fixed

Mounds of cold, hard, indisputable evidence not found ANYWHERE else! Damn, you thought Cyprus was newsworthy? Ireland already Troika'd & they're bigger than Cyprus. Depositor recap of banks looks inevitable if this research is right!

It begins here: Introduction of cold, hard evidence of bank shenanigans (with complete documentation) that A) should be prosecuted & B) cause enough concern to make you worry about your bank's integrity. 

As the holiday weekend starts and quarter ends, what better time is there to go out on a new S&P 500 Index high? The new high was in the cards.

One thing bulls should worry about is a report that pension plans may rebalance as much as $29-35 billion out of stocks to bonds and other assets with the quarter end. We’ll see how that works this coming week.

You should be recieving about 46% interest to compensate for the risk of using a Cyprus bank! Use this calculator to determine how much interest your EU (that's right, it ain't just Cyrpus) bank should be paying you. Guaranteed your getting ripped off! Wake up, and smell the confiscation coffee.

Moments ago, as we prepare to put Q1 2013 to a close with a bout of window dressing that will send the S&P to all time highs, we got the final Q4 2012 GDP revision: a number largely meaningless, although it does put closure to the economy in 2012. And as with all economic numbers in the past year, it was not pretty, coming in at 0.37%, below estimates of a 0.5% print, although modestly better than the second Q4 revision when it was 0.14%. The full breakdown by various components is shown below, with the most notable, Personal Consumption Expenditures, showing a gradual and consistent decline over the past three months as it was revised relentlessly lower, dropping from 1.52% in the first revision, to 1.47% in the second, to 1.28% in the final. Offsetting this was a jump in Fixed Investment which rose to 1.69%, the highest since Q3 2011. Supposedly this implies that capital spending is soaring, when in reality companies continue to curb CapEx plans, instead focusing on short term shareholder gains such as buybacks and dividends, which is to be expected in the absence of any actual end-demand.

The big news out of Europe is whether or not Cyprus will be a template for future bailouts. Having seen that issues like personal property, rule of law, and democracy got thrown out of the window in Cyprus as soon as things got hairy, investors and depositors throughout Europe are panicked as to whether they will be targeted next when the next European Domino starts to fall.

While everyone likes to hate on Cyprus, it is Italy that is the focal point of today's European "omnishambles" that has seen the EURUSD tumble to a five month low as of this writing. First it was economic data that scared investors, with Industrial Sales and Orders tumbling far below expected, posting numbers of -1.3% and -1.4%, respectively, on expectations of an increase. Retail sales were just as ugly, declining by -0.5% in January, on expectations of an unchanged print, with the December 0.2% number revised also into negative territory. Then Bersani, who has been tasked to form a government until tomorrow, said that the possibility of a broad coalition government does not exist, adding that no lasting government is possible without him as a premier, and requesting that Grillo's Five Star party not block his path to government, for which we wish him the best of luck as moments later Five Star ruled out all external support for a broad government and would vote no confidence for Bersani. Then we got news that the Italian financial police has searched the Nomura in Milan in connection with the Monte Paschi case, which means even more skeletons in the closet are about to be uncovered. Finally, Italy just held a 3.5% 5 and 4.5% 10 year bond auction in which the country raised less than the maximum targeted €7 billion, and in which the Bid to Cover on the 5 Year dumping to the lowest since 2002, with bidding quite soft and the yield rising to 3.65% versus 3.59% previously. This has resulted in a blow out in Italian yields by 16 bps to 4.73% compared to 4.705% earlier. End result, as noted yesterday, has been an acceleration in the rush out of the EUR, with the EURUSD sliding to under 1.28 for the first time since November 21, a blow out in Greek bonds with yields pushing up 55 bps to 12.68% and a push for real safety (sorry, not the DJIA) in the form of German 2 Year bonds, which have dipped to -0.018%, the lowest since December, on rising fears that despite endless lies out of its bureaucrats, Europe may not be fixed after all.

As we previously expected, 2013 has started in a strikingly similar vein to 2012 and 2011 and we are nearing that deja-vu turning point once again. However, the extreme relative outperformance of stocks to bonds in Q1 suggests very sizable quarter-end pension-fund rebalancing flows - and perhaps today's ramp was perfectly presented to enable that into the next two days. UBS expects US defined benefit funds to do sizable Q1 quarter-end rebalancing - anticipating $29-35 billion of equity outflows and perhaps as much as $15-19 billion of fixed income inflows. Equity outflows should be dominated by domestic stocks, with $22-27 billion of large cap and $10-12 billion of small cap sales. Furthermore, reading through the recent 10K statements of large corporate pension sponsors, they note consistent, and growing, interest in liability-driven strategies and even full-blown de-risking - supporting high grade long and intermediate government and corporate bonds. Not only are the flows pointing in a similar direction but the catalysts are lining up too.

