Archive - Jan 2012 - Story

While it will hardly come as a surprise to many that after making it abundantly clear that Germany is in total disagreement with ECB monetary policies, culminating in the departure of Jurgen Stark from the European central printing authority, Germany will not permit irresponsible, Bernanke-esque monetary policies, it probably should be noted that even following the most recent escalation of adverse developments in Europe, which are now on the verge of unwinding the entire Eurozone and with it the affiliated fake currency, that the German central bank just said that any European QE could only come over its dead body. Today channeling the inscription to the gates of hell from Dante's inferno is none other than yet another Bundesbank board member, Carl-Ludwig Thiele, who said that "Europe must abandon the idea that printing money, or quantitative easing, can be used to address the euro zone debt crisis...One idea should be brushed aside once and for all - namely the idea of printing the required money. Because that would threaten the most important foundation for a stable currency: the independence of a price stability orientated central bank."

And so the latest inevitable outcome of the French downgrade from AAA has arrived, after the S&P just downgraded the EFSF, that pillar of European stability, from AAA to AA+. S&P adds: "if we were to conclude that sufficient offsetting credit enhancements are, in our opinion, not likely to be forthcoming, we would likely change the outlook to negative to mirror the negative outlooks of France and Austria. Under those circumstances we would expect to lower the ratings on the EFSF if we lowered the long-term sovereign credit ratings on the EFSF's 'AAA' or 'AA+' rated members to below 'AA+'." In other words, as everyone but Europe apparently knew, the EFSF is only as strong as the rating of its weakest member. And now the rhetoric on how AAA is not really necessary for the EFSF, begins, to be followed by AA, next A, then BBB and finally how as long as the EFSF is not D-rated all is well.

One of the more useful Wall Street fictions is the naive notion that big players and small-fry equity owners alike love low-volatility "melt-up" markets that slowly creep higher on low volume. The less attractive reality is that big trading desks find low-volatility "melt-up" markets useful for one thing: to sucker retail buyers and less-adept fund managers into an increasingly vulnerable market. Beyond that utility, low-volatility "melt-up" markets are of little value to big trading desks for the simple reason that there is no way to outperform in markets that lack volatility. The retail crowd may love a market that slowly gains 4% for the year, barely budging for months, but such a market is anathema to big traders. It's always useful to ask cui bono--to whose benefit? In this case, highly volatile markets don't benefit clueless retail equities owners, as they are constantly whipsawed out of "sure-thing" positions. From the big trading desk point of view, this whipsawing provides essential liquidity, as retail traders and inept fund managers trying to follow the wild swings up and down provide buyers. I have a funny feeling the "smart money" has built up a nice short position here and as a result the market is about to "unexpectedly" decline sharply. The ideal scenario for big trading desks here is a sudden decline that panics complacent retail traders and managers into selling (or leaving their stops in to get hit).

Time for the dominos to fall where they may: head of sovereign ratings at S&P Kraemer spoke on Bloomberg TV, and said the following:

• KRAEMER: GREECE, CREDITORS `RUNNING OUT OF TIME' IN DEBT TALKS -BBG
• KRAEMER: EURO LEADERS HAVEN'T TACKLED CORE UNDERLYING PROBLEMS -BBG
• KRAEMER SAYS EUROPE MUST DEAL WITH IMBALANCES, COMPETITIVENESS -BBG

And the punchline:

• KRAEMER SAYS HE BELIEVES GREECE WILL DEFAULT SHORTLY - RTRS

The only thing he did not add is that the default will be Coercive. What happens next is anyone's guess, but whatever it is it is certainly priced in. Also, let's not forget that the inability of the market to react to any news ever again is most certainly priced in.

Despite disappointing auction results in France, the downgrade hangovers (sell the rumor, buy the news?), and increasingly likely Greek PSI talk epic-fail, most European sovereigns are rallying modestly on the day. Given the expected shift in the AAA benchmark used for margining (dropping higher yielding France 'AAA's as they are downgraded will lower AAA benchmark significantly and implicitly widen the yield differential for other sovereigns), it is perhaps no surprise that TPTB are active in BTPs (Italian bonds) but it appears that Portugal (admittedly illiquid) has been left to its own devices. Portuguese 10Y bond spreads to bunds just broke 1250bps, +180bps on the day and at record wides. Given the subordination concerns as ESM is accelerated, it is perhaps no surprise that the ECB's SMP has seemingly decided that Portugal has crossed the Rubicon into Greece territory.

When Zero Hedge correctly predicted the imminent rise of the "activist sovereign hedge fund" phenomenon first back in June 2011 (also predicting that the "the drama is about to get very, very real") few listened... except of course the hedge funds, such as Saba, York, Marathon, and others, which realized the unprecedented upside potential in such "nuisance value", long known to all distressed debt investors who procure hold out stakes, and quietly built up blocking positions in European sovereign bonds at sub-liquidation prices. Based on a just released IFRE report, the bulk of this buying occurred in Q4, when banks were dumping positions, promptly vacuumed up by hedge funds. More importantly, we learn from IFRE's post mortem of what is only now being comprehended by the market as having happened, is the realization that the terms "voluntary" and "collective action clauses" end up having the same impact as a retailer (Sears) warning about liquidity (and the result being the start of the death clock, with such catalysts as CIT pulling vendor financing only reinforcing this) to get the vultures circling and picking up the pieces that nobody else desires. As a reminder, it was again back in June we predicted that "the key phrase (or two) in the proposed package: "Voluntary" and "Collective Action Clauses"." Why? Because what this does is unleash the prospect of yet another word, which is about to become one of the most overused in the dilettante financial journalist's lingo: "subordination" or the tranching of an existing equal class of bonds (pari passu) into two distinct subsets, trading at different prices, and possessing different investor protections (we use the term very loosely) with the result being an even greater demand destruction for sovereign paper.

