Archive - Jun 19, 2013 - Story

With better access to credit, housing, jobs and overall standard of living than probably anyone in their family has ever experienced, you would think that the average Brazilian would have little reason to hit the streets. And yet, they are. While the credit-fueled boom has been great and looks likely to continue for at least a little while longer, the reality of a government that has made little real progress improving the overall standard of living is becoming all too obvious. The protestors are frustrated.  Frustrated with persistent inflation – that hits them much harder than the upper classes who in many ways benefit from it.  Frustrated with corruption – while the Brazilian congress tries to pass a law that would limit the number of corruption cases that can be brought.  Frustrated with inefficient government – the infrastructure development for the World Cup and Olympics is already running up against cost overruns with projects of questionable long-term value.  But mostly frustrated that due to all of this incompetence, they could lose all of the gains they made since 2002. Changing Brazil’s well-established rich/poor, connected/unconnected, boom/bust political and financial system will be difficult in the extreme.

For the past several years, a firmly entrenched psyche of ‘win-win’ for risk-taking behavior has dominated. The thinking has been that the Fed would either help achieve a sustained recovery (allowing distorted prices to be validated by economic fundamentals), or the FOMC would provide more price-boosting liquidity. Now, faith in this proposition is slowly being eroded. Global central banks have collectively provided $11 trillion in liquidity over the past several years. The initial moves were taken to spark domestic demand, but some recent external actions have been retaliatory in nature, implemented as a means to influence currency levels. These new forms of hostilities are indications that the external ramifications of QE policies may no longer be passively tolerated.

Almost 50 years ago, JFK immortalized the donut with his comment "Ich bin ein Berliner," with pressure from Merkel to come clean on the NSA's efforts, we wonder if the current US President will admit, "Ich bin ein Berlistener," as he delivers a speech from The Brandenburg Gate.

The housing market 'recovery' has provided substantial support to the U.S. economic growth. The housing-related activities, which Guggenheim's Scott Minerd defines as private residential investment, personal expenditures on household durable goods, and utilities, as well as consumption wealth effect from home price appreciation, have positively contributed to real GDP growth for five consecutive quarters. In the first quarter of 2013, housing-related activities contributed more than half of the growth in the real GDP. That seems a significant burden to be carrying for a sector now seeing data disappointing already expectations, mortgage applications plunging, furniture sales plunging, and REIT IPOs being pulled.

If anyone is still not convinced that surging stock bourses in Europe are indicative of anything more than central bank liquidity, carry trade allocation and localized asset bubbles, we present a snapshot of what is actually happening on the ground via Italy's Ansa: "It's a massacre," said Confesercenti President Marco Venturi. "Each day 134 shops, restaurants and bars close in recession-hit Italy, retail association Confesercenti said on Wednesday. Confesercenti, which represents small and medium-sized businesses in the retail and tourism sectors, said 224,000 enterprises had closed their shutters since the start of the global economic crisis in 2008.

While Fed officials are at pains to point out that their two policy tools (asset purchases and rates) the markets continue to link them and the latest increase in Taper chatter has dragged expectations for the first rate hike dramatically forward. Just a month ago, expectations were as late as Jan 2016 but Fed Funds futures have collapsed in recent weeks to imply rate hikes begin in Jan 2015 - a level of 'tightening' not seen since early Summer last year. Bernanke has stated that his communication is aimed at "reducing the risk that market misperceptions of [FOMC] intentions would lead to unnecessary interest rate volatility," but just as with Kuroda, the market seems to not be agreeing and, as we note below, there appears a good, bad, and ugly 'taper' scenario for today.

• China cash crunch deepens as PBOC withholds funding (FT), just a week behind ZH
• Platts in hot manipulated crude again: Traders Try to Game Platts Oil-Price Benchmarks (WSJ)
• Kabul Suspends Security Talks With U.S., jeopardizing plans to maintain a U.S. military presence (WSJ)
• Afghan government irked over U.S. talks with Taliban (Reuters)
• BOJ Kuroda: BOJ to Adjust Policy If Japan Econ Changes (MNI)
• Google Considering Private-Equity Alliances (BBG)
• Korean Air Buying 747-8s to End Boeing’s Sales Drought (BBG)
• Syria's Islamists seize control as moderates dither (Reuters)
• SEC considers policy shift on admissions of wrongdoing (FT)
• U.K. Banker Bonuses Face Decade Delays in Industry Overhaul (BBG)

50 years ago to the week, when JFK spoke in Berlin, his speech made history. Today, the US president is in Germany again... and in a far less historic and moving speech is scrambling to explain why the NSA is listening to and recording all German communications. Watch it live below.

While all eyes and ears will conveniently and expectedly be on the Fed announcement and press conference in a few hours, the real action continues to take place in China, where the liquidity crunch is becoming unbearable for the local banks (and will only get worse the longer Bernanke and Kuroda keep their hot money policies). The CNY benchmark money-market one-week repo rate was 138bp higher overnight to a 2 year high of 8.15%. The 7 day Interest-Rate swap rose for a record 13th day in a row jumping +10 bps to 4.08%, the highest since September 2011. China sold 10 Year bonds at a 3.50% yield, above the 3.47% expected, and at a bid to cover of 1.43 which was the lowest since August 2012. Moody’s commented that local government financing vehicles (LGFVs) pose significant risks to Chinese banks. LGFVs accounted for 14% of loan portfolios at end-2012 according to Moody’s.