Belgium

Central Banks United have the upper hand these days. So don’t mess with them…

At least not this week…

So, ok, yes, there’s a huge conditional bazooka out there, but who wants to really use it?

 Seems like a huge defibrillator. Good to have, but beware of not shocking the patient too much. 

Monetary Outright Transactions - MOT

Moths??? Like those burning up on light bulbs??? Or like in “to mothball”, buy and store?

This morning, Germany attempted to sell €5 billion in 1.5% 10 Year bonds. It sold just €3.61 billion directly to investors (who had submitted a less than auction clearing €3.91 billion in bids), forcing the German Treasury to retain 27.8% of the auction, €1.39 billion: the highest retained amount since November 2011 when it was 39%. For one reason or another: the yield was too low at 1.42% (compared to the 1.634 average), there was much more supply elsewhere, fears of what the ECB will do tomorrow, or who knows - the real bid to cover was a paltry 0.79 (all in BTC 1.09 including government retention) compared to 1.57 at the last auction and a 1.31 average at the past 4 auctions. In other words the auction was for all technical reasons, a failure, and only the second such "failure" of 2012. The immediate reaction was Bund futures down 22 ticks at 143.28 vs 143.70 before auction as the market digested the surprising disappointment, with the German 10-year government bond yield up 2.4 basis points at 1.41 percent vs 1.37 percent before auction. In summary, if the Germans needed any more reasons that funding the insolvent Eurozone at all costs up to an including debt monetizations, which may result in failed bond auctions for German itself, are not in their best interest, they just got one. The good news: in an email sent out immediately by the German Finance agency, the bond sale was "not a risk to the budget." Wouldn't want a failed bond auction to jeopardize the budget now.

Mario Draghi is a few days away from creating the biggest two tiered market in history.

There is still some compression margin, but where to put the credit spread, real or “perceived”, from a (real) default possibility point of view or even from the shunned convertibility point of view?

“Believe me, it will be enough!” will request some massive outside-the-box thinking…

Upcoming calls from Ben and Mario to the governments?

Get your act together, there’s just so much that can be done.

Odd and contradictory ROn / ROff close

We fear that the data given to us by Europe is erroneous. The resident institutions in the world where one thinks that accurate data may be found for Europe are Eurostat and the Bank for International Settlements. Spain and her official admission of "dynamic provisioning" has raised all kinds of questions in our mind and has unsettled our belief in the data provided by Europe. It is now quite apparent that the numbers for all of the Spanish banks, are inaccurate. It may well be that the EU or the ECB could bury what may be found but it would be awfully tough for the IMF to hide any material breaches. Even when considering the IMF however, certain questions are raised. Their projections for Europe and each and every country in Europe have been wrong, dead wrong and far too optimistic. This then would explain why Europe is in such trouble because if the data is not truthful then the truth, as most often happens, leaks out from underneath that which is hidden and provides the outcomes that the Europeans have tried so hard to avoid. Whatever the real numbers are, they are providing the consequences that result from their actuality.

Even in the unlikely case of a fiscal union, the conflict “Draghi against Weidmann”, between the ECB and the Bundesbank will continue for years. The ECB mandate and many european inflation figures do not allow for excessive ECB rate cuts or for state financing via the printing press, but Draghi wants to help his struggling home country.

We don't need recession

Or means of repression

Just give us some money

Our life could be sunny too...

We advise you to take note of the political opposition that is coalescing in Europe. The cry across the Continent, in various languages, is “Enough.” All of the grand designs speculated about for the ECB rest upon the use of the EFSF and/or the ESM as stated specifically by Mr. Draghi. Over the weekend the Bundesbank was absolutely critical of any such plans and they were supported by several statements made by Ms. Merkel. It is now dubious, in my view, whether Austria, the Netherlands, Finland and perhaps Germany would support not pledges but more actual money to be used for Greece, Portugal and Spain. The rub is on and the size of these potential programs will, without doubt, affect the funding nations in Europe along with the nations that need the capital. Muddling is no longer possible, delay has run out of road, postponement is no longer an option as recession grips the Continent and as each solvent nation seeks to defend itself.

Bail me out once, shame on you; bail me twice, shame on me; shame on me; come back for a third (and final, we promise!) bailout, only a Franco-Belgian SNAFU is capable of such Einstein-ian repetition. Dexia, that stress-test-passing bastion of all things entirely wrong with European banking and politics is back at the trough. Reuters is reporting what we have known all along, that without massive additional capital injections the bad-bank, crap-bank model simply cannot work. To wit: Dexia needs to recap its Luxembourg unit (BIL) before its apparently 'imminent' sale to a Qatari sovereign wealth fund (one more billionaire sucker family born every day it seems). The somewhat comical aspect is that the post-October (the second - and final, we promise - bailout), BIL's 'legacy' bond portfolio was 'transferred' to its parent Dexia at December 2011 prices - creating a net loss of EUR1.9bn for the subsidiary. This significantly affected the sub's solvency - making it unlikely to meet its capital requirements (which it was 'sure' would be 9% Tier 1 by now!). But given Dexia's own extensive losses - EUR11.6bn in 2011 and EUR1.2bn in the first six months of 2012 - a capital increase for Dexia BIL may force Dexia to seek funds itself. That would mean mo' money, mo' bailout from the states currently guaranteeing its borrowings - principally Belgium and France, and to a lesser extent Luxembourg - which now look set to rise to EUR90bn in aggregate!

Markets taking any negative news as additional must-have accelerators of a bail-out.

Time being of the essence.

But what if things just drag on? 

Organic growth is slow and painful (Boo!), central bank money fast, cheap and with few strings attached (Yes!)…And anyway, QE and other supports have already been priced in… Can’t change the programme.