Archive - May 29, 2012 - Story

Just as expected, with the June FOMC coming in fast and furious, the data better start coming in bad to quite bad. Sure enough, here is consumer confidence (not from UMich, but from the Confidence Board, because we need at least two indicators for every economic data point to maintain the Schrodingerian Baffle With Bullshit illusion long and strong) setting us off on the right, er, wrong path, with a 3 sigma miss to expectations of 69.6, dropping precipitously from 69.2 to 64.9, the lowest since January, the third miss in a row, and undoing all the "gains" from the recent bipolar UMichigan consumer confidence which in turn soared for no reason whatsoever. Finally, 12 month inflation expectations drop from 5.8% to 5.6% - not good for a central bank hoping to get consumers to spend or gamble. This is either good or bad for stocks.

I don’t have a problem with Obama — or anyone else — smoking dope. As far as I am concerned, consenting adults have the liberty to do whatever they like so long as they don’t hurt others, or take their liberty or property. I don’t have a problem with Obama — or anyone else — defining themselves by smoking dope.

I have a problem with hypocrisy.

Exit from the Euro would be very painful for Greece. Cut off from the ECB’s liquidity facilities, the Greek banking system would face collapse. And, as foreign lenders cut their credit lines to Greece and depositors struggled to extract their deposits ahead of the banks’ failure, the Greek financial system – and with it the Greek economy – would seize up. Given the costs of exit for both Greece and other Euro area countries, a powerful incentive exists for the two parties to reach a compromise that permits continued Greek membership of the Euro area but in the meantime the pan-European game of chicken continues and with each iteration of this game, the political cost to the two parties involved has increased. Goldman sees three key scenarios from this: Muddle Through (this is their 'Goldilocks' base case and implies continued Greek EMU membership, and ECB funding for Greek banks, but also continued pressure on Greece to reluctantly implement reforms while at the same time the remaining Eurozone countries very gradually deepen their policy integration) - which is modestly positive (though likely more range-bound) for equities and bonds with weak growth and Fed QE3 potentially pushing EURUSD up to 1.40; a Fast Exit (the least likely and most bearish scenario with Greece walking away unilaterally potentially knocking 2 percentage points of Euro-area GDP - even assuming substantial central bank counter-measures - and if the firewall were ineffective, a Euro-unraveling and an associated double-digit fall in Euro-area GDP); and a Slow Exit (Greece excluded once firewalls are in place - with pan-European deposit guarantees now front-and-center as opposed to simple banking bailouts to avoid the now-critical bank-run's contagion - which constitutes modest GDP impacts and compression in risk premia - and appears to what the market is discounting as likely). Simply put CB counter-measures are assumed to save any dramatic downside unless Greece surprises unilaterally.

Following the now long-gone LTRO induced risk ramp through March, many of the C-grade economists out there predicted that housing would bottom in March (this time for real) and it would be smooth sailing from there. Alas, the just released March Case Shiller data puts this latest speculation very much in doubt (once again), following a miss of consensus expectations in the Top 20 Composite of a 0.20% increase, printing at half that, or 0.09%, and more importantly, a decline from the February rate of increase, which was 0.15%. The non-seasonally adjusted number declined by 0.03%, the 7th consecutive drop in a row. All this begs the question: did housing just quadruple dip, with a February local extreme in the Sequential rate of change. As the chart below shows, we had comparable peaks in the summer of 2009, in April 2010, and again in April 2011, following which the downward slide resumed every single time once the temporary benefits of monetary and fiscal easing subsided. Also, recall that March was the last month receiving benefits of a record warm winter: in effect a mini demand pull program. And now comes the hangover. Bottom line: based on a broad index, housing is about to decline once again, and make a total joke out of all those who, yet again, made "bold" annual housing bottom predictions.

... Ten days later the discovery process is complete: Bankia is now the biggest bank failure in Spain's history.

Slowly, surely the largest investors in the world are no longer buying the debt of Europe. Recently the Chinese sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corp., said that they were done and would no longer be buying European debt. The risks are just too great and the way Europe does business is also having a serious effect. You see, Europe does not count any contingent liabilities, sovereign guaranteed debt, derivatives, bank guaranteed debt, regional guaranteed debt or promises to pay for various entities as part of their calculation for their debt to GDP ratios. What can clearly be said then is that the numbers we are given, the data that is flouted day in and day out as accurate is nothing short of a con game built on a Ponzi scheme that rests on the back of a financial system that has been purposefully designed to distort the truth. Regardless of your opinion about all of this there are consequences to this type of manipulation that are in the process of becoming realized. Eventually, when hopes and prayers give way to reality, losses are taken and I submit that we are just at the beginning, just at the start, of seeing realized losses begin to hit balance sheets. The European nations and banks have performed a neat new trick, nailing themselves to the Cross, and it is now only for Pontius Pilate to pick up the spear and begin.

