Archive - Mar 2012 - Story

The first instinct of any card-carrying Eurocrat is to reach for his wallet, or as clear-thinking MEP Daniel Hannan points out, someone else's wallet. His prophetic words with regard the bailout-and-borrow bandwagon, that Europe remains on, running out of track are so critical that they bear repeating as he remains incredulous that his fellow MEPs still see the one solution to a debt crisis as yet more debt...

One may be surprised to learn that in the past 6 months NASDApple is not the best performing "asset class." Sure, it has generated a respectable 43% return since last September when the Greek 1 Year bond crossed a 100% yield for the first time ever (or a cash price of 54). That was also the time when many were saying to buy Greek bonds as there was no chance the yield could tumble much further (probably the same ones who said to buy AAPL). As it turns out, now that the saga of Greece is officially over, and its existing debt is being "retired" at a final price of about 19 cents of par, here is the final tally: shorting Greek bonds since September 2011 has generated 63%, while being long Apple returned 43%. And that's with virtually every hedge fund and their mother entering the Apple hedge fund hotel. So yes - sometimes going against the conventional groupthink does generate the best results. Now if only one could short the "new" Greek bonds at par, the return would be 80% in a millisecond as the bonds will break for trading under 20 cents.

Germany wants to "reignite a debate over creating an EU constitution to strengthen the bloc's ability to fight off financial troubles and counter-balance the rising influence of emerging economies". Guido Westerwelle noted that Germany EU leaders "need a new constitution... as there are new centers of power in the world." A key change that Germany wants for instance is an amendment to incorporate tighter regional oversight of government spending and allow the EU court of Justice to strike down Spain's a member's laws if they violated fiscal discipline. Here comes the 'Pro-Quo' to the Greek Bailout 'Quid'!

The irony is not lost on us that Bloomberg is reporting that KA Finanz, an Austrian bad-bank supported by the Austrian government, faces as much as a €1 billion need for funding to cover its exposures to Greek CDS (coughcreditanstaltcough). In a statement this morning, which we noted in a tweet, the bank noted "activation of the CDS with an assumed loss ratio of about 80% would mean an additional provisioning charge of EUR 423.6 million". KA Finanz's total amount of Greek CDS exposure is around EUR1bn. What is shocking and should be of great concern is that we have been led to believe that very little net cash will change hands on the basis of the $3.2bn net aggregate market exposure. This was based on the now false premise that variation margin was maintained and transferred throughout the process (as we note below from recent IMF filings). What appears to have happened is that dealer to dealer variation margin has been, let's say, less rigorous as perhaps all collateral was netted up across all exposures (or simply ignored on the basis of government backstops). The far bigger question then is: are banks simply marking ALL sovereign CDS at par, and not paying off cash to other dealers? Remember it only takes one counterparty in the chain to turn net into gross and quality collateral seems tied up a little right now at the ECB (or with margin calls).

In light of today’s EMEA Determinations Committee (the EMEA DC) unanimous decision in respect of the potential Credit Event question relating to The Hellenic Republic (DC Issue 2012030901), the EMEA DC has agreed to publish the following statement:

The EMEA DC resolved that a Restructuring Credit Event has occurred under Section 4.7 of the ISDA 2003 Credit Derivatives Definitions (as amended by the July 2009 Supplement) (the 2003 Definitions) following the exercise by The Hellenic Republic of collective action clauses to amend the terms of Greek law governed bonds issued by The Hellenic Republic (the Affected Bonds) such that the right of all holders of the Affected Bonds to receive payments has been reduced. The EMEA DC has resolved to hold an auction with respect to the settlement of standard credit default swaps for which The Hellenic Republic is the reference entity. To maximise the range of obligations that market participants may deliver in settlement of any such credit default swaps, the EMEA DC  has agreed to run an expedited auction process such that the auction itself will take place on March 19, 2012. In light of this expedited auction process, market participants should submit any obligations that they would like to include on the list of deliverable obligations to ISDA as soon as possible.

Total confusion around this, as there is no formal Press Release from ISDA yet, but since this one comes from Bloomberg, let's assume they have double checked their data. From Bloomberg:

• ISDA EMEA DETERMINATIONS COMMITTEE: RESTRUCTURING CREDIT EVENT
• ISDA SAYS CREDIT EVENT HAS OCCURRED WITH RESPECT TO GREECE
• COMMITTEE DETERMINES AUCTION TO BE HELD ON MARCH 19
• ISDA EMEA: AUCTION TO BE HELD ON OUTSTANDING CDS TRANSACTIONS

This despite refutations from ISDA 15 minutes ago that no decision had been reached. Of course, if this is a spoof PR that has gotten half the media world confused, the farce will be 100% complete.

UPDATE: Equity reverted down to Vol, Implied Correlation, CONTEXT, and credit - credit leaking further down now

Equities have drifted sideways at their highs for the last few hours. Meanwhile, credit markets have sold off, Volatility and implied correlation have pushed higher, and broad risk assets (CONTEXT) has leaked lower. Complacency, or do stock momo algos know something everyone else doesn't?

