Archive - Sep 2012 - Story

A month ago we warned that loan delinquencies in Spain were bad and getting worse at a concerning rate. The most recent data update, which revised that 'bad' print to absolutely dismal, has broken records for just how ugly things are for Rajoy and his fellow countrymen. Spanish bank loan delinquencies rose to an all-time (50-year) record 9.86% with the last four months seeing simply unprecedented acceleration in the rate of bad loans. Numerically, this means that an absolutely whopping €172 billion of the €1.7 trillion in Spanish financial assets is now money bad, and will no longer  generate cash flows. This amounts to about 17% of total Spanish GDP. In GDP-equivalent terms, this would be equivalent to $2.5 trillion in US bank loans being "bad." Which, when one cuts all the prevarication and lies, is probably what the true status of the US financial system is. Add to this the now relentless deposit flight which is depleting Spanish bank coffers and one can see why the European credit death spiral is very aptly named.

As the FT reports today “In early scenes from Goethe’s tragedy, Mephistopheles persuades the heavily indebted Holy Roman Emperor to print paper money – notionally backed by gold that had not yet been mined – to solve an economic crisis, with initially happy results until more and more money is printed and rampant inflation ensues.”  The classic play highlighted, Weidmann argued, “the core problem of today’s paper money-based monetary policy” and the “potentially dangerous correlation of paper money creation, state financing and inflation”. In yesterday’s speech in Frankfurt, Goethe’s birthplace, he said: “The state in Faust Part Two is able at first to rid itself of its debts while consumer demand grows strongly and fuels a strong recovery. But this later develops into inflation and the monetary system is destroyed by rapid currency depreciation.” The name Mephistopheles as used by Goethe comes from the Hebrew word for destroyer or liar.   Mephistopheles is a fallen archangel, one of the 7 great princes of Hell and in Goethe’s ‘Faust.’ Mephistopheles is acting for his overlord Satan and seals the pact with Faust. Weidmann is suggesting that the ECB’s current monetary policies are a Faustian pact or a pact with the Devil and that they secure short term gain but will end in the disaster of rampant inflation.

Amidst the debates on what the US should do to re-establish an era of prosperity, there are a lot of references in the media and at political conventions to the "Clinton Recovery". This refers to the period from 1992 to 2000, the best in post-war history: 19% equity returns, 3.8% annualized real GDP growth, monthly payroll gains of 265,000 (adjusted for today’s population) and an average budget deficit of less than 2% of GDP. As Michael Cembalest of JPMorgan notes, applying a President’s name to a recovery or recession always seems to be a case of artistic license; you might as well call it "The Kardashian Recovery" in some cases, given how little Presidential policies had to do with it. Most of the time, domestic and global business cycles, monetary policy and other factors were the primary drivers. However, to recreate the policy conditions which prevailed would require a centrist - who most likely would have been excommunicated by his party for heresy as the political middle ground occupied by the party non-conformists is gone.

Fishing boat armada? Check; Threat to dump JGBs? Check; One thing was missing, and that was cyberwarfare, aka #OccupyJapaneseServers. That too has now been checked. Globe and Mail reports that at least 19 Japanese websites, including those of a government ministry, courts and a hospital, have come under cyber attack, apparently from China, police said Wednesday. Many of the websites were altered to show messages proclaiming Chinese sovereignty over the Diaoyu islands, a Japanese-administered chain Tokyo calls Senkaku, the National Police Agency (NPA) said in a statement. The NPA has confirmed that about 300 Japanese organisations were listed as potential targets for cyber attack on the message board of Honker Union, a Chinese “hacktivism” group, it said.

The August housing starts number was a disappointment, printing at 750K on expectations of a rise to 767K from last month's 746K, now revised lower to 733K. This would have been a boost to a market trained to expect more QE on any economic weakness, if only all QE in perpetuity, and certainly at leat $85 billion in monthly flow, was not already priced in. As a result, we are slowly getting to the dreaded point where bad news is once again bad news, at which all faith in the Fed as a monetary policy vehicle is lost (since Fiscal policy is now perpetually deadlocked). If there was any good news, it was in the single family starts which printed at 535K in August, a rise of 28K from July, and the highest since April 2010 (when housing had again "bottomed") driven by a surge in new building in the Midwest to 134K, from 111K. Finally housing permits which are nothing but noise, declined but beat expectations modestly. Since permits are a completely meaningless category and are purely used by hedge funds to game the market (they cost a token amount of money to procure, involve no actual work, and are there merely to frame the "housing has bottomed" trope time after time, until disproven), just like Libor, there is no point to observe them.

