Archive - Aug 28, 2012 - Story

Beggars can once again be choosers. In other news, non-news (the Catalan bailout was announced at least two times before) is news again, and magically drives the amnesiac market all over again.

Up until now, the title of "Spain's scariest chart" belonged to one depicting its youth (and general) unemployment, both of which are so off the charts it is not even funny (especially to those millions of Spaniards who are currently unemployed). As of today we have a contender for joint ownership of said title - Spain's monthly deposit outflows, which in July hit the highest amount ever, and where the YTD deposit outflow is now the highest on record. One look at the chart below confirms that nobody in Spain got the June 29 Euro summit memo that "Europe is fixed"...

• Ringing endorsement: Lithuania to Adopt Euro When Europe Is Ready, Kubilius Says (Bloomberg)
• Credit Agricole net plunges 67% on losses in Greece and a writedown of its stake in Intesa Sanpaolo SpA (Bloomberg)
• Europe finally starting to smell the coffee: ECB Urging Weaker Basel Liquidity Rule on Crisis Concerns (Bloomberg)
• Japan Cuts Economic Assessment (Reuters)
• France’s Leclerc Stores to Sell Fuel at Cost, Chairman Says (Bloomberg)
• China Eyes Ways to Broaden Yuan’s Use (WSJ)
• Berlin and Paris forge union over crisis (FT)
• Brezhnev Bonds Haunt Putin as Investors Hunt $785 Billion (Bloomberg)
• Republicans showcase Romney as storm clouds convention (Reuters)
• ECB official seeks to ease bond fears (FT)
• German at European Central Bank at Odds With Country’s Policy Makers (NYT)

By now everyone is well aware that the payback for the absolute zero that was August in terms of newsflow and events, the first quiet August in three years, will be September, which as we and others dubbed, will be "Crunchtime" for Europe. And with September now just days away, and with the transitionary Jackson Hole forum virtually assured to be the latest dud, with Draghi surprisingly bowing out at the last minute (even as Buba's Jens Weidmann is still set to attend), and with Bernanke guaranteed to do nothing more than just jawbone some more without real action, the time to refresh on what to expect over the next 30 days has come, courtesy of this annotated calendar from SocGen.

With the market realization slowly dawning that Bernanke will not announce anything of note at this year's Jackson Hole meeting, especially with the NFP number following the symposium expected to demonstrate another improvement in the economy, and ahead of the FOMC meeting in the second week of September, many hopes were resting on the shoulders of Draghi, whose ECB has now become a backup option when it comes to jawboning markets higher on empty promises. It is the same ECB which is also expected to announce something, anything on September 6, or else the market will really get angry after "believing" Draghi back in July as he said, and not delivering anything for two months straight. At this point however, the Jackson Hole meeting appears to be a complete dud because as was just reported, Mario Draghi, who was previously scheduled to speak on August 30, has decided to skip the meeting entirely. According to Bloomberg, citing an ECB official, Draghi won’t be attending Jackson Hole forum this year, and the reason given is "due to workload in coming days."

Yesterday, Spain was kind enough to advise those who track its economy, that things in 2010 and 2011 were in fact worse than had been reported, following an adjustment to both 2010 and 2011 GDP "historical" data. Today, we learn that Q2 data (also pending further downward adjustments), contracted by 0.4% sequentially in Q2, in line with expectations, but somehow, and we have to figure out the math on this, the drop on a Year over Year basis was far worse than expected, printing at -1.3% on expectations of just a -1.0% decline. However, while its economic collapse is well known by all, the surprise came in the deposits department which imploded by a whopping 5% in July, plunging to 1.509 trillion euros at end-July from 1.583 trillion in the previous month. Keep in mind this is after the June 29 European summit which supposedly fixed everything. Turns out it didn't, and the people are no longer stupid enough to believe anything Europe's pathological liar politicians spew.The good news: Greek deposits saw a dead cat bounce after collapsing by ridiculous amounts in the past several years: at this point anyone who puts their money in Greek banks must surely realize that the probability of getting even one cent back is equal odds with going to Vegas and at least having a good time while watching one's money burn.

If the unofficial end of the European summer season comes with the return of those 9-saying Germans who dash every carefully laid plan to stuff German taxpayers with the European bailout bill for the second year running, the official end is when the Greeks come back from their German-sponsored two week vacation in the Cyclades (soon to be known as Nieder-Niedersachsen) and start bombing things. Which is precisely what happened two hours ago. From Reuters: "A makeshift bomb exploded outside a National Bank of Greece branch in Athens early on Tuesday, causing minor damage but no injuries, police said. Windows were smashed and four parked cars suffered minor damage in the blast, which took place about 4 a.m (0100 GMT) in the western suburb of Ilion." Luckily nobody was hurt. However, it would not look good on the front page of German papers that the general Greek population is not ungrateful for the continued ECB recycling of ponzi cash, but has decided to take out an ATM machine or two, which is why... "We suspect it is linked to terrorism," said a police official who declined to be named. Sure enough, when all else fails, blame something: Bush, a glitch, or terrorism.