BAC

It would seem, just as during the crisis in 2008/9, that now might be an opportune time to push for 'improvement' in how banks are regulated (and more importantly how the instruments they trade in colossal size are priced and marked-to-market). Rick Santelli believes now has never been a better time but as his guest Tim Backshall of Capital Context notes, regulation of the CDS market can be summed up in one sentence "Get Them On Exchange". Something we have been saying for years (and has been tried before) but with dealers holding all the keys (to market-making) and exchanges cowering for fear of losing clients, we remain less optimistic. Santelli and Backshall critically address the complicity of banks, regulators, analysts, and The Fed in giving 'banks the benefit of the doubt' with regard their use of the bottomless pit of capital they implicitly have but what is more important is for the hordes of sell-side analysts and buy-side sheeple to understand just what this JPM debacle exposes about bank risk (VaR is useless), bank transparency (mark-to-model or worse is widespread), and bank valuation (traditional Price/Book metrics have no merit anymore).

Economy? Systemic risk? Systematic fraud? Too Big To Fail?  Wall Street? Fraudclosure? What's all that?

There is hardly any more long-suffering investor in this market than anyone who has held the stock of that worst of breed American bank: Bank of Countrywide Lynch (BAC), which following the worst M&A transaction in history, namely its purchase of Countrywide, has found out that one does not pay billions for hundreds of billions in contingent liabilities, which will manifest themselves in tens of billions in putback claims against the underreserved bank over time. But all that is now known, grudgingly, after being pointed out here back in 2010, and when all is said and done, BofA will be finished, with the contingent liability pool spun off in a special purpose entity which files for bankruptcy, while the equity remaining at the successor entity will be worth pennies on the dollar. The question is what are the catalysts that get the bank there. Luckily, yesterday the bank itself highlighted what the key driver to put events in motion may be, after it disclosed that should the bank be downgraded, which it will be as Moody's has warned, it would need to post up to $6.2 billion in collateral: an amount which would cripple the bank's liquidity,  and send its stock plunging as visions of AIG resurface, and concerns about a toxic downward spiral emerge.

All you need to read.

"Please advise us regarding a reliable procedure whereby the appropriate foreclosing party can be situated in the matter such that we can proceed to judgment of sale"

The music is playing. 

Maybe it is the activity in Europe that made the markets feel more volatile than the weekly changes show. Or maybe it was that the futures traded in an almost 3% range – from 1,359 to 1,390 with several 0.5% swings during the course of most days. Market darling Apple isn’t helping calm the market either. That can reverse on a moment’s notice, or a great earnings release, but the momentum that was dragging more and more hedge funds into the trade, is now working in reverse as stop losses are being triggered. So often lately, the bulls are able to point to a decent tape in face of weak data and no stimulus, and this week ended with the opposite. Bulls will be nervous that decent earnings and a mega-plan from the IMF failed to provide strength to the market. So, it was a strange week that was more volatile than the weekly changes show, and where some real cracks are being exposed.

Frustration levels are running high today.  Just feels like we are being lied to, and no one wants to question the lies. According to the headlines, the Spanish auction was a 'great success', MS and BAC had 'great' earnings, and jobless claims 'fell by 2000'. Nothing that has happened so far today has been good, and the attempt to spin everything so positively is downright scary.

Bank of America reported results earlier, which were somewhat amusing: reported earnings were $653 million or $0.03 per share. Yet the number that the market is fascinated by is the one arising from "negative valuation adjustments" of $4.8 billion, which included $1.5 billion in DVA "resulting from the narrowing of the company's credit spread", and resulted in a $0.28 per share addition. This is the same number that we were told to ignore when it did not help the bottom line. We will be told to ignore it again next quarter when spreads once again balloon, but for now it leads the market to see a $0.31 adjusted EPS number. In other words, one time items are to be ignored when negative, and praised when providing a "one-time benefit." These also included $0.8 billion in litigation expenses, which are also supposed to be excluded, even though the bank has now been sued by virtually everyone due to its Countrywide legacy portfolio. Yet all of this is accountant fudge heaven: there are only three things that matter. 1) The approaching refi cliff, in terms of tens of billions in maturities, including FDIC-funded TLGP, which are as follows: "$34B of parent company maturities in 2Q12 including the remaining $24B related to the Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program" 2) sliding sales and trading revenues which dropped from Q1 by $546 million from a year ago to $2.844 billion in FICC, and by $332 million in Equity income to $907 million; and finally 3) and reserve release gimmicks: specifically BAC took a $1.6 billion reserve release even as the net chargeoff percentage increased. Specifically look at the first chart below showing the $1.8 billion surge surge in junior-lien Non-Performing Home Equity Loans due to regulations finally catching up to reality. Also, the bank charged off more in Reps and Warranties than it reserved, even as everyone is now suing the bank for precisely this issue. And this is the environment in which the firm books profits from reserve releases?

