Archive - May 2012 - Story

We were going to do a caption contest out of this image, but unfortunately this is not funny. It is tragic. Many people will lose all their money, savings, livelihood, and more because of this...

Many floor types think that there is a kind of “rationality put” in the markets. It evolved in the post-Lehman chaos. The premise goes something like this: world leaders were shocked and stunned by the scope and size of the nearly instant damage from Lehman’s fall. That shock caused them to rescue AIG, a far, far bigger project than Lehman. Since then, central banks and governments have stepped in quickly as each new crisis emerged. However, as UBS' Art Cashin notes somewhat ominously, the Greek exit / Euro-breakdown risk has made it hard to exercise a “rationality put” if things turn irrational beyond your control.

I am asked, from time-to-time, why I write about Europe with such frequency. The answer is quite simple; there is nothing more important, nothing that will have a greater impact upon the world’s financial system, nothing that will impact any and all markets more than what is transpiring on the Continent. It is a grand experiment gone bad, a Federalist’s dream floundering in the dust, a vision of Heaven that is being dragged through the narrow gates of Hades and there is no longer any painless way home if home is to be found at all. The notion that there is some sort of decoupling in the marketplace between America and Europe is an adage quoted by the village idiots for the fools listening in the town’s square; nothing more than that.

The major US financial stocks have generally rolled over heavily post their stress-test exuberance, catching up to credit's much more sombre reality the whole time, however - who is right? There remains massive divergences among stock performance, e.g. Morgan Stanley -4.9% YTD or Bank of America +35% YTD and while some individual names have caught up to their credit pricing, US financial stocks have yet to catch up to the reality that broad US financial CDS markets have been pricing for two months...

We wish to welcome former LTCM trader, and current TBAC chairman, Matt Zames to his new post as head of the world's biggest, government backstopped prop trading desk, with a hearty and sincere "good luck." Because an ex-LTCMer in charge of ~$70 trillion in derivatives? Why, what can possibly go wrong...

Ze CDS sovereign rerack... It's baaaaaaack. And it's not happy.

As we have repeatedly said, "Credit anticipates and equity confirms". Last year from Feb to June, credit markets (risk-priced not USD-priced remember) were flashing fundamentally orange-cum-red warning signals of the unreality that was engulfing the nominal price of stocks. We know how that ended as stocks crashed and caught up to credit's weakness. Sure enough, as we have been warning for a month or two now, the same pattern of credit deterioration is occurring this year with equities remaining willfully ignorant of the true reality of a non-QE world. At current levels the credit market is pricing the S&P 500 at around 1275 (which would basically remove YTD/LTRO/Twist gains) but as JPM's efforts extend the credit index losses to better reflect the reality of single-name credit, the situation looks set to get worse. In a QE-world, credit markets remain the only trustworthy 'market' indication of the business cycle.

As reported yesterday, here it is officially:

• JPMORGAN SAYS INA DREW TO RETIRE; MATT ZAMES NAMED NEW CIO
• JPMORGAN SAYS DANIEL TO STAY CEO OF EUROPE/MIDEAST/AFRICA
• JPMORGAN SAYS CAVANAGH TO LEAD TEAM OVERSEEING RESPONSE TO LOSS
• JPMORGAN CHASE SAYS ZAMES NAMED NEW CIO

Good bye Ina: we are sure that you will voluntarily claw back your $15 million bonus from 2011 one day ahead of the JPM shareholder meeting. 

Now... Matt Zames... Matt Zames... where have we heard that name before... OH YES: he just happens to be the Chairman of the Treasury Borrowing Advisory Committee, aka the TBAC, aka the Superommittee that Really Runs America. The Matt Zames who... "previously worked at hedge fund Long-Term Capital Management LP, may have benefited as the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and JPMorgan’s takeover of Bear Stearns Cos. left companies and hedge funds with fewer trading partners in the private derivatives markets." In other words, the US Treasury is telegraphing it is now firmly behind JPM.