If those in charge are still confused why the general population is not very "appreciative" of the banker social substratum, the following example should provide some color. Following the ever greater public bailout fund black hole that Spain's Bankia has become (first of many zombies), we now learn that one of its financial directors, Aurelio Izquierdo, will be entitled to €14 million in pension and termination benefits. Supposedly in compensation for running the bank straight into the ground after just one year of operation, and lying fabulously about its financial performance, in the process suckering in thousands into investing their hard earned cash so that oligarchs such as Aurelio can promptly retire to a non-extradition locale. And this, dear powers that be, is why the general public continues to scratch its head at how it is remotely possible that incompetent crony capitalists get paid tens of millions for blowing up their firms, while everyone else is stuck footing the soon to be soaring inflation bill (because print they must, and print they will).

A push by the ECB for the euro zone to stand behind banks suffering from bank runs is slowly gaining traction but the bloc has yet to build backstops to prevent, or cope with, a sudden collapse of confidence in banks and mass deposit withdrawals. Last week, European leaders discussed pan European means of supporting banks, measures the ECB hopes will include a bank resolution fund to deal with the fallout from the wind up or restructuring of a failing bank. But a wave of withdrawals by depositors - either for fear that their government is too weak to stand behind its banks or that their country will exit the euro and forcibly convert their savings into a vastly devalued national currency - would represent a crisis of completely new proportions. Greece’s exit and reversion to their national currency, the drachma, could precipitate electronic bank runs in other periphery nations. The risk is that even savers who may trust their bank as being safe, come to the conclusion that there is a risk that their euro deposits may, in the event of a sovereign crisis, be forcibly converted to drachmas, pesetas, liras, punts and escudos.

• JPMorgan dips into cookie jar to offset "London Whale" losses: firm has sold $25 billion to offset CIO losses (Reuters)
• Storied Law Firm Dewey Files Chapter 11 (WSJ)
• The European "Wire Run" - Southern Europeans wire cash to safer north (Reuters)
• Bankia Tapping Depositors for Bonds Leaves Spain on Bailout Hook (Bloomberg)
• Glitches halt new Goldman trade platform (FT) such as reporting prices and seeing trading spreads collapse?
• Japan, China To Launch Yen-Yuan Direct Trading June 1 (WSJ)
• Another fault line? Italy Quake Kills Nine in North of Country (Bloomberg) shortly following another Italian quake
• RIM Writedown Risked With $1 Billion Inventory (Bloomberg)
• China’s Wage Costs Threaten Foreign Investment, EU Chamber Says (Bloomberg)
• Dollar Scarce as Top-Quality Assets Shrink 42% (Bloomberg)

Futures are well bid overnight even though following a modest short covering squeeze of the new record number of EUR shorts, the primary driver of risk, the EURUSD is now back to mere pips above its 2010 lows. It is somewhat confusing why equities are so jubilant about what can only be more imminent bailouts, following statements by the ECB's Nowotny who made it clear that the ECB is not discussing the renewal of bond purchases and that the central bank provides "liquidity not solvency." Adding to the confusion was a release in Chinese daily Xinhua which said that China has no intention of introducing large scale stimulus. All this simply means that the only possible source of liquidity remains the Fed, whose June FOMC decision could make or break the global stock markets, pardon economy, and why this Friday's NFP print is so critical. Absent a huge miss, it will be difficult to see the Chairman pushing through with another $750 bn-$1 trillion in LSAP. Which Europe desperately needs: first we got Italy pricing €8.5 billion in 6 month bills at much worse conditions than April 26, with the yield rising over 2%, or 2.104% to be precise, compared to 1.772% previously, and a BTC of 1.61, declining from 1.71. More importantly, the Spanish economic deterioration gets even worse after Spain just recorded a record (pardon the pun) plunge in retail sales. From AP: 'A record drop in retail sales added to Spain's woes Tuesday as the country struggles to contain the crisis crippling its banking industry and investors remained wary of the country's ability to manage its debt. Retail sales dropped 9.8 percent in April in year-on-year on a seasonally-adjusted basis as the country battles against its second recession in three years and a 24.4 percent jobless rate that is expected to rise. The fall in sales was the 22nd straight monthly decline, and was more than double the 3.8 percent fall posted in March, the National Statistics Institute said Tuesday." So all those focusing on the Greek economic freefall may want to shift their attention west.