Archive - Mar 2012 - Story

Next, it is turn for the families of the thousands of people whose money was stolen by MF Global (and apparently Fabrice Tourre, since nobody at MF Global was responsible for anything... or else it just vaporized) to send in their letters.

So much for Venizelos' best, final, and most importantly only deal. From Reuters: "Most Greek pension funds holding Greek sovereign debt have agreed to take part in a bond exchange to ease the country's debt burden but four have refused to do so, a Greek official said on Tuesday. The pension funds have come under pressure from workers' unions worried the writedown on Greek debt holdings will affect the viability of their funds. About eight or nine funds have agreed to take part but pension funds for journalists, police, the self-employed and hotel workers - which hold Greek debt worth 2 billion euros - have refused, the official said."

As the situation in Greece plays out exactly as we expected, no matter how much confidence Merkel and Papademos believe they have in a successful PSI, we thought it worth looking at the implications of the holdouts being 'punished'. For sure, as Peter Tchir notes, confusion reigns supreme, though we are probably due for a 'China saves the world' rumor any moment now, because too many people enjoy the fact that we haven't had a 1% down day yet this year.

If anyone is confused about what the real issue in Europe is, the following two charts should explain it all.

In what can only be the most ironic of stories today, Reuters is reporting that Citigroup has become the first financial services client for IBM's Jeopardy-playing human-cognitive 'machine' Watson. While IBM expects the financial services segment to provide significant revenues, we worry that Congress will enact some protectionist policy as thousands of highly paid extrapolators analysts are suddenly outsourced to a non-eating, non-bonused, non-champagne-buying, non-tax-paying server farm somewhere. Supposedly Watson offers a 'huge marketing edge' as the government-owned bank is likely to use the uber-computer for "risk management (as opposed to stock picking)" as it offers a 'more global picture' combing through 10-Ks, prospectuses, loan performances, and earnings quality while uncovering sentiment and news not in the usual metrics. We look forward to the next conference call as Vikram is replaced by a Siri-Watson discussion of why TBTF exists.

Obama takes on Syria and Iran in his Netanyahu meeting post-mortem. Every time the President says "Israel", "AIPAC", "Friend", "Syria", "Iran", "Terrorists", "Threat", and "Nuke them out of orbit" everyone does a shot.

In case anyone cares:

• ALLEN STANFORD FOUND GUILTY BY FEDERAL JURY IN HOUSTON - BBG
  
• ALLEN STANFORD FOUND GUILTY ON 13 OF 14 CHARGES - BBG
• STANFORD CONVICTED IN $7 BILLION INVESTMENT FRAUD SCHEME - BBG

Of course, his real crime was not realizing that if you are going to get busted for ponzinomics, you better make sure everyone goes down with you. In the meantime, rejoice, sheep, for the theater of Ponzi crime and punishment continues. Then again one wonders: why are the perpetrators of the biggest Ponzi of all time, i.e., the central bankers, walking free? Or Jon Corzine for that matter?

As if further evidence of the algo-driven maniacal market were needed, for the fourth time since this liquidity infused post-March 2009 ramp began, the S&P 500 has managed to correct after a similar length and magnitude move based on global central bank exuberance. What happens when SkyNet becomes self-aware of this pattern? Each time the ES has managed to pull back to at least its 50DMA.

While we have noted the comparative weakness in European credit and sovereign markets, stocks had so far remained hopeful until today. Bloomberg's broad BE500 index of European stocks fell 2.8% today, its worse performance  since mid-November when the recent rally began. This one-day drop has wiped out the gains of the last five weeks in stocks and credit is even worse as it continues to lead risk lower. European financial stocks are catching up to European credit's weakness (and we note US financial credit is really coming off today). Whether or not to BTFD is the question. We note that this sell-off is much more broad-based with stocks and credit dropping together (instead of just credit last time) and across asset classes the weakness is in CONTEXT with broad derisking. Furthermore, Sovereign credit stress re-emerged with Spain and Italy up 26bps and 18bps on the week as the former is now at almost 4 week wides. At some point, we wonder when MtM losses will hit all those aggressive Italian and Spanish banks who loaded up on chaotically procyclical carry trades?

Welcome to the Crazy House, a rotting McMansion ruled by power-drunk megalomaniacs suffering from delusions of invulnerability and god-like powers. Why are we here, you ask? Because the drunks who run the household make it so darned easy: just keep quiet, listen politely to their ravings, and you get subsidized meals, free rent, a houseful of techno-gadgetry and nonstop entertainment--and that's not even counting the amusement value of their delusional, sloppy-drunk ramblings out by the rust-stained pool.

China had a massive surge in its demand for commodities over the past decade, fueled by its housing boom and infrastructure investment boom. From 2000 to 2010, China’s imports (in value terms) of iron ore surged by 42.5 times, thermal coal 248 times and copper 16.2 times. During the same period, its production (in quantity terms) for aluminum jumped by 441.8%, cement 219.5% and steel 396.0%. It is the biggest consumer in virtually all commodity categories in the world. In Credit Suisse's view, China was the key factor behind the global commodity supercycle. After a period of economic slowdown, all eyes are on China, hoping that the middle kingdom can return to its might in commodity demand. CS cuts through all the cyclical factors and asks whether China's mighty demand for commodities will return in the medium term - their answer is 'No'. As the economy shifts its growth engines away from infrastructure, construction and exports toward consumption, especially service consumption, the propensity of demand for commodities is bound to decline. Getting a massage simply does not use as much steel as building an airport.

In this day and age of pervasive momentum trading, herd-following and unfathomable and sheer "investing" stupidity, it is refreshing to now and then run across forward looking pieces of research that were not only spot on, but ran completely counter to conventional wisdom and groupthink. Such as the following analysis from Kyle Bass' Heyman Capital, which was also the pitchbook for the fund's Subprime fund, which showed, in plain language why Subrpime was not only the class to short, but the implications for the broader market. As a reminder, the fact that Bass made a killing by being one of the first to short subprime, is because the vast majority of the market was dumb enough not to see what he saw. Because it was inconceivable that the Fed could be wrong. After all, throughout 2006 it was none other than the Fed that told everyone who was stupid enough to listen that housing issues were "contained." Ironically, all those same people who lost an arm and a leg believing the Fed are back again, telling everyone to never get in the way of the Fed.

As Apple goes sour (-5% from yesterday's highs) and financials flounder (MS -7% this week), the Dow is suffering its largest single-day loss in 3 months (which is relatively stunning given that it is -150pts or only just over 1% on the day). Under the surface though weakness is considerable across asset classes and sectors (as Materials, Financials, and Energy are the laggards).

Wonder why risk is sliding, and taking crude with it? Here's why:

• DEFENSE SECRETARY PANETTA SAYS THE US WILL TAKE MILITARY ACTION TO PREVENT IRAN FROM ACQUIRING NUCLEAR WEAPON IF ALL ELSE FAILS - RTRS

Guess what - all else will fail, as there is no "all else" - this whole charade has been set up precisely to leave Iran with no options. Then again, even the Pentagon knows that starting with a lower baseline in Crude, supposedly in the double digits, is preferable to a $110 jumping board when Operating Enduring Iran Oil Liberation is a go.