Bank of England

New All time highs almost every single day, yet market volumes have literally collapsed. On any given day, you would see an average of 2M eminis (S&P Futures, spoos) trade, and now we are seeing barely 1M trade, sometimes even lower. This has left everyone, including big banks, who are now being forced to lay off traders amid the slowdown, asking the same question: WTF is going on?

• World Bank Cuts Global Growth Forecast After ‘Bumpy’ 2014 Start (BBG)
• Al-Qaeda Offshoot Threatens Iraq Oil Site After Taking Mosul (BBG)
• Fed Prepares to Keep Record Balance Sheet for Years to Come (BBG)
• EU investigates tax rulings on Apple, Starbucks, Fiat unit (Reuters)
• Cantor Loss Shocks Republicans, Dims Immigration Changes (BBG)
• More surveillance: Google to Buy Satellite-Imaging Startup for $500 Million (WSJ)
• Tea Party activist who defeated Cantor focused on budget, immigration (Reuters)
• Airbus Suffers Worst Order Loss as Emirates Deal Scrapped (BBG)
• Amazon.com plans local services marketplace this year (Reuters)
• Amazon Stops Taking Advance Orders for ‘Lego’ and Other Warner Videos (NYT)

Bail-ins or deposit confiscation can now be used in the UK, EU, U.S. and G20 countries. Investors and savers best get prepared for the coming bail-in era. After Cyprus, which country will be the next to suffer bail-ins?

A dispassionate look at what the ECB announced last week and the potential implications

First, the world's oligarchs slowly but surely took over London real estate, where as we reported last week, home prices in May soared by the most in 12 years, and now, according to the Telegraph, in order to make London into an even more exclusive enclave where only the uber-wealthy can rub shoulders, assorted luxury buildings are installing metal spikes on the ground outside to fully deter homeless people from sleeping (and hence living) there. In other words, in London homeless people have been relegated to pigeon status, as the same technique has been long used to prevent rats with wings from landing, and defecating, at select locations.

Gold surged 1.6% in euros to €928/oz after the historic ECB announcement to adopt negative interest rates. Cheap money, financial repression and currency debasement are classic recipes for short term financial and economic gains. Throughout history, they have been the easy options for emperors, kings, queens and governments. They are the easy option for the ECB and central banks today.

Between Eurostat's lengthy forecasts, the press release, and Draghi's droning on... it's easy to get lost in what was delivered, what was promised, and what it means... here is the ultimate ECb announcement cheat sheet. Simply put, Draghi does not have many options left.

Two weeks ago we asked, rhetorically, "Whose Housing Bubble Is Bigger?" and showed the April home price increases in the UK and China.  Today, we have our answer. As the WSJ reports, "U.K. house prices rose at the fastest monthly pace in almost 12 years and to the highest level since before the global credit crisis in May, a survey showed Thursday, as demand for homes continues to outpace supply despite tougher new mortgage rules."

In today's abnormally quiet overnight session one could hear a pin, or the USDJPY, drop: with everyone focusing on the ECB announcement in one hour, not a single algo is willing to make any big moves, or even start some momentum ignition, ahead of Draghi's announcement, which absent launching full scale QE, which it won't, will be a disappointment which means the EUR will ultimatly move higher after a kneejerk lower as the market forces Super Mario to do even more next time. As Bloomberg adds, a cut in refi and deposit rates is fully priced in and latest price action suggests investors brace for     disappointment if ECB stops short of signaling asset purchases or other liquidity measures to combat deflation.

As we have heard numerous times this year already, tomorrow may be 'another' most important day of the year/cycle as Mario Draghi and his band of merry men at the ECB appear to be finally cornered (by market exuberance, macro weakness, and excess positioning) into "doing" something as opposed to just talking about it. While we have discussed the ins and outs of the potential for a small focused ABS bailout QE, negative rates, and why whatever Draghi does tomorrow will have minimal impact on the real economy; Bloomberg provides a quick and easy guide to the five things to watch for from Mario Draghi tomorrow...

Two weeks ago when news broke about the first confirmed instance of gold price manipulation (because despite all the "skeptics" claims to the contrary, namely that every other asset class may be routinely manipulated but not gold, never gold, it turned out that yes gold too was rigged) we said that this is merely the first of many comparable (as well as vastly different) instances of gold manipulation presented to the public. Today, via the FT, we get just a hint of what is coming down the pipeline with "Trading to influence gold price fix was ‘routine’." We approve of the editorial oversight to pick the word "influence" over "manipulate" - it sound so much more... clinical.

We found it surprising that it was none other than Paul Volcker himself who, on May 21 at the annual meeting of the Bretton Woods Committee, said that "by now I think we can agree that the absence of an official, rules-based cooperatively managed, monetary system has not been a great success. In fact, international financial crises seem at least as frequent and more destructive in impeding economic stability and growth." We can, indeed, agree. However, we certainly disagree with Volcker's proposal for a solution to this far more brittle monetary system: a new Bretton Woods.

Dispassionae look at the several events in the week ahead.  

You can smell this one coming a mile away... the ECB is now energetically trying to revive the a market for asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) - the very kind of “toxic-waste” that allegedly nearly took down the financial system during the panic of September 2008. The ECB would have you believe that getting more “liquidity” into the bank loan market for such things as credit card advances, auto paper and small business loans will somehow cause Europe’s debt-besotted businesses and consumers to start borrowing again - thereby reversing the mild (and constructive) trend toward debt reduction that has caused euro area bank loans to decline by about 3% over the past year. What they are really up to, however, is money-printing and snookering the German sound money camp.

Crunch time will hit in Spring 2016 according to some economists in the UK. That’s the time when the British will suffer the consequences of the rising annual house-price rate in the country standing at 17% per year. Oh, the people are rejoicing that their houses are worth hundreds of thousands and increasing every year.