Bank Run

While it is no surprise that Greek bank deposits are rapidly fleeing both the country's banking system, and the country, following September's record outflow of €5.5 billion, the situation just got far worse, after October data reveals that a record €6.8 billion was taken out of corporate and household deposits in one month. This is unprecedented 4% of all of the country's period end deposits of €176 billion at the end of October, and represents a €33 billion decline, or almost 20%, of the country's deposit base in 2011 which started with €210 billion in bank cash buffer, and is now down to €176 billion. Furthermore, according to recent article in the German press, this number has supposedly ramped even more in recent months to double digit withdrawals, an event which means the Greek financial system is completely and totally finished. Because as history always shows there is no such thing as a bank run that gets fixed on its own. One thing is certain: November data, and then December, and so forth, will only be worse and worse and worse, until the whole country finally implodes.

Two weeks ago we presented pictures of a bank run in Latvia after one local bank had been found to do just what MF Global is alleged of doing - gross cominningling. To wit: "If anyone is wondering why the collapse of MF Global after the discovery of its commingling and theft of client funds was the single worst thing that could happen to market confidence, then look no further than the small Baltic country of Latvia where precisely what Jon Corzine's firm did to its clients, has happened at the bank level. Businessweek reports: "Lithuanian prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Antonov and Raimondas Baranauskas who are former shareholders of Bankas Snoras AB. Both men are suspected of embezzlement and document forgery, the Prosecutor General said in a statement on its website today. Baranauskas is also suspected of accounting fraud and abuse of authority, it said." Kinda like Jon Corzine, if not by the actual authorities, then by everybody else....Depositors can withdraw 50 lati a day beginning today for the rest of the week, said Krumane at a pressconference." At today's rate this is about $95. Which is why what happened next, as shown in the pictures below, was to be completely expected, and is a perfect indicator of the collapse in liquidity and credibility of our own system where commingling, unlike in Latvia, goes unpunished." Sure enough, as nothing has changed, either in Latvia or the US, things just got worse. Following a rumor in Latvia that the large Swedish bank Swedbank is about to collapse, Latvia has just experienced its second bank run in under a month.

Grandma said, "There is never just one roach". What damning characteristics does MF Global, Goldman Sachs, and JP Morgan have in common? Yes, I mean besides common CEOs and an auditor that gives the green flag months before historically record setting bankruptcies due to inadequate controls...

If anyone is wondering why the collapse of MF Global after the discovery of its commingling and theft of client funds was the single worst thing that could happen to market confidence, then look no further than the small Baltic country of Latvia where precisely what Jon Corzine's firm did to its clients, has happened at the bank level. Businessweek reports: "Lithuanian prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Antonov and Raimondas Baranauskas who are former shareholders of Bankas Snoras AB. Both men are suspected of embezzlement and document forgery, the Prosecutor General said in a statement on its website today. Baranauskas is also suspected of accounting fraud and abuse of authority, it said." Kinda like Jon Corzine, if not by the actual authorities, then by everybody else. And just like in the US where the lack of confidence in the system following the MF filing, so in Latvia the people have decided to hit the ATMs first and ask questions later. "“This money was the bank’s clients’ money,” said Irena Krumane, head of Latvia’s bank regulator, on Latvian Television last night. Krajbanka will most likely be liquidated because the bank doesn’t have the resources to meet depositor and creditor demands unless the Lithuanian government decides to recapitalize the lender, said Janis Brazovskis, the lender’s administrator, in an interview with Latvian Independent Television program 900 Seconds today...Depositors can withdraw 50 lati a day beginning today for the rest of the week, said Krumane at a press conference." At today's rate this is about $95. Which is why what happened next, as shown in the pictures below, was to be completely expected, and is a perfect indicator of the collapse in liquidity and credibility of our own system where commingling, unlike in Latvia, goes unpunished.

"Nervous investors around the globe are accelerating their exit from the debt of European governments and banks, increasing the risk of a credit squeeze that could set off a downward spiral. Financial institutions are dumping their vast holdings of European government debt and spurning new bond issues by countries like Spain and Italy. And many have decided not to renew short-term loans to European banks, which are needed to finance day-to-day operations. " So begins an article not in some hyperventilating fringe blog, but a cover article in the venerable New York Times titled "Europe Fears a Credit Squeeze as Investors Sell Bond Holdings." Said otherwise, Europe's continental bank run in which virtually, but not quite, all banks are dumping any peripheral exposure with reckless abandon is now on. Granted, considering the epic collapse in bond prices of Italian, French, Austrian, Hungarian, Spanish and Belgian bonds which all hit record wide yields and spreads in the past week, and furthermore following last week's "Sold To You": European Banks Quietly Dumping €300 Billion In Italian Debt" which predicted precisely this outcome, the news is not much of a surprise. However, learning that everyone (with two exceptions) has given up on Europe's financial system should send a shudder through the back of everyone who still is capable of independent thought - because said otherwise, the world's largest economic block is becoming unglued, and its entire financial system is on the edge of a complete meltdown. And just to make sure that various fringe bloggers who warned this would happen over a year ago no longer lead to the hyperventilation of the venerable NYT, below, with the help of Goldman's Jernej Omahan, we bring to our readers the complete annotated and abbreviated beginner's guide to the pan-European bank run.

