Beige Book

ES (the S&P 500 e-mini futures contract) tested up to its 50DMA and rejected it early in the day (after some rhetorical enthusiasm from the ECB's new French contingent - surprise!). The 10pt rally in ES overnight into the open was the best levels of the day as we slid lower (within a small range) for the rest of the day making its initial lows around the European close and retesting (lower lows) into the US day session close. NYSE and ES volumes were about average (well below yesterday) as Stocks and HY credit underperformed IG credit (with HYG having a good day - after closing at a discount to NAV last night). The Beige Book took the shine off the day as hopes of QE3 faded (remember its the flow not the stock that counts) and that is when stocks began to leak lower - especially energy, financials, materials, and industrials. FX markets were relatively quiet (aside from Jim O'Neill's comments on the SNB which shook swissy) as the USD closed marginally lower helped by strength in EUR and GBP. AUD lost ground after the European close and JPY strengthened (derisking) which likely dragged on US stocks. The modest move in USD was echoed in commodities (apart from WTI where we broke above $103 and Brent-WTI compressed significantly - not forgetting the $1 handle on Nattie) as Gold and Silver largely went sideways all day with some weakness in Copper. Treasuries leaked higher in yield for much of the morning then stabilized after the European close as the long-end underperformed (steepening). VIX closed back above 20%  (though lower from the close) having drifted from below 19% near the open - we haven't closed above 20% two-days-in-a-row since 1/18.

As North America comes to market, there is a lot to digest. European equity markets are trading higher, with the FTSE MIB in particular outperforming after a volatile morning’s session, with bargain-hunting the active theme among investors. The first major risk event came and went with the Italian T-Bill auction. Participants were looking for a poor auction due to the ongoing Eurozone woes, and although bid/covers fell short and yields did increase, the auction was not as poorly received as many had feared.  As such, Italian and Spanish 10-yr spreads have tightened with the German Bund, with the Spanish spread closing in on 400BPS, with talk of domestic buying in the periphery and profit-taking from the last few sessions adding to the tightening effect.  A flashpoint of the day was the German Bund auction; results came in showing the auction to be technically uncovered, failing to sell the expected EUR 5bln. Analysts have pinned the poor auction on the Bund having record low yields providing a disincentive to buy the German security. Following the minutes after the auction, around 25,000 contracts went through on the Bund, spiking lower around 20ticks.

Chinese gold demand remains very strong as seen in the importation of 40 metric tonnes or nearly 40,000 kilos of gold bullion from Hong Kong alone in February. Hong Kong’s gold exports to China in February were nearly 13 times higher than the 3,115 kilograms in the same month last year, the data shows.  Shipments were 72,617 kilograms in the first two months, compared with 10,564 kilograms a year ago or nearly a seven fold increase from the record levels seen last year. China’s appetite for gold remains strong and Chinese demand alone is likely to put a floor under the gold market.

So far futures are broadly unchanged, following the release of a Chinese trade report which while showing a resumption in the trade surplus, on expectations of further trade deficit in March, showed it was primarily due to a slide in imports, not so much a rise up in exports, a fact which impacted the Aussie dollar subsequently. We already noted that in conjunction with the BOJ, this means that Asia's central banks will likely hold off on further easing, and defer to the Chairman, especially with food inflation in China still prevalent. Aside from that the traditional European weakness is back, where April Sentic Investors Confidence slid to -14.7 on expectations of -9.1: to be expected from a meaningless market-coincident indicator. Keep a close eye on PIIGS bonds where whack a mole is now firmly back as the LTRO benefit is long forgotten, 3 month half life and all that.

While last winter every downtick in corporate earnings was promptly "explained away" by executives using the harsh weather excuse, one has heard not a peep from companies on the topic of an abnormally accommodative climate over the past 4 months. And why would they - after all it would mean that any gains, not that there have been many as most companies have reported below average results, have been artificially boosted by one-time events. Needless to say, the mainstream media would rather not touch this topic with a ten foot pole: there is an election to be won and the public can not be disturbed with facts (heaven forbid someone should mention seasonal adjustments - that's a death sentence). Which is why ironically we have to go to Goldman, which as noted recently, has once again turned bearish on the economy for one reason or another, to quantify the impact of the balmy winter. "Reported growth in the CAI is 2.8% for December and 2.9% for January. The estimates here imply that excluding the effect of warm weather, growth would have been 2.5% in December and 2.5-2.7% in January. Note that although January was very warm relative to seasonal norms, this followed a gradual warming in temperatures in October through December. We think our estimates of the weather impact may be on the low side, given that snowfall was also below seasonal norms this year. Lower precipitation can raise activity in some sectors. Our estimates imply that a normalization in temperatures could be a modest headwind to growth over the next few months. The extent of the drag depends on the specification, but a plausible range would be 10-40bp in March if temperatures return to seasonal norms by that month." Looks like Newton was right after all, despite all attempts by central planners to deny reality.