The Ministry of Propaganda and its media minions are announcing that "job growth is on a tear" and the "best growth since 2006." How about we look under the hood of the employment euphoria? Here is an example of the Ministry's work: Best U.S. employment growth in 12 years Almost all the data agree — labor market’s on a tear.

Over the past six months, the number of people who are employed has risen by 2.3 million — an average of 385,000 per month. That’s the best growth since early 2000, when the dot-com bubble was in full flower. Since August, the unemployment rate has fallen by 0.8 of a percentage points, to 8.3%. For adults over 25, the jobless rate has fallen to 7%.

In other words, people who generally work full time so they don't have to share a bunk in a flop house or live in their parents' basement are almost fully employed, as 'full employment" typically generates an unemployment rate of 5% just due to churn. Would we as a nation be better off dealing with the truth rather than believing fantasies that prop up the Status Quo and the Fed's dearly beloved measure of the economy, the stock market? How often does accepting illusion help us navigate real life? Short answer: never.

The fearless ECB-plant leading the Greek people on an unelected basis has spoken. Here are the key points and counterpoints

And for today's piece of non-fiction uber-humor we have....

• U.S. COUNTER-SUES BUFFET'S NETJETS OVER UNPAID TAX LIABILITIES

Perhaps the GOP can offer to match Buffett $2 for every $1 in tax that NetJets is found to have not paid. One wonders: did NetJets pay less tax than Buffett's secretary?

Given various talking-heads' comments on today's PSI deal (which as noted actually increased Greece's gross debt load), we thought a 'map' of the current ratings across the European Union was worth resetting some perspective.

The somewhat amusing part of this entire transaction is that the debt of Greece has been INCREASED. Greece and the EU handed private holders $138Bn in write-offs but with the addition of the new loan, $171Bn, the gross debt for Greece increased by $33Bn and this is if all of the legal challenges favor Greece. The total debt of Greece (sovereign, municipal, corporate and bank) has just increased from $1.20 Trillion to $1.233 Trillion and all accomplished by this brilliant plan that did nothing except to tag investors and ramp up the debt load for the country. Take this and add in the austerity measures and perhaps demands for more coming later today as the EU has its summit and an economy that is quickly sinking into the sea and unemployment that is surging and then you can visualize that the absurd has become the impossible and quickly conclude that more Greek loans will have to be forthcoming; or not with some form of Greek exit. The much bandied about notion that all of this will reduce the Greek debt to GDP is little more than a joke. For the past two years there has not been one, one, accurate projection for Greece concocted by the IMF/EU/ECB and I see no end to this now. Some quick math on my part indicates, in 2020, a debt to GDP ratio exceeding 170% and that is being kind and using optimistic assumptions. Just this morning the new numbers released for Greece showed a 7.50% deficit increase as opposed to the projected -5.50% number. This is one more case of quite inaccurate projections and a worsening economy for the country.

While everyone is focused on AAPL, or tech names, or energy sector growth, or multiple expansion as the driver of the next leg up in stocks, we take a slightly different tack. US equities are back above the highs of last year while US investment grade credit markets are still well below their best levels of last year. Until credit markets come along for the exuberant ride, and buy into the recovery/growth/no-tail-risk story we will not see a sustained rally (no matter how much fiat currency devaluation is undertaken) and as BARCAP notes today, there are 18 names that account for more than 50% of the discrepancy between equity's ebullience and credit curmudgeon-ness. Of these 18 names, 13 are financials (unsurprisingly) and indeed these are among the most liquid credits traded. So if you are bullish on a sustainable recovery, buying these credits seems the best high beta 'value' trade while bears should continue to watch the lack of confirmation of USD/fiat-numeraired equity market enthusiasm by risk-based credit markets.

Once again European credit and equity markets flip-flopped intraday from a gap up open (yay, the PSI deal is done) to a modest financial-led selloff on weak data, to a non-financial-led small rally (with equity beating credit post US NFP) to a slide weaker into the European close. Financials (most notably senior unsecured) were the worst performers on the day as stocks managed small gains and credit bigger losses. European sovereign spreads also leaked wider all day after some initial excitement with Italian 10Y spreads 15-20bps off their best levels of the week into the close (and Portugal also leaking wider). US Treasuries continued to selloff as US equities limped higher but EURUSD is pushing back to the week's lows near 1.31 as JPY is also deteriorating (which is modestly stable for carry FX and implicitly risk). Commodities surged (seemingly on Goldman's GDP cut implying great er hopes of QE?) with Gold up over $1710 and almost unch for the week as WTI nears $108 again. As Europe closes, there is a modest derisking across all asset classes (with US and European financials the most obvious rollers). The Precious metals rip and Treasury weakness makes us wonder how much is QE-driven (especially given the sterilized propositions) and how much is simply a rotation to a different kind of safety or quality collateral? The LTRO Stigma is around 8bps (or 10%) higher on the week while Senior-Sub spreads are stable for now.