuters)
• EU says prop trading and investment banking should be separated from deposit taking (Reuters)
• Call for bank bonuses to be paid in debt (FT)
• Spanish Banks Need More Capital Than Tests Find, Moody’s Says (Bloomberg) ... as we explained on Friday
• "Fiscal cliff" to hit 90% of US families (FT)
• The casualties of Chesapeake's "land grab" across America (Reuters)
• U.K. Government Needs to Do More to Boost Weak Economy, BCC Says (Bloomberg)
• World Bank Sees Long Crisis Effect (WSJ)
• UBS Co-Worker Says He Used Adoboli’s Umbrella Account (Bloomberg)
• And more easing: South Korea central bank switches tack to encourage growth (Reuters)

In a world in which markets are simply policy instruments of central planners it is no surprise that the only thing that matters is how much money is injected by any given central bank at any given time. Last night, following the Fed and the BOJ, it was the turn of Australia, which in a "surprise" move cut policy rates by 25 bps. From SocGen: "Reacting to a weaker global economic outlook, which has moderated the outlook for growth in Australia, the Reserve Bank of Australia cut its policy rate today by 25bp to 3.25%, a move that was predicted by only a minority of forecasters (including us). Nevertheless, we believe that markets are too aggressively priced for further rate reductions: we expect a low of 3.00%, to be reached by year-end, but the swap market is currently discounting a low of 2.4% by mid-2013. The reasons the RBA stated for lowering rates centered mostly on the global economic outlook, which has softened over recent months, not least because of greater uncertainty about near-term prospects in China, and hence the outlook for Australia is seen as a “little weaker”. The RBA also stated that the resource investment peak may be lower than previously thought." Sure enough, the move sent Australian stocks to 5 month highs, and global equity futures spiking. Of course, in the open-ended global race to debase perhaps it is more surprising i) they did not do this sooner and ii) not more banks have "cut" yet. Ironically, while the ECB, BOE and SNB are still contemplating next steps to catch up with Bernanke, it is the BOJ which in the abysmal failure of its own QE 8 from three weeks ago, is now contemplating QE 9 - the foreign bond edition (because buying treasury and corporate bonds, ETFs and REITs is never enough). Naturally, all this additional liquidity and promises thereof, has sent futures to fresh highs as more and more latent inflation is loaded up in the global monetary system.