As first pointed out here last week, IG9 10Y credit risk has pushed nothing but wider since the JPM news broke. Between the size, common-knowledge, and technical richness of the position, liquidity is providing its helping hand as the legacy credit index is now 25bps worse than last week's lows (and 17bps worse than when JPM announced) - while the on-the-run IG18 is only 10bps wider over this period. Extrapolating the $200mm DV01 we assumed from the initial announced loss and spread movement, this is potentially an additional $3.4bn loss for JPM already (who we can only assume have been trying to unwind). Until the skew (the spread between the index and its components) narrows further - which it is today (though momentum will take over at some point in the index itself) - it is likely that the runaway train will keep going and going, until JPM issues a formal announcement that the firm is fully out of the trade, together with a final tally of its losses, which will probably be double the reported loss as of Thursday. Here is the good news: we are 100.4% certain JPM was the ONLY prop trading bank to be massively, massively short IG9-18 into this epic blow out. Because if other had suffered billion dollar losses, they would all pull a Jamie Dimon and fess up. Right?

Things are moving fast now.

Just because it is always amusing to watch the cognitive dissonance in the head of a permabull, here is Jim 'Soon to be head of the BOE... allegedly' O'Neill's latest missive to (what?) GSAM clients. Yes, the same O'Neill who week after week, letter after letter kept on saying that 2012 is nothing like 2011, finally being forced to admit that 2012 is, as we have been saying since January 1, nothing but 2011, as the central planners' script writers prove painfully worthless at coming up with anything original. That, of course, and that the lifelong ManU fan had to suffer the indignity of interCity rivals picking up the trophy this year after a miraculous come back win against QPR. Oh, the horror...

While gold is now negative year to date in dollar terms, it remains 0.7% higher in euro terms. Gold prices dropped 3.7% last week and silver fell 5.1% to $28.89/oz. The smart money, especially in Asia, is again accumulating on the dip. Demand for jewellery and bullion in India has dipped in recent weeks but should resume on this dip – especially with inflation in India still very high at 7.23%. Also of interest in India is the fact that investment demand has remained robust and gold ETF holdings in India are soon to reach the $2 billion mark. This shows that recent gold weakness is primarily due to the recent bout of dollar strength.  Morgan Stanley has said in a report that gold’s bull market isn’t over despite the recent price falls. Morgan Stanley remains bullish on gold as it says that the ECB will take steps to shore up bank balance sheets, U.S. real interest rates are still negative, investors have held on to most of their exchange traded gold and central banks are still buying gold.

Last week, the Spanish government carried out the biggest financial bailout since the outbreak of the economic crisis. BFA-Bankia (BKIA), the giant which resulted from the merger of seven savings banks only a year and a half ago, was nationalized by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy’s government through the conversion of a 4.5 billion euro holding of preferential shares into equity.  As part of the bailout, and as part of a more comprehensive effort to reform the country’s ailing financial sector announced on Friday, the bank will need to provision additional taxpayers’ money (7-10 billion), which will come in the form of contingency bonds (CoCos). Bankia has put Spain’s financial system under scrutiny from investors and analysts worldwide who worry about the country’s capacity to strengthen its banks while adopting harsh fiscal consolidation policies in the midst of a recession. However, among the many questions raised by Bankia’s nationalization in extremis, there is one that cannot go unanswered: who is responsible?

The failure to form a coalition government in Greece this weekend has prompted risk averse trade across the asset classes this morning with publications across Europe continuing to speculate about the potential exit of Greece from the Euro-area. As a result of this the Spanish 10yr yield touched 6.2% and the respective spreads over benchmark bunds in Spain and Italy have traded as wide as 30bps so far today. The knock on effect has been a sell-off in the financials which has seen the IBEX and FTSE MIB under perform in the equity markets with a relative safe-haven bid into the USD weighing on crude futures and precious metals. Spanish t-bill auctions and a variety of lines tapped out of Italy did stem the tide after selling around the top end of their indicative ranges but focus will remain solely on Greece given a lack of tier 1 data out of the US. Moving forward the next meeting of party heads in Greece is scheduled to commence at 1730BST, however, the head of the Syriza party has already indicated he will not be attending with the leader of the democratic left suggesting he is doubtful that a coalition can be formed.