There is a lot of talk about IG9 these days.  We think the JPMorgan 'Iksil' story has a lot more to do with tranches than with outright selling of the index. Noone knows what exactly is going on, but we think selling tranches without delta explains far more than just selling the index, given the size and leverage. Critically, in the end it is all speculation as what (if any) trade they have on but if our belief on this being a tranche exposure (for the thesis reasons we explain) then the explanation is far less scary.

This is easily the meatiest, most offensive, most controversial and probably the most hardhitting post of the year. Here's proof that Goldman STUFFED ITS MUPPET clients!!! 20 pgs of research warning non-muppet clients to back off, proof of the Muppet biz model...

Everyone's favorite stock pitchman, Bob Pisani, who lately apparently has the capacity to learn just one line and just regurgitate it ad nauseam, was on CNBC earlier screaming how gold is down because the US is so much better than the world, when in reality gold is once again being sold to fund early margin calls (yes, institutionals are that levered right now). As for the US decoupling story, which time after time is dragged out, only to be shelved once the impact of trillions in liquidity fades, and which is never different this time, here is none other than Bank of America explaining to the likes of Pisani why "the US economy is likely to prove a faulty engine of global growth." Read - no decoupling, despite what the market may be trying to say. And yes, the market, and especially the Russell 2000 is never the economy.

In the first of two major bankruptcy stories du jour (the next one coming up shortly), we learn that AFA Foods, best known for being the maker of "pink slime", and a portfolio company of labor unions and Clinton afficionado Ron Burkle and his PE firm Yucaipa, has just filed for bankruptcy. The reason? The sudden public realization what pink slime is, and just how prevalent it is - perhaps it is best to think of it as the Bernie Madoff of the food industry - it was always there, yet it took a wholesale shift in public awareness and consciousness for the firm to realize it would have been prudent to come up with a slightly different name for its ground-beef product. As for whether or not the company is going to the pink sheets, well no. But one thing is certain: the management team is about to get a pink slip.

The last 90 minutes of the day dragged ES (the S&P 500 e-mini futures contract) back up to the safety of its VWAP on what seems to be some comments by Jamie Dimon on the Fed looking for much larger job creation (prompting QE3 moves) or another housing bottom-call? After what had been an ugly day in which stocks sold off (aggressively after the European close) back to the post-Bernanke reality that is the less sanguine credit markets, the USD weakened, commodities and stocks popped (led by financials), and Treasuries sold off (belly underperforming). It seems that no matter who comes on TV nowadays and says anything, the algos market will rally. By the close, Financials were the only sector in the green (as GS and JPM surged but not so much BAC or MS) but Materials, Energy, and Industrials were the worst. VIX managed to get above 17 before reversing back to unchanged and the term-structure steepened back a little. Gold (which dropped the most in 2 weeks today after Goldman's long call) remains the only metals/oil commodity higher on the week - though only marginally - as plunges in Oil and Silver bounced quite positively into the close. Stocks underperformed credit on the day in general but the low volume limp up into the close saw them even out and we note that as ES hit its VWAP - heavier negative delta volume came through somewhat suggesting this was an effort to ease institutional exit - as both NYSE and ES volume was above average. 30Y Treasuries are back to higher in yield for the week but this afternoon's selloff lifted yields 4-5bps off their earlier lows. Broad risk assets led the equity market down but quite coincidentally, the S&P ended the day almost perfectly in CONTEXT with risk assets and credit/vol (after a significant dislocation the last few days).

Reflections from the top.