Bank Run

Did stocks window dressing come one day early in this volatile, bipolar, stop-hunting, HFT-infested market? Looking at futures this morning, which are down about 12 points already on yet another surge in the USD which has sent the EURUSD just above 1.07, the lowest since March 20 , and the USDJPY back under 120 now that the "strong dollar is bad for stocks after all" algo seems to be back from vacation, all those hedge funds who chased risk higher yesterday because their peers did the same, may find they are all selling on the way down. It will be oddly ironic if all of yesterday's widely touted gains evaporate comparably in the first 10 minutes of trading today, and lead to an end in the longest streak of quarterly increases in two decades.

Either Greece will stop trying to save the failed past and look into the future, treating the crisis and the adjustment program as opportunities to finally implement urgently needed reforms, or the country will be eventually forced to exit the euro, in our view.  Economics 101 teaches us that an economy can survive within a monetary union only if it has fiscal policy room and structural flexibility to respond to asymmetric shocks. In our view, Greece had none and has none. We see no solution for Greece within the Eurozone without reforms.

"Yes, Alexis, the time has run out"

The new Greek government, instead of seriously contemplating a Plan B outside of the Eurozone, was busy thinking of new ways to raid its own population just to repay the "loathed" Troika. In the latest sad indication of just how truly insolvent Greece is, Reuters also reported that days after raiding its own Pension funds to repay the IMF (which in turn lent the cash to Ukraine so it could repay Ukraine's obligations to Gazprom and thus Putin), the Syriza government is now raiding the major state utility firms to lend the government cash through short-term repo transactions as it scrambles to avoid running out of cash.

Is Greece truly on the verge of capital controls, especially the kind that has the blessing of the very man who created the Cyprus "blueprint"? For the answer we go to ISI, which discussed just that in a flash note issued earlier today:

Why are negative interest rates now making an appearance? They are a natural consequence of the rampant money creation undertaken by central banks in response to the global financial crisis as there is a lot more newly-created money floating around the financial system than there are safe places to put it. With the increasingly globalized world of international finance a bank run or financial panic anywhere can easily become a bank run or financial panic everywhere, it might be a good time to give your mattress a bit of extra padding.

Just when Greece thought it had bought itself some breathing room in its desperate attempt to rebuild confidence in its financial system, here comes JPM and effectively calls Yanis Varoufakis a liar, suggesting that Greek deposit outflows have continued at a brisk pace despite the bailout extension "deal."

If Bild's expectation that its "Nein to more Greek bailout" campaign would lead to a near unanimous vote in the Bundestag for a Greek bailout, then it achieved its goal when a massive majority of lawmakers, some 542 of them, voted in favor of giving Greece the prenegotiated 4 month extension to its current bailout. Still, as many pointed out, of the 32 votes against, a record margin for a euro vote, or 29, came from Merkel's own CDU/CSU block. This was up from 13 voting against the second Greek bailout. Indeed, as the Guardian's Ian Traynor summarizes "Merkel's biggest majority on Greece but also biggest rebellion in her ranks while linke votes for Syriza pals, also a 1st."

Moments ago the Bank of Greece presented its latest, January, deposit data. And it's a doozy: following a record €12.2 billion monthly outflow, greater in absolute and relative terms than anything experienced during any of the previous Greek crises and bailouts, the total amount of Greek corporate and household deposits has now tumbled to just €148 billion. This number is in line with some of the more pessimistic expectations, and brings the total cash holdings at Greek banks to the lowest level since August 2005.

What happened over the past week to the Syriza "mandate" is that the new government's list of unfulfillable promises to the Greek people has been replaced with a new list of unfulfillable promises to the Troika.

Update: EU COMMISSION SAYS GREEK LIST `SUFFICIENTLY COMPREHENSIVE'

A literal Tour de Force, likely the most indepth, practical analysis of the Grexit situation as you will ever read. This is why I like blogging... You can never find stuff like this in the mainstream media.

Those wondering if Draghi would be so bold as to precipitate a Greek bank run and funding crisis by yanking the country's Emergency Liquidity Assistance program, which as of two weeks ago was boosted to €65 billion, now have an answer. According to Dow Jones, the ECB just boosted the Greek cash allottment to €68.3 billion, an increase of €3.3 billion:

• ECB SAID TO OK CONT. EMERGENCY LIQUIDITY FOR GREEK BANKS:
• ECB SAID TO OK ELA FOR GREEK BANKS OF EUR68.3B FOR 2 WKS: WSJ

Which means that the cat and mouse game between Greece and Europe will continue for at least one more week, because that's when, according to Kathimerini's Greek sources, the nation runs out of state cash which will have the same impact on the Greek negotiating leverage as a full-blown bank run.

One thing is becoming clear: Greece will almost certainly not last until the proverbial D-Day on February 28 before it either i) runs out of money, ii) is forced to sign a "bailout extension" deal with the Eurogroup thus crushing its credibility with the people, or iii) exits the Eurozone. Needless to say, two of the three above options are very unpleasant for Greek savers, assuming any are left. And it is those savers that the Eurozone is directly targeting when it does everything in its power to provoke a bank run with statement such as these: "The situation of the banks is getting more and more difficult every day," said a European official. "In the end, in order to safeguard the banking system, capital controls will probably have to be imposed."

Here comes the strawman we've all been waiting for: "Greek deposit withdrawals picked up after talks between Greece and its euro-area creditors on extending its bailout ended in acrimony in Brussels Monday night, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the information is private. The ECB will likely provide ELA to Greek banks as long as there is a chance of an agreement between Greece and its creditors to extend the current bailout, economists at Barclays Plc including Antonio Garcia Pascual and Thomas Harjes wrote in a client note after the meeting ended Monday. If Greek authorities don’t take up euro area finance ministers’ offer this week, ELA funds to Greek banks would likely be shut down, they wrote."