Bankia Bailout Costs Rise Again, Now At €19 Billion, €4 Billion Increase Overnight

IAEA Says Has Found Highly Enriched Uranium In Iran

Yesterday, when looking at recent naval developments in the Arabian Sea, we suggested that things involving Iran had gotten quiet. Too quiet. It appears that it may indeed have been the lull before the storm. Just out from Bloomberg and Reuters:

• IAEA SAYS URANIUM PARTICLES ENRICHED UP TO 27% AT FORDOW SITE, HIGHER THAN REPORTED LEVEL
• IRAN DOUBLED 20% URANIUM OUTPUT IN QUARTER, IAEA SAYS
• IAEA INSPECTORS SAY NO GUARANTEE ALL NUCLEAR MATERIAL PEACEFUL
• IRAN TELLS INSPECTORS THAT 27% URANIUM A TECHNICAL GLITCH

As a reminder, Uranium enriched over 20% is considered "Highly Enriched." The only question we have is whether the enrichment level will increase the closer we get to the November presidential election, and whether there is a threshold rating in someone's popularity, pardon, in the enrichment level, which will trigger the Iranian invasion by one or more powers, now that WTI is safely in 9X handle territory and sliding.

European Stocks On Verge Of 50%-Off Greek Light Special

It seems the clarion call for central bank intervention to save us all is growing louder as following Citigroup's imploring letter earlier in the week, SocGen has done its homework on the impact of a Greek exit from the Euro and finds Euro Stoxx could drop by 50% under a contagion scenario. They believe the reason why the eurozone market is holding up relatively well - despite the rising risk of a Greek exit - is that contagion has not really spread yet, which is then 'discounted' away based on expectations of a central bank put to save the world. In the case of a disorderly break-up (the only kind there can be realistically in our view), they expect eurozone profits to decline for two years, a rise in bond yields (raising cost of funds), a rising equity risk premium, and the implicit drop in P/E multiples. A Greek exit alone (with no contagion) would likely knock 10% off Euro Stoxx but the significant rise in correlations across the euro-zone suggests the idiosyncratic becomes systemic very rapidly.

Presenting JPM's Uber-Prop Trading Desk: Meet The SIO Inside The CIO

Remember when Jamie Dimon told the world the CIO stories were a "tempest in a teapot" during the firm's Q1 conference call the very same day we accused the CIO of being the world's biggest prop desk (aside from the Fed of course) and that the JP Morgan was merely "hedging" its positions? It appears that just like Vegas, it's the lie that keeps on giving. Because as it turns out in addition to being a massive undisclosed loss leader courtesy of 'unlimited downside' CDS pair trades (anyone remember DB employee Boaz Weinstein?) which have yet to be unwound, and which may have a total book loss of up to or over $31.5 billion as explained before, that was merely the tip of the prop-trading iceberg. The WSJ reports: "The JPM unit whose wrong-way bets on corporate credit cost the bank more than $2 billion includes a group that has invested in financially challenged companies, including LightSquared Inc., the wireless broadband provider that this month filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. The group within the CIO doing the distressed equity investing is known as the Special Investments Group. Whether it should be part of the CIO in the future is something that Matt Zames, who was put in charge of the CIO this month after the losses were disclosed, is evaluating, according to a person familiar with the bank. He is also examining whether the bank should keep some of these investments, the person said... The Special Investments Group last year took a $150 million stake in closely held LightSquared, in a deal that J.P. Morgan lost money on, according to a person familiar with the bank." But, but, surely they were hedging their offsetting position in er, uhm, non-satellite, telegraph stocks? In yet other words, an SIO within the CIO... once again Wall Street's only value added shines through - baffle them with acronym-based bullshit. And of course, everyone is busy hedging, hedging, the firm's other positions... Or not: as these are pure play directional prop bets. And all are funded by, you guessed it, your deposit dollars. Which one day will go boom, when JPM suffers a loss so large that not even the Fed bails them out any more (Jon Corzine anyone?).

The Ten IPO Commandments

There's been a lot of hand-wringing about busted Initial Public Offerings of late, but the process itself is hardly rocket science.  Like Tolstoy's comment about families, every "Happy" IPO is essentially the same, while every miserable one is different in its own way.  There are rules to the successful IPO, and today we offer up ConvergEx's Nic Colas' manual, a step-by-step checklist for investors to assess if an offering is on track.  From maintaining the illusion of scarcity to managing company and investor expectations, the road from salesforce "teach-in" to final pricing is narrow but well-marked.

Four Euro Divorces But No Funeral (Yet)

"We think the ramifications of a Greek exit are more serious than the market anticipates", is how Morgan Stanley starts their European strategy report this week. They have raised their probability of a Euro break-up to 35% but the most likely outcome they foresee is a Euro divorce with Greece's exit preceded by strong contagion via three main transmission channels: the sovereign, the banking sector, and the political situation. Italy, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal are unsurprisingly the most at risk of material contagion and they recommend investors stay positioned defensively across risky assets as we remain in the 'Crisis' stage of the so-called C.R.I.C. cycle - and they note that unlike so many knife-catching US equity and Italian bond buyers, it is not sensible to try to pre-empt the Response phase of C.R.I.C. cycle. There appears to be four scenarios (and evolutions) for the future of Europe (from Renaissance to Divorce with Staggering On and an awkward 'Italian Marriage' in between) and we drill into the four additional possibilities under the divorce scenario for insight into the effects various risky asset classes will feel in each case.

A Tale Of Two Cities

Euro bonds “didn’t find much support” at the EU conference.
                              -Jean-Claude Juncker

“A majority of European Union leaders at a Brussels summit this week backed joint euro-area bonds.”
                             -Mario  Monti

Encapsulated in these two comments is the problem that Europe is now facing. Two views, two radically different positions and no agreement on a middle ground because there is not one. Of course the periphery countries, the weaker nations want Eurobonds because it would dramatically drop their cost of funding. Of course Germany and their stronger EU countries do not want it because it would dramatically raise their cost of funding. Nations, in the end, will act in their own self-interest, this has been proven more than enough times in history, which is why I stand by my conclusion that Eurobonds will not be forthcoming regardless of the polite rhetoric attached to them.