It appears that the Central Banks have finally reached Peak Efficacy, after shooting themselves in the head with Bernanke's asinine QEternity which leaves nothing else to be priced in. Last night's JPY10 trillion fact (no longer rumor, whisper, or promise) of more LSAP from the BoJ had its typical knee-jerk reaction but within 5 hours it was 50% retraced and now at 9 hours the entire move (and its accompanying S&P 500 future's correlated risk-on surge) have been fully retraced. In other news, there is a rumor that the Bank of Zambia is contemplated proceeding with open-ended easing to infinity and beyond. Sadly, none of this matters at all any more as monetary policy is no longer a factor in a world in which all the future CTRL-Ping is already accounted for.

Anti-Japan protests may have quieted down on the day after the anniversary of Japan's invasion of China (which is not saying much: after disappearing for two weeks, perhaps in some Las Vegas strip club, the Chinese leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping denounced Japan's decision to buy disputed islands "as a farce" on Wednesday and said Tokyo should "rein in its behavior"), but that does not mean anything has been resolved, and the Chinese 1000 boat armada is still supposedly on its way to the Senkakus. Elsewhere, the US foreign department may have to promptly find an anti-Buddhist hate tape made in the US, because otherwise the attack of the US ambassador Gary Locke's car in Beijing may have to be explained using good old fashioned simmering hatred and anti-American sentiment without an actual inflamatory event. LA Times reports: "The car of the U.S. ambassador to China was surrounded by a small group of demonstrators on Tuesday, who damaged the vehicle and briefly prevented it from entering the U.S. Embassy compound in Beijing. A YouTube video of the incident showed the protesters chanting slogans such as “down with the U.S. imperialists” and, in an apparent reference to the Chinese government’s purchase of U.S. government debt, “return the money!”

The BoJ obediently submitted to pressure from stimulus addicted markets and announced yet another expansion to its JGB buying program. The program now stands at JPY 80trl, the expansion impacts only JGBs and T-Bills, both of which will be monetized by a further JPY 5trl. As a result, risk assets rallied overnight in Asia and in turn supported European equity markets in early trade. However, the half life of the latest policy easing action from the BoJ proved to be very short-lived and as the session progressed, the risk on sentiment quickly subsided. As such, as we enter the North American cross over, equity markets in Europe are seen lower, led by tech and financial stocks.  Elsewhere, Bunds topped yesterday’s high and look set to make a test on the 140.00 level should the sentiment deteriorate further. Nevertheless, peripheral bond yield spreads are actually tighter today, with the Spanish 10y bond yield spread tighter by 9bps and the shorter dated 2y bond tighter by 24bps vs. German equivalent. EUR/USD and GBP/USD edged lower throughout the session, currently trading in close proximity to intraday option expiry levels at 1.3000 and 1.6200 respectively. Going forward, the second half of the session will see the release of the latest housing data, as well as the weekly DOE report.

• Deposit Flight From Europe Banks Eroding Common Currency (Bloomberg)
• BOJ eases monetary policy as global slowdown bites (Reuters)
• Stalled Rally Puts Pressure on Spain (WSJ)
• Missed Chances Stoke Skepticism Over EU’s Crisis Fight (Bloomberg)
• Germany's big worry: China, not Greece (Reuters)
• Goldman names new CFO, heralding end of an era (Reuters)
• Russia Demands U.S. Agency Halt Work (WSJ)
• Fed’s Dudley Says Easing Vital to Spur Too-Slow Growth (Bloomberg)
• Romney under fire from all sides (FT)
• Poland cuts red tape to spur growth (FT)
• IMF to Put Argentina on Path to Censure Over Inflation Data (Bloomberg)

