Aussie

Pathway to depression. 

It wouldn't be the New Normal if the basket case that is Europe, and its amusingly named "Union", didn't somehow manage to trip over itself. This is precisely what happened last night at the European finance ministers meeting after IMF head Lagarde and pathological liar and chair of the Europe's mostly broke Finance Minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, openly disagreed with each other, an event even the FT called a "feud" after they proposed two alternative visions for Greece, one which envisioned the 120% debt/GDP debt target goal pushed forward to 2022 (for Juncker), and on the other hand, IMF, which has been humiliated enough with its horrible predictions, and which refuses to budge from its 2020 Greek target. Per the FT: "In a rare breach, Mr Juncker told a post-meeting press conference the target would be moved to 2022, prompting Ms Lagarde to insist the IMF was sticking to the original timeline. When Mr Juncker again insisted it would be moved – “I’m not joking,” he said – Ms Lagarde appeared exasperated, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. “In our view, the appropriate timetable is 120 per cent by 2020,” Ms Lagarde said. “We clearly have different views.” Officials will meet again November 20 in an effort to reach agreement, Mr Juncker said. Despite the delay, officials insisted Greece would not default on Thursday, when Athens must make a debt payment of about €5bn without the benefit of international aid." Nothing like total coordination and organization within a monetary union that may not exit if Greece does not make its November 16 bond payment, which it likely will, by issuing debt and forcing the ECB to accept it as eligible collateral so that Greece can roll the maturity. And concluding this hilarious incident was Juncker's statement this morning that there is "no real dispute" with the IMF. When it gets serious...

• Scope of Sandy's devastation widens, death toll spirals (Reuters)
• On Staten Island, cries for help replaced by a loss for words (Reuters)
• China responds to Japan’s provocation (FT)
• Japan governments open to compromise to avoid “fiscal cliff” (Reuters)
• It's Global Warming, Stupid (Businessweek)
• Sharps says there is "Material Doubt" about its ability to survive (Bloomberg)
• Thomson Reuters operating profit slips, trading faces pressure (Reuters)
• Germany's Schaeuble says debt reduction is global task (Reuters)
• The Luxury Repo Men (Businessweek)
• Deutsche Bank Faces Top Surcharge as FSB Shuffles Tiers (Bloomberg)
• Storm over ‘Lagarde list’ intensifies (FT)
• Greek, European Officials Dispute Budget Reprieve (WSJ)
• Rivals part ways over economy (FT)

S&P futures are being crushed overnight. Currently trading below the levels of September 5th Draghi comments (back under 1400) and -11pts from the close. AUD is weak, Treasuries are modestly bid (as is the USD) and commodities are rolling over. The catalyst? We see four things: 1) Delayed reaction to global supply chain implications of an AAPL outlook cut (and/or overseas holders hedging) as well as some missed earnings in China; 2) Major Aussie quasi-bank Banksia (yes, its really called that!) hitting the skids (a la Northern Rock) bringing fear that Australia is entering 2008-mode USA; 3) a NYT article which could be inferred as a direct attack on the Chinese political faction (exposing Wen Jiabao's hidden billions); and/or 4) a realization that at 14-plus x P/E multiples, the US equity markets are not pricing in anything the kind of possible pain a fiscal cliff scenario (or Romney-ite in the Fed) might bring. Of course, the need for a narrative is irrelevant, the most net long position since 2008 is unwinding (for now) but by the time we wake for New York's morning, things could have reversed once again.

Today Europe awakes to yet another Eurozone summit, one at which such topics as Greece, Spain, the banking union project or a economic/budgetary union will have to gain further traction, if not resolution. In fact Greece could hardly wait and has already launched it latest 24 hour strike against austerity. The same Greece which demands a 2 year, €30 billion extension from Europe to comply with reform, a move which Europe has/has not agreed to as while the core have said yes to more time, all have refused to fund Greece with any more money. Alas the two are synonymous. As SocGen predicts unless there is some credible progress today, all the progress since the September ECB meeting, which has seen SPGB 10 Year yields decline from 690 bps to sub 550 bps, may simply drift away. And as everyone knows, there is never any progress at these meetings, except for lots of headlines, lots of promises (the Eurozone June summit's conclusions have yet to be implemented) and lots of bottom line profits by Belgian caterers. Elsewhere, Spain sold 3, 4 and 10 year bonds at declining yields on residual optimism from the pro forma bailed out country's paradoxical Investment Grade rating. In non-hopium based news, Spanish bad loans rose to a record 10.5% in August from 10.1% previously while the oldest bank in the world, Italy's Banka Monte dei Paschi was cut to junk status. All this is irrelevant though, as no negative news will ever matter again in a centrally-planned world. Finally the only real good news (at least until it is revised)came out of the UK, where retail sales posted a 0.4% increase on expectations of a 0.2% rise from -0.2%.

