Archive - Apr 30, 2012 - Story

The markets may decide to play along with the renewed talk of growth and the death of austerity, but it is shocking how quickly writers and the media have latched on to the idea that growth will somehow save us and that the entire problem is the fault of austerity. Although it seems like it has been around for awhile, austerity is fairly new.  I don’t think Greece even got nailed with austerity until May of 2010.  In September 2010 when EFSF and ESM were first officially launched, Portugal and Ireland were both contributing members.  The first time austerity was mentioned in Spain and Italy had to be the summer of 2011, if not later? Until that time, I assume growth was part of the policy of most countries?  I find it hard to believe any country engaged in an anti-growth policy?  Was not every policy in Europe, up until at least 2010 if not beyond, actually a “growth” policy?  Why did they fail to create enough growth to stop the debt crisis? Ah, that is the other problem.  It isn’t just growth that is needed, certainly not to comfort the bond market, it is growth that surpasses the amount spent (borrowed) to create it.

CFTC data from Friday showed that money managers cut long positions on Comex gold futures and options in the week ended April 24 to the lowest level in more than three years. Managed funds slashed 2,225 long positions, or bets prices will rise, and added 2,450 short positions, or bets prices will fall.  The managed-fund net long position was cut by 4% and now represents around 10.7 million troy ounces of gold. This took their net position down 4% to 107,600 long contracts, from 112,275 long contracts. That's the lowest in CFTC data since the week ended Jan. 20, 2009. The low in January 2009 corresponded with the low in the gold price for 2009 - monthly low of $807/oz - prior to seeing gains which saw the gold price rise more than 50% to above $1,200/oz in late November 2009 (see chart below). A similar price gain would see gold rise from $1,663/oz today to $2,494.50/oz in the coming months. Also of note is the fact that large commercial traders have greatly cut back their short positions in gold and especially in silver. This has often been a sign of a bottom and suggests that they do not expect gold and silver to fall much further. In Comex silver futures and options, these traders added 248 long contracts and 2,883 short contracts. This reduced their net long position by 20% to 10,756 contracts, from 13,390 contracts the previous week. The net silver position represents around 53.7 million troy ounces of silver.

• Only the cattle cars are missing: Greece opens detention camp for immigrants as election looms (Reuters)
• China really wants that Iran oil - China mulls guarantees for ships carrying Iran oil (Reuters)
• U.S. eyes testy China talks, Chen backer expects Chinese decision (Reuters, FT)
• Possible arsenic poisoning probed in death of coroner's official (LA Times)
• Europe’s Anti-Austerity Calls Mount as Elections Near (Bloomberg)
• Law firm Dewey dumps executive; talks with rival end (Reuters)
• Greek bank appeals for fresh equity (FT)
• Banks seek to put pressure on small rivals (FT)
• Obama falls short of meteoric expectations abroad (Reuters)

Another day of ugly news out of Europe, with both macroeconomic and monetary data coming in to confirm that downward slope of the European forward trajectory (not to mention funny: below is a chart of Greek retail sales. Hardly any commentary is necessary). Yet despite some recently gravity in the EURUSD, for the time being the futures are trending flat to slightly down, perfectly ambivalent as to how will ease first as long as someone eases. Will this sustain, or will a disappointing Chicago PMI at 9:45 am once again send stocks first plunging then soaring on hope of imminent NEW QE? We will find out shortly. In the meantime, here is a recap of the overnight market action.

Goldman summarizes what to look forward to in the next few days, when once again fundamental will be ignored and all attention will be on the ECB. "The Week ahead will be dominated by global PMI and US labour market data as the two key releases. A few central banks meetings are on schedule, but market consensus suggests clearly that that ECB will not change its policy, while the RBA will likely cut interest rates by 25bp. There are also central bank meetings in Columbia, Thailand and the Czech Republic.  The impact of these events on the FX markets, in particular the key activity data, will mainly be driven by the usual risk-on/risk-off mechanics. Moreover, with cyclical data generally weakening, chances are that risk-off currencies could perform relatively better this week. Some additional Yen strength is therefore possible, as well some under-performance of pro-cyclical currencies. The AUD may be worth some particular attention with the RBA meeting this week and the Chinese PMI - both key drivers of the currency."

One of the more mythical aspects of the LTRO, at least during its conception, is that the ECB repo operation would facilitate the diffusion of credit and loans to the broader population (and only subsequently was it made clear that the LTRO was there merely to prevent the disorderly insolvency of European banks). Alas, today's liquidity update from Europe shows that absolutely nothing is happening as planned, because even as broader money may have picked up, loans are once again declining.

There was a time in late 2011 and early 2012 when people kept track of cash deposited with the ECB with great interest as it showed just where the latent money in the Eurosystem is going, or rather wasn't (and receiving 0.25% from the ECB in exchange for the 1.00% funding cost to borrow LTRO repos from the ECB, an inverse carry trade if you will). Subsequently it was shown that there is at least one liquidity rotation before the money reenters the ECB, as Spanish and Italian banks were busy buying up sovereign paper (now at a P&L loss since the onset of LTRO 1, never mind 2, and as noted earlier, with haircuts on Spanish paper about to go up by another 5%, the toxic liquidity spiral is about to resume), and that the bulk of the cash actually came in from "Northern" Europe where maturing risk paper was not rolled and instead was dumped with Mario Draghi. One thing is certain: this money was not re-entering the broader economy, but who cares about the people any longer. Well, it may be time to start caring about the ECB daily deposit update, because as of Friday, €793.6 billion was deposited with the ECB - an increase of €2.2 billion overnight, €18 billion compared to a week ago, and the highest since the €816 billion deposited on March 13.

The good news: Spanish Q1 GDP printed -0.3% on expectations of a -0.4% Q/Q decline. Unfortunately this is hardly encouraging for the nearly 25% of the labor force which is unemployed, and for consumers whose purchasing habits imploded following record plunges in retail sales as observed last week. The bad news: Spain now joins at least 10 other Western countries which have (re) entered a recession. Per DB: "Spain will today likely join a growing list of Western Developed world countries in recession. Last week the UK was added to a recession roll call that includes Greece, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Czech Republic, and Slovenia. Debt ladened countries with interest rates close to zero have limited flexibility to fight the business cycle and this impotency will continue for many years." Alas, the abovementioned good news won't last: from Evelyn Hermman, economist at BNP - "The Pace of Spain’s economic contraction may increase in coming quarters as austerity measures bite more sharply." Of course, it is the "good news" that sets the pace each and every day, as the bad news is merely a further catalyst to buy, buy, buy as the ECB will allegedly have no choice but to do just that when the time comes. And something quite surprising from DB's morning comment: "If it were us in charge we would allow more defaults which would speed up the cleansing out of the system thus encouraging a more efficient resource allocation in the economy at an earlier stage." Wait, this is Deustche Bank, with assets which are nearly on par with German GDP, saying this? Wow...