For those confused, the Fed's Beige Book has been upgraded to the Beige iPad (apparently Ben is not a fan of the black or white version). Regardless, the latest version has just been released spewing forth the usual reflexive platitudes, in which the economy is said to be better because the stock market is higher, and so forth. In other words, the same stuff that completely ignores $110 WTI. Via Bloomberg:

• FED SAYS U.S. ECONOMY EXPANDED AT `MODEST TO MODERATE PACE'
• FED SAYS CONSUMER SPENDING WAS `GENERALLY POSITIVE'
• FED SAYS MANUFACTURING EXPANDED AT `STEADY PACE' NATIONWIDE

And more such headlines which nobody will actually read, except for the algos which scalp the optimistic tone put there precisely for such a purpose.

On this leap day, we have a busy schedule which includes the second Q4 GDP revision, Chicago PMI (expect another massive beat courtesy of consumers confident that they can have Apple apps, if not so much food, since they still don't pay their mortgages), various Fed speakers, of which most important will be Ben Bernanke who takes the podium in Congress at 10 am for his semi-annual monetary policy report.

Last week saw dramatic dispersion among the major FX pairs as global and local influences caused significant moves in most of the key crosses. Goldman takes a look back at the key drivers of that volatility and then focuses on the week ahead as the EU Summit at the latter end is the main event risk while ongoing macro developments will be focused on the incessant rise in Crude oil prices and whether we start seeing knock-on impacts in the real economy.

A down day in the US on Tuesday could begin to trigger intermediate sell signals...~ Lee Adler

This is very likely the time to be fearful when others are greedy.

All you need to read.

Today saw NYSE trading volumes at their 3rd highest of the year and ES (the e-mini S&P 500 futures contract) saw its second highest volume of the year (though both still well below recent averages) as stocks managed marginal gains, outperformed handily by high yield credit. For the sixth day of the last seven ES closed only a smidge from where it opened but average trade size was dramatically higher (its highest since 8/31) which historically has suggested a short-term top (and certainly seems odd heading into tomorrow's European bond auctions). In a similar manner to yesterday, HY17 (the high yield credit index) surged (absolute and relative to ES and HYG) from the European close to US day session close (index RV to Europe and Index arbitrage seems much more of an effect than rerisking. The major Financials were among the best performers today once again (as XLF managed +1.13%) with BofA now up an impressive (if not ridiculous) 24% YTD (and Citi +19%). Perhaps of note is the fact that the major financial CDS rally stalled today with MS, GS, and JPM all leaking a little wider into the close. Treasuries continued their ain't-no-decoupling rally as the 10Y auction went well (beige Book mixed/weak) leaving longer-dated TSY yields near day (and year to date) lows and ES near day highs (sell EUR, buy anything USD-denominated?). The dollar is practically unchanged on the week now as EUR 1.27 (and GBP more so) weakness dragged it up (even as AUD rallied - helping stocks). Copper outperformed among the economically sensitive commodities as Gold gained modestly (slight beat of Silver) and Oil slid back to $101 and remains down on the week as Silver holds over 4% gains. As an aside, from the 12/30/11 close, Gold is up 4.95%, the S&P 500 is up 2.77%, and the Long Bond is down 0.65%.

Lesson to be learned - never be a small investor!

The meeting between Merkel and Sarkozy on Monday is likely to be the main focus of next week, as well as continued debate of the Greek PSI. Overall, this process is likely to push the EUR lower in the next couple of weeks, while the missing details for better fiscal policy coordination are getting negotiated. On the macro side, IP in Germany will have slowed by 0.2% mom in November and consensus expects the aggregate Euro-zone IP to have contracted by the same amount. But we also get November IP in many other places, including the UK and India. Already released over the weekend, Chinese money supply data has been stronger than expected and the amount of new loans issues in December is clear evidence of policy easing.