We just experienced a bank run in the US that I have been warning of for months on end. A bank run that resulted in this country's 8th largest bankruptcy,,, ever - and nobody even noticed.

Stacy Herbert and Max Keiser have absolutely scooped the FT on the French bank run story with thier interactive interview of me and the use of new media. Absolutley!

Methinks the smaller media and blogs should be taken moe seriously as a platform by the mainstream media. Seriously! ZH and BBB are perfect examples.

Make your moves BEFORE Europe's "Lehman Moment" arrives - for if when it does, most nations will be powerless to do anything about it.

First it was US money markets; then it was various European industrial concerns (which somehow double down as banks); then it was China; now the bank runs shift to insurance institutions when, as Bloomberg reports, Lloyd's of London has decided to pull peripheral Euro bank deposits. What next: complete collapse of European interbank market as bank runs become a daily thing at both the retail and institutional level? Well, we already anticipated that. But it is something totally different to see it happen in practice.

Now that the French banks have pretty done exactly what we anticipated due to Italy and Greece who pretty much did what we anticipated, what's next?  Look towards those banking stalwarts, but don't mention the US or shhhh!!! Gemany... Oh yeah, it's too late!

Anyone who may have gone to bed last night assuming some version of long-termist reality would finally creep back into the market following rumblings of all out trade war between China and Europe will be sorely disappointed as instead stocks are once again focused on the purely superficial, such as that Greece did not go bankrupt last night and did make its €770 million payment this time, although what will happen in the future depends entirely on the Troica. As for the Troica, their animosity toward Greece will hopefully be moderated after Greece denied a report from Kathimerini, which as we expected had about zero percent chance of any credibility to it, that it would go ahead with a eurozone participation referendum, which obviously would have ended the Euro as the majority of people in Greece (and all of Europe) are well over the monetary experiment. Lastly, Siemens scrambled overnight to clarify the FT news that it had pulled money from a French bank, SocGen as it turns out, but says that this happened back in July, and had nothing to do with the current troubles at the French bank. Lastly, two bond auctions by Spain and Greece came at around previous result, and hence much better than the collapse expected further adding to the short covering pressure.

In a shocking representation of just how bad things are in Europe, the FT reports that major European industrial concern Siemens, pulled €500 million form a large French bank, which is not BNP and leaves just [SocGen|Credit Agricole] and deposited the money straight to the ECB. The implications of this are quite stunning, as it means that even European companies now refuse to work directly with their own banks, and somehow the ECB has become a direct lender/cash holder of only resort to private non-financial institutions! As Bloomberg reports further on the FT story, in total, Siemens has deposited between 4 billion euros and 6 billion euros, mostly through one-week deposits, with the ECB, FT says, cites the person. It isn’t clear from which bank Siemens withdrew its deposits, per the FT... but it is hardly difficult to figure out. BNP Paribas isn’t the bank involved, FT reports, cites unidentified person familiar with the bank. This story should be having far more impact on the EURUSD than any rumors about Greece lying it will fire all of its public workers only to make sure Eurobanks can survive one more day.

Alas, it is not a liquidity problem, it is a solvency problem. After delaying this realization for over two years, Greece, and Europe, are about to understand just how flawed "bailout" strategies that address the symptoms and not the cause, have been since the beginning of 2010. And while the world is engaged with the latest victim of the Bernanke-inspired, food-price inflation political upheaval better known as the Arab Spring, whose final stop is nothing less than Times Square, Greece quietly avoided the failure of smallish Proton bank (there is no FDIC backstop of failed banks in Greece), which would have resulted in a market wide panic, and a terminal bank run that would have toppled the Greek financial sector. Luckily, this was prevented in the last second courtesy of a capital injection in the last minute by the big 4 Greek banks. From the FT: "Greece’s four largest banks agreed to take up a €50m convertible bond to help recapitalise Proton Bank, a small lender, the central bank announced this weekend, in what is being seen as an attempt to avert a run on the country’s fragile banking system...“In this environment, it was essential to prevent Proton from collapsing and creating a mood of fear with unpredictable consequences,” said one banker, explaining the rationale for the take-up of the Proton bond." In summary, Greece was lucky... this time around, they had enough cash to save the smallish lender. The next time around they will not be so lucky.

After accurately predicting the Pan-European Sovereign Debt Crisis, which sparked our prediction of the French Bank Run which appears to be causing a panic induced market run as I type this, we've found the big US bank most likely to suffer contagion  from the fallout... As I have said in the past, Lehman was just the warm up routine, you ain't seen nothing yet!

The European ban on shorts for financial companies was allegedly justified by false rumors. The only thing false that justifies banning is the balance sheets and funding models of many of the banks in question. Available nowhere else on the web,  I Forensically Prove A Run On A French Bank Is Justified And Likely, Step by Step