Archive - Mar 18, 2013 - Story

Deposit Insurance at a bank, any bank in Europe, is now meaningless. A bond indenture, any clause, any paragraph, any promise or assurance; now meaningless. The notion of private property, land, cash, house; now meaningless. The European Union will take what they want as they deem it necessary and the IMF will follow along. The question has been asked, during the last few days, why the bond holders of Cyprus were not tagged along with the bank deposits. We can answer the question. Virtually all of the Cyprus sovereign debt is governed under British law and so the EU did not pursue this course. Greece came first. Lesson one and "shame on you." Cyprus comes second and now "shame on me." What will come next? What will you tell your partners or your shareholders when they say, "You should have known." You will have no excuse!

Can't get enough of Cyprus? Then here is yet another post-post-mortem from Goldman's Jernej Omahen, once more trying to put some very silvery lining on this particular mushroom cloud, and providing some useful facts in the process. "As part of its rescue package, Cyprus introduced a one-off tax on deposits. This “tax” can be viewed as both (1) a depositor bail-in, and/or (2) a wealth tax. Cyprus aims to capture €5.8 bn of tax revenue in this way, which compares to the total bailout package of €10 bn. In absolute terms, the amounts are low; regardless, the market focus on potential read-across will be high, in our view. The tax on depositors is setting a precedent, which is likely to have an impact beyond the immediate term, in our view. Resilience of, in particular, retail deposits was an important element of stability during crisis peaks (e.g., Spain). Post the Cyprus precedent, however, it is reasonable to expect that the deposit volatility in stressed sovereigns could rise, for two reasons: firstly, perceived risk of deposit bail-in will have increased; secondly (independent of failing bank issues), perceiving savings as a potential tax-base – for wealth taxes – is new."

• Cypriot Bank Levy Is ‘Ominous’ for Bondholders, Barclays Says (BBG)
• Euro, Stocks Drops; Gold, German Bonds Rally on Cyprus (BBG)
• Total chaos:Cyprus tries to rework divisive bank tax (Reuters)
• More total chaos: Cyprus Prepares New Deposit-Tax Proposal (WSJ)
• Euro Slides Most in 14 Months on Cyprus Turmoil; Yen Strengthens (BBG)
• Osborne to admit fresh blow to debt target (FT)
• Even the Finns are giving up: Finnish Government May Relinquish Deficit Target to Boost Growth (BBG)
• Moody’s Sees Defaults as PBOC Warns on Local Risks (BBG)
• Australia Faces ‘Massive Hit’ to Government Revenue, Swan Says (BBG)
• Inside a Warier Fed, Watch the New Guy (Hilsenrath)
• Obama to Tap Perez for Labor Secretary (WSJ) - and with that the "minorities" quota is full
• Finally, this should be good: BuzzFeed to Launch Business Section (WSJ)

Moments ago we got news that the same kind of "depositor repression" aka wealth tax just implemented in Cyprus over the weekend, may spread to other stability and deposit havens. Such as Switzerland. Just before 7 am Eastern, the SNB's Moder, who is an alternative board member, said on the wires that the SNB will not exclude negative interest rates, which followed earlier comments from the IMF that the SNB should have negative rates if there is a renewed surge in the Swissie, and a plunge in the EURCHF, as has happened as the Euro has tumbled. Sure enough, the EURCHF soared on news that even Europe's last remaining deposit bastion is about to be impaired, because all negative rates are is an ongoing deposit confiscation, instead of a one-time "levy" as per Cyprus.

As expected, it is all about Cyprus this morning, and overnight, and just as naturally it wouldn't be a centrally-planned market without the generic BTFD overnight ramp attempt, which we got from the EURUSD, as the pair rose from sub 1.29 to 1.2973, which also pushed the US futures up to nearly fill half the overnight gap lower. Citi explained this, observing the "EUR/USD squeezed higher on reports Cyprus bailout terms may be eased, CitiFX Wire says", but it did add that "selling was likely to materialize; flow has 60% bias in favor of downside, Seeing heavy net selling, mainly from leveraged funds." Naturally, the market does what it does best - clutches at straws, although not even this centrally-planned market could ignore news that today's Cyprus parliament vote has been cancelled, that banks will likely remain closed tomorrow, and that a vote may not happen until Friday, which likely means the bank holiday is about to stretch to one week, and possibly much longer as Cyprus is terrified to open its banks to the fury of scrambling "bank-runners." Things started to get interesting following another RIA report citing finance minister Siluanov, that Russia may reconsider its role in the Cyprus rescue following the bank tax. Siluanov added that bank tax breaks the plan for joint steps on Cyprus and that the decision was made without Russia.