The big news out of Europe on Friday was not S&P’s downgrade of 9 countries, France included. The ratings agency told us weeks ago that it might do this. No, much more important was the ECB’s saying in the bluntest possible terms that the EU leaders are backtracking on the fiscal compact agreed just 5 weeks ago by 26 of the 27 countries... Now the folks responsible for the actual writing of this fiscal treaty have only two weeks before the next EU summit to come up with something that satisfies both the EU heads of state — whose attempts to soften the terms show that they are apparently having second thoughts about giving away fiscal sovereignty — and the ECB paymaster. They’ll need to be as flexible as Chinese acrobats to make it work.

Back on December 21, the day when the deus ex 3 year LTRO was completed and €489 billion in gross capital was provided to banks at a 1.00% cost, of which €210 billion was net new incremental capital (pro forma for rolling maturities), the ECB deposit facility usage was €265 billion. As of Friday, the ECB announced deposits have grown to just shy of €500 billion, or a new record of €493 billion (which pays banks just 0.25%). In other words, between the LTRO effective date, and today, an additional €228 billion has been deposited, or more than the entire LTRO! And so Sarkozy's carry promoting dreams are entirely dashed, as instead banks end up paying €1.6 billion a year net just to hold the €210 billion with the ECB. In the meantime, the question becomes whether banks are already preparing for the February 29 3 year LTRO next? Check back when the deposit facility usage hits €700 billion in 2 months as banks stash aside about $1 trillion in capital shortfall cash with the central bank. And rising.

• Jon Huntsman Will Leave Republican Presidential Race, Endorse Mitt Romney, Officials Say (WaPo)
• Dont laugh - Plosser: Fed Tightening Possible Before Mid-2013 (WSJ)
• Greece’s Creditors Seek End To Deadlock (FT)
• France Can Overcome Crisis With Reforms – Sarkozy (Reuters)
• Nowotny Says S&P Favors Fed’s Bond Buying Over ECB’s ‘Restrictive’ Policy (Bloomberg)
• Bomb material found in Thailand after terror warnings (Reuters)
• Ma Victory Seen Boosting Taiwan Markets as Baer Considers Upgrading Stocks (Bloomberg)
• Japan Key Orders Jump; Policymakers Fret over Euro (Reuters)
• Renminbi Deal Aims to Boost City Trade (FT)

Just out from Reuters:

• NIGERIA'S LABOUR UNION LEADERS SAY STRIKE SUSPENDED - RTRS

Minor down tick in crude on the news, maybe because everyone is still sleeping. So, does this mean that the Iran embargo is back on, and the joint US-Israel wargames are set to resume as "budgetary" conditions have loosened?

Although gold had its largest drop in the last 2 weeks on Friday, (-1.6%), it was 1.3% higher on the week and trading higher this morning.  Many analysts feel that current sovereign, macroeconomic and geopolitical risks are not reflected in gold's price. Friday's news of France's loss of its AAA rating has put the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) at risk. The Eurozone economy resembles a large ship sailing in rough seas since France fund's 20% of the EFSF fund and 8 other members were also downgraded. This will almost certainly lead to the EFSF's downgrade which would result in the fund too paying more to borrow as credit costs rise.  There are icebergs lurking in increasingly murky Eurozone waters. The European downgrades were long expected and may have been priced in the markets. The risk of a non orderly Greek default and of contagion in the Eurozone remains and is not priced into markets. It would lead to the euro falling sharply against other fiat currencies and particularly against gold.

After the fairly muted Wellington open, the reaction of the European bond markets to the S&P downgrade will be the next focus of attention. One benefit of the S&P ratings action is that it takes away one source of uncertainty. Given a French downgrade wasn't widely anticipated, market focus on this issue may well be short lived. Related to the European downgrades is the rating of the EFSF, which was also put on credit watch in early December. S&P have commented that they are in the process of evaluating the impact of the sovereign downgrades on the EFSF rating. For the AAA rating to be maintained it would require further commitments from European governments. Remaining in Europe, newswires report that Greek debt talks will resume Wednesday, thus the Greek PSI is likely to remain a focus all week.

With Fed officials a laughing stock (both inside and outside the realm of FOMC minutes), Bank of Japan officials ever-watching eyes, and ECB officials in both self-congratulatory (Draghi) and worryingly concerned on downgrades (Nowotny), the world's central bankers appear, if nothing else, convinced that all can be solved with the printing of some paper (and perhaps a measure of harsh words for those naughty spendaholic politicians). The dramatic rise in central bank balance sheets and just-as-dramatic fall in asset quality constraints for collateral are just two of the items that UBS's economist Larry Hatheway considers as he asks (and answers) the critical question of just how safe are central banks. As he sees bloated balance sheets relative to capital and the impact when 'stuff happens', he discusses why the Eurozone is different (no central fiscal authority backstopping it) and notes it is less the fear of large losses interfering with liquidity provision directly but the more massive (and explicit) intrusion of politics into the 'independent' heart of central banking that creates the most angst. While he worries for the end of central bank independence (most specifically in Europe), we remind ourselves of the light veil that exists currently between the two and that the tooth fairy and santa don't have citizen-suppressing printing presses.