Bank Run

As we move toward the second half of 2015, signs of financial turmoil are appearing all over the globe. Slowly but surely, we are starting to see the smart money head for the exits. As one Swedish fund manager put it recently, everyone wants “to avoid being caught on the wrong side of markets once the herd realizes stocks are over-valued“.

Yesterday evening, after what had been a dramatic surge in the Greek bank run which has resulted in over €3 billion in cash withdrawn through Thursday night, the Greek central bank requested an emergency cash dispensation from the ECB under the country's Emergency Liquidity Assistance program, just one day after the ECB granted the latest €1.1 billion expansion in the ELA. Rarlier today, in an unscheduled session, the ECB did as requested, however it granted Greece far less than the amount it sought, and according to MarketNews reports, the ECB gave Greece just €1.8 billion in addition funds.

The troika is tightening the screws on Greece and its ailing banks. With deposit flight running above €1 billion per day, the ECB may look to tie future ELA cap increases to austerity concessions in a move that would appear to support Yanis Varoufakis' implicit suggestion that the troika is colluding to exploit deposit outflows to force political change in Athens.

European shares remain higher, close to intraday highs, with the autos and travel & leisure sectors outperforming and basic resources, utilities underperforming. Meeting of finance officials to reach a deal over Greek aid ended in frustration, forcing leaders to call for an emergency summit for Monday. ECB plans to hold an emergency session of its Governing Council on Friday to discuss a deterioration in liquidity at Greek banks, three people familiar said. German airwave auction raises $5.7b to top 2010 sale. Bank of Japan leaves monetary policy unchanged as forecast. Shanghai Composite Index capped its worst weekly decline in seven years.

Having vehemently denied teh rumor that Benoit Coeure specifically said he questioned whether Greek banks will open on Monday, The ECB has, rather awkwardly, admitted that:

*ECB SAID TO HOLD UNSCHEDULED CALL ON GREECE ELA ON FRIDAY

Given the accelerating outflows and implicit bank run today's comments will create, if The ECB does not re-up the ELA, it is indeed over for Greek banks (unless Russia or China step in over the weekend) come Monday morning.

Just minutes after Greek FinMin Varoufakis warned people were trying to "incite capital flight" from Greece and Dijsselbloem stated that "capital outflows from Greece are worrying," Reuters is reporting that The ECB dropped the bank run hammer:

ECB TOLD EURO ZONE FINANCE MINISTERS IT WAS NOT SURE IF GREEK BANKS WOULD BE ABLE TO OPEN ON MONDAY- OFFICIALS

Friday sees Russia-Greece meetings and Euro area leaders are supposedly meeting on Monday evening due to the seriousness of the situation so it appears the endgame is looming large one way or another.

The Troika - whose intention from the very beginning was to cripple Greek banks so badly and terminally that Tsipras and Varoufakis are forced to accept any terms hoisted on them as we predicted in January - has succeeded. The only question is how long until the Syriza government admits defeat.

European leaders may convene an emergency summit this Sunday to decide Greece's fate as Varoufakis says no new proposal from Athens will be tabled at Thursday's meeting of EU finance ministers. With capital controls now imminent, and with Greece reportedly set to delay a June 30 IMF payment, a "Lehman Weekend" looms.

"One particularly ugly scenario would be if the Greek authorities resist the imposition of capital controls, claim that restrictions on bank access to liquidity have been unjustly imposed, and then seek to use the antipathy that creates among the Greek population to begin to argue toward an exit from the euro. This is a scenario we have accorded a low probability to, on the grounds that it is not clear that the Greek population would follow the script and regard the situation as primarily the responsibility of the rest of the region. But the increasingly hot rhetoric has us more concerned about this than we have been hitherto."

With both sides digging in and unwilling to budge, will Europe revert back to its strategy from day 1, namely creating a slow initially, then fast bank run in Greece, one which leads to gradual then sudden capital controls, resulting in civil discontent and disobedience and ultimately, a violent overthrow of the Greek government.

Irrespective of the political wrangling going on behind the scenes both in Athens and in Brussels, a terminal bank run could plunge Greece into a crisis faster than politicians can react, an eventuality which would have to be met with capital controls. As FT reports, Athens is "running out of options" to avoid a Cyprus repeat.

Is Deustche Bank the next Lehman is likely the wrong question to be asking. Is Lehman the template for European banking may be more to the point. Take it from the guy that called the Lehman debacle 5 months before the fact.

Today, following yet another diplomatic snafu when yesterday the IMF announced unexpectedly that it had cut off negotiations on with an intransigent Greek delegation, which hardly restored depositor confidence in their local banks (hit by the double whammy of yet another S&P downgrade) Greek media newsit.gr reports that the relentless bank run once again surged and that as of 3:30 pm, another €600 million or more were withdrawn from local banks by locals "who fear that something might happen over the weekend."

While the Greek government has wasted the past 4 months experiment with game (and hope) theory-based negotiations with the Troika, debating what reforms it should implement, what the budget surplus should be, and how much of a pension and wage haircut the local workforce should undergo just to keep the trickle of European money flowing and "allow" the IMF to repay Greek IMF obligations and the ESM to repay the ECB, the Greek economy has slammed into a brick wall because according to Greece's retailers association, about 59 businesses close down and some 613 jobs are being lost each day.