We are now entirely used to the daily mini-flashes in US equities as algos lose their stabilizer and run one way or another. Recently we noted the same algos-gone-wild had hit the India stock exchange. Tonight, the HFT-bug has moved to Australia, where the open - which just happens to be option expiration - saws a number of major equities (including several of the banks - e.g. ANZ and CBA) get smashed instantaneously higher (by 5-7%) at the open - only to plummet back to normalcy soon after. The cuplrit - it would appear to us - is a market-clearing wipe-out of all resting stops above the multi-year highs that the stocks were at the edge of. Regulatoirs are 'investigating' though their first comment was "it is certainly nothing to do with the trading system." As the Sydney Morning Herald notes a market participant: "Either that or an algorithm has gone haywire, a mistake has been made, or these trades are deliberate.' Either way, do we have an orderly market?"

In a post entitled 'Mugabenomics: Inflation in UK Higher than in Zimbabwe,' Guido Fawkes points out how the Liberal Democrats Vince Cable once warned that Quantitative Easing (QE) was “Mugabenomics.” This was prior to coming to power and a swift u-turn which would make even the most slippery politician proud. Remember when Vince Cable warned that Quantitative Easing (QE) was “Mugabenomics”? Vince flip-flopped on that even before he joined the coalition.  Guido Fawkes then reminds its readers about the time when George Osborne said “Printing money is the last resort of desperate governments when all other policies have failed.”  Alas as the blog rightly warns, "In government Osborne has overseen the printing of more money than any other Chancellor in British history. A quarter of the national debt – all this government’s overspending – has been bought by the Bank of England via QE."  “So it is not a shock that inflation in Zimbabwe (3.63%) is now lower than inflation in the UK (3.66%, August 2011-July 2012).” Those who have been warning about this monetary madness for some years are gradually being proved right

Technical indicators such as MACD, RSI and STO show that silver is slightly overbought short term.

However, silver can remain overbought in the short term as was seen in silver’s rally in 2011 when silver nearly doubled by surging from below $27/oz to nearly $50/oz in just 3 months - from January 27th 2011 to April 28th 2011.

In what could easily be a Friday Humor post, Reuters reports that the Aussie government's statisticians, taking a page out of the German's 'creative' accounting book, have found an additional $338bn of assets for the nation. 'Cheers' all around as the Australian Bureau of Statistics (and Lies) revised household wealth up by AUD14,380 for every one of the country's 22.6 million people - as new estimates of unlisted shares and other equity pushed the nation's total financial assets to AUD3.1tn (compared to an originally reported AUD2.77tn. As the miners from down-under continue to struggle against a fading China, this miraculous 'find' has dropped the ratio of debt to liquid assets from a worrisome 170.1% to a meager 129.1%. Rumors are circulating that the ABS is now looking for the ark of the covenant, the philosopher's stone, and Shangri-La.

If you live long enough—knock on wood—pretty soon it’ll add up to real money.

Despite a green showing in European equity indices this morning (aside from Spain that is) - as they shrug off the dismal China/Aussie data overnight in the incessant belief that bad is good and worse is better - there is a bid in a number of the major AAA safe-haven assets in Europe. Swiss 2Y rates are dropping notably this morning, German and Danish 2Y rates are stable to dropping, and Dutch and Finnish rates remain extremely low. It seems that between Merkel's comments this morning and the following big three unanswered questions - it's not all risk-on in Europe, and expectations for a squeeze in EURUSD - with net shorts at 2012 lows and USD longs basically neutral - seem exaggerated for now. Summing up on the euro area debt crisis, SocGen notes the issues remain the same; the periphery faces an uphill battle to meet targets that few private forecasters (including ourselves) expect can be reached, the EFSF/ESM is still too small with Spain and Italy combined facing around €800bn of funding needs over the coming three years and while the ECB can be helpful, it alone is not enough.

AUDJPY is getting smacked hard in this evening's admittedly thin trading given the US holiday. China's double-whammies of PMI data (both official and HSBC versions - with the latter revised lower from Flash to its lowest level since March 2009) and some weak Aussie retail sales data is weighing very heavily on the critical carry trade pair. S&P 500 futures traded down in line with AUDJPY from Friday's close but once the China PMI came as weak as it was so the 'Good is Bad', the PBoC have to do something crowd started buying and dragged ES up a few points. Juxtaposing these dismal macro data was a better than expected China Services PMI and Aussie manufacturing index - as the Schrodinger 'economy is good and bad' headlines continue to confound. For the 'bad-is-good' crowd who see stimulus as the solution, we offer three words 'steel overcapacity' and 'malinvestment' and a must-read story from Reuters on the Chinese turning on themselves...

Will Steve Keen be proven 'early' and correct? We suspect so; and the following infographic from DebtConsolidation.com.au provides some more compelling evidence of the growth of the Aussie housing bubble and its geographical diversity (and should you consider a trade on the back of this - Australian bank CDS are trading near 12-month tights).

No sooner had Azumi announced his rather unsurprising admission (via Bloomberg) that:

*JAPAN CUTS ASSESSMENT OF DOMESTIC ECONOMY
*AZUMI SAYS HE SEES RISK OF GOVT FUNDS DRYING UP

then Aussie Home Sales came in much weaker than expected (and their lowest in six months). The repatriation of JPY accelerated - dragging JPY higher and snapping all the other majors lower relative to the USD; and AUD weakened significantly (though already priced for some easing). Of course, as a funding pair for everything still, the AUDJPY carry-unwind is weighing on equity futures (though minimally for now).