Those who expected a major response following the surprising, and "preemptive" easing by the Bank of Japan which has now joined the freely CTRL-Ping club of central banks, and went to bed looking for a major pop in risk this morning will be disappointed. The reason is that with every passing day that Spain does not request a bailout, all those who bought Spanish bonds on the assumption that Spain will request a bailout look dumber and dumber (a dynamic we explained nearly two months ago). As a result, the EURUSD has been dragging ever lower, and is now playing with 1.30 support. Providing no additional clarity was Spanish deputy PM Soraya Saenz de Santamaria who said Spain will decide if and when to trigger an ECB bailout once all details have been analyzed. Well the details have been more than analyzed, and Spain has been more than happy to receive the benefits of its bailout, it has yet to trigger the cause. Ironically in a Barclays study,over 78% of investors see Spain requesting a bailout by year end (even though as we explained over the weekend Spain really has to do this ahead of its major cash drawing bond redemption schedule in October when it may well run out of cash). And so, just like the US Fiscal Ceiling, the global markets are expecting some Catchy 22 deus ex machina, where traders can get their cake and politicians can eat it too. Alas, there never is such a thing as a free lunch. And what is making the much needed outcome even less probable is that Spanish bonds this morning are actually trading tighter once again making a bailout less than likely. The Spanish zombie has left its grave and is now romping through the neighborhood unsupervised.

It seems like only yesterday that we were lamenting "Einstein rolling over in his grave" as a result of the BOJ's latest increase in its asset purchase program from Y65 to Y70 trillion, although technically it was 5 months ago on April 27. We would excuse Einstein if he were doing cartwheels in his grave right about now, following the BOJ's latest attempt to keep doing what has definitvely failed for 30 years, hoping this time it will be different, as a result of the just announced latest expansion in the asset purchase program's size by yet another Y10 trillion, this time to a total of Y80 trillion. The expansion impacts only JGBs and T-Bills, both of which will be monetized by a further Y5 trillion. Putting this in perspective, Japan's total public debt is Y1 quadrillion, and counting very fast. All other components of the Japanese LSAP program, including CP, Corporate Bonds, ETFs and REITs (yes, unlike the Fed, the BOJ is quite open about its equity and corporate bond purchases) remain the same. Bottom line, just as we predicted back in July 2009, the global race to debase continues unabated, and as a result of QEternity will merely accelerate until the only true currency is gold tungsten.

Ongoing grand plans to flood the economy market with money have reminded Bundesbank's Jens Weidmann of the scene in the play Faust - when the devil (Mephistopheles) 'disguised as a fool', convinces an emperor to issue large amounts of paper money - which solves the kingdom's financial problems in the short-term but ends rather badly in rampant inflation. As The Telegraph notes, without specifically mentioning Mario Draghi’s bond-buying programme, he said: “If a central bank can potentially create unlimited money from nothing, how can it ensure that money is sufficiently scarce to retain its value?” He added: “Yes, this temptation certainly exists, and many in monetary history have succumbed to it,” Mr Weidmann warned.

The great day has come and gone when the Fed would once again ride to the action, not daring to be left behind by the ECB’s perverse vaunting of its new ‘unlimited’ programme of bond purchases. But the few, brief sentences from Bernanke contain such a miasma of error that it is hard to know where to begin if we are to restore a fresh breeze of economic rationale to this swamp of non sequiturs and wilful misunderstandings. It is not enough that crude, Krugmanite Keynesianism clings to the cheap parlour trick of using money illusion to fool unemployed wage-earners into lowering the reservation price of their labour, but now we must battle against banal, Bernankite Bubble-blowing – the hope that money illusion will fool cash-constrained asset owners instead. It is not only that Bernanke’s policies will inevitably assist the zombie companies and the obsolescent industries to absorb scarce resources (not least on bank balance sheets) to a much greater degree than is justified, there is also the danger that lax money misleads even today’s supramarginal businesses into over-estimating the depth and duration of demand for their products, ultimately undermining many otherwise sound undertakings and reducing these, too, when the cycle next turns, to the ranks of the Living Dead.

It is one thing for tungsten-filled gold bars to appear in the UK, or in Germany: after all out of sight, and across the Atlantic, certainly must mean out of mind, and out of the safe. However, when a 10 ounce 999.9 gold bar bearing the stamp of the reputable Swiss Produits Artistiques Métaux Précieux (PAMP, with owner MTP) and a serial number (serial #038892, likely rehypothecated in at least 10 gold ETFs across the world but that's a different story), mysteriously emerges in the heart of the world's jewerly district located on 47th street in Manhattan, things get real quick. Moments ago, Myfoxny reported that a 10-ounce gold bar costing nearly $18,000 turned out to be a counterfeit. The discovery was made by the dealer Ibrahim Fadl, who bought the PAMP bar in question from a merchant who has sold him real gold before. "But he heard counterfeit gold bars were going around, so he drilled into several of his gold bars worth $100,000 and saw gray tungsten -- not gold. The bar was filled with tungsten, which weighs nearly the same as gold but costs just over a dollar an ounce."