Curious how in the New Normal a nation is brought to its untimely end without a single shot being fired? Dimos Dimosthenous, who has worked at the Bank of Cyprus for over 30 years, explains:

"That will be the end. Our jobs, our rights, our welfare funds will be lost and Cyprus will be destroyed."

In short: not with a bang, but a bailout.

Barclays index of high yield bond total returns is now 63% higher that its pre-crisis peak. This compares to an equivalent total return index for the S&P 500 was only 12% (and it has yet to break the October 2007 highs). These numbers are astronomical in the face of micro- and macro-fundamentals and while equity markets remain the policy tool du jour for the central planning elite, it appears they are perhaps starting to become a little concerned that driving all the retiring boomers 'safe' money into risky bets may not end so well. Just as Alan Greenspan stepped on the throat of equity markets with his now infamous 'irrational exuberance' speech, we wonder, as Bloomberg notes, if last night's speech to the Economic Club of New York by Bill Dudley is the new normal equivalent, as he noted, "some areas of fixed income - notably high-yield and leveraged loans - do seem somewhat frothy," just as we warned here. With the high-yield index trading at 5.56% yield - the lowest in over 25 years and loans bid at 98.27 (the highest since July 2007), perhaps he is right to note, "we will need to keep a close eye on financial asset prices."

It is clear now that we must have been wrong about the economy. No more proof is needed than the fact the Dow has gone up 1,500 points. Everyone knows the stock market reflects the true health of the nation – multi-millionaire Jim Cramer and his millionaire CNBC talking head cohorts tell us so. Ignore the fact that the bottom 80% only own 5% of the financial assets in this country and are not benefitted by the stock market in any way. It is time to open your eyes and arise from your stupor. Observe what is happening around you. Look closely. Does the storyline match what you see in your ever day reality? It is them versus us. Whether you call them the invisible government, ruling class, financial overlords, oligarchs, the powers that be, ruling elite, or owners; there are powerful wealthy men who call the shots in this global criminal enterprise. No amount of propaganda can cover up the physical, economic, social, and psychological descent afflicting our world. There’s a bad moon rising and trouble is on the way.

As part of the weekend's Cyprus parliamentary vote-bypassing "bank resolution", we learned that the second largest Cyprus bank, Laiki, will be liquidated, with the bulk of its good assets rolled into what would remain of the first and only remaining major bank in the island: Bank of Cyprus (whose uninsured depositors would also suffer a haircut, but supposedly a smaller one, less than 30%). Then, in a very surprising move overnight, news hit that the Chairman of this last standing bank, Andreas Artemis, has tendered his resignation. Why now, when everything is supposedly fixed and when the impression of stability is paramount? Perhaps the reason is that as CNBC's Michelle Caruso-Cabrera reports from Cyprus, there is now an rumor that the "other" bank - Bank of Cyprus - may also be on the verge of liquidation.

When it comes to popular finance myths, cash hoarding by corporates may be one of the most perpetuated. It's not that the data is wrong; US companies are holding more cash on their balance sheets than at any time in the past, as a report by Moody's this week notes. What's misguided is the narrative, in Citi's view, in particular among equity investors. What they most take issue with is the implication that corporates have lots of cash to return to shareholders. Indeed, there's plenty of data to the contrary that challenges the prevailing notion that corporates are the picture of good health.

With stocks holding near all-time highs, exhibiting similar fear-and-greed driven ebbs and flows (more flow than ebb for now), we thought these three charts would provide some interesting analogs. As Citi's Tom Fitzpatrick notes, the current charts for Gold, The USD Index, and USDJPY have some intriguing similarities to (respectively) 2006/7, 1996/7, and 2000/1. If history rhymes, it appears it is time to buy Gold, buy the USD, and prepare for a hiatus in JPY's collapse. With the USD, it is perhaps worth noting that both the (similar) 1981 and 1997 periods followed housing/credit/banking crises. In both instances the Fed eased rates and kept them too low for too long….in the 70’s period leading to a stagflationary environment.

It was all going so well. TV pundits could proclaim their omnipotence - knowing full well that Cyprus was a storm in a teacup - and then D-Bom hit the wires with some harsh reality speak. European banks plummeted - most of Italy's banking system ended limit down, European bank credit spreads blew to their widest in 4 months and bank stocks are playing catch down - as we pointed out recently  (with their biggest 6-day plunge in 8 months) and almost negative YTD. Equity indices across the continent saw their biggest drops in a month (since the Italian elections) but it was Spain and Italy that bore the brunt - rightfully so as fulcrum securities. Bond spreads snapped wider (from opening notably tighter) as rumors of an Italy downgrade and Fitch reconsidering the sovereign/banking link didn't help. Swiss 2Y rates held at 0% and while it dropped notably on the day, Switzerland's SMI was the best performing stock market on the day, as the Russian Ruble saw its best day against the EUR in 6 weeks. "Europe is fixed," indeed.