Archive - Feb 23, 2012 - Story

• IMF Official: 'Huge' Greek Program Implementation Risks In Next Few Days (WSJ)
• European Banks Take Greek Hit After Deal (Bloomberg)
• Obama Urged to Resist Calls to Use Oil Reserves Amid Iran Risks (Bloomberg)
• Hungary hits at Brussels funds threat (FT)
• Bank Lobby Widened Volcker Rule Before Inciting Foreign Outrage (Bloomberg)
• Germany fights eurozone firewall moves (FT)
• New York Federal Reserve Said to Plan Sale of AIG-Linked Mortgage Bonds (Bloomberg)
• G-20 Asks Europe to Beef Up Funds (WSJ)
• New Push for Reform in China (WSJ)

The phenomenon of market and confidence reflexivity is quite well known to the US, where not one but two indices, the UMichigan and Conference Board, provide upward boosts to the market when the market is going up, which in turn boosts confidence even more, and so on in a closed loop well used by agents of the central planning bureaus, especially during economic slides, when the "economy" is nothing but the Russell 2000. Europe is no stranger to this, and early this morning despite Germany's recent economic data coming out nothing short of atrocious, Germany announced its business managers are quite confident, and more so than expected whatever that means, after the IFO Business Survey printed at 109.6 on expectations of 108.3 - the highest reading since July 2011. As a reminder, 9 days ago "The German Industrial Output Slides More Than Greek, Despite Favorable ZEW" - in other words, the propaganda machine is out in full force, desperate to break the linkage between Europe's recessionary economy, and the market which has soared over the past 4 months for one reason only - trillions in central bank liquidity. Alas, the bill has now come in in the form of record Brent in British pounds, fresh all time highs in energy prices, and WTI which if Goldman is right, will hit $120 this summer and send Obama's reelection chances down the toilet. Anyway, here is Goldman with a note on the German confidence index which briefly sent the EURUSD up 80 pips to a high of 1.3340, showing just how volatile the fulcrum security now is with 148K net shorts, since retracing most of the gains as apparently not even the market is that stupid to believe the confidence is more important than hard data following the EU's announcement that the Eurozone will officially see a GDP decline of -0.3% in 2012 vs previous expectations of +0.5% rise.