Brazil

While the price of food to the American end consumers has been relatively flat over the past few months (at least according to official CPI data), behind the scenes another food inflationary storm for the "rest of the world" is quietly brewing. The reason: after creeping higher all year, soybean prices are just shy of record highs. And while that may not mean much for a population that is used to dining out on 99 cent meals, soy is one of the most highly prized and used broad spectrum use food commodities around the world. From the FT: "The price of soyabeans is heading towards the record high set during the 2007-08 food crisis, which is set to reignite fears of runaway global food inflation. The surge in prices is because of falling global production levels following dry weather in Latin America and increased China imports. Soya’s wide range of use as feed for cows, sheep, pigs and poultry – and as a source for oil used in foodstuffs such as biscuits and cakes – means its high price could trigger food inflation fears." Most importantly, soy is one of China's most important agricultural imports, with soy prices very closely linked to Chinese inflation. So for all those wondering why the great Chinese goal seek model continues to confound expectations and keep coming in stronger than expected (at least in a Schrodinger sense) despite the country's economy sputtering based on both electrical usage and net trade, that's the reason: the last thing China needs in a critical political election year (ahem Bo Xilai) is a sudden spike in food inflation which would be only exacerbated by more PBOC easing. Just recall how closely the media was following reports out of China last year as many thought a rerun of the Arabian spring in the streets of Beijing was virtually inevitable.

Goldman summarizes what to look forward to in the next few days, when once again fundamental will be ignored and all attention will be on the ECB. "The Week ahead will be dominated by global PMI and US labour market data as the two key releases. A few central banks meetings are on schedule, but market consensus suggests clearly that that ECB will not change its policy, while the RBA will likely cut interest rates by 25bp. There are also central bank meetings in Columbia, Thailand and the Czech Republic.  The impact of these events on the FX markets, in particular the key activity data, will mainly be driven by the usual risk-on/risk-off mechanics. Moreover, with cyclical data generally weakening, chances are that risk-off currencies could perform relatively better this week. Some additional Yen strength is therefore possible, as well some under-performance of pro-cyclical currencies. The AUD may be worth some particular attention with the RBA meeting this week and the Chinese PMI - both key drivers of the currency."

Thoughts on last and next week.

Forget Competing Theories … What Do the Facts Say about Quantitative Easing?

Why America is extremely vulnerable to BSE. At a steep cost to the beef industry.

All you need to read and more.

Update for those who don't see more easing - bad news:

BERNANKE SAYS FED PREPARED TO TAKE MORE BALANCE SHEET ACTIONS
BERNANKE SAYS `THOSE TOOLS REMAIN ON THE TABLE'

One hour ago, the Fed launched on a big stop hunt, sending gold first much lower, then much higher, even as it released no incremental data, but merely confirmed that with every other central bank still "easing" (by which we mean devaluing their currencies of course, most recently seen in India and Brazil, and shortly, in Japan and of course Europe, once again) it can delay injecting cash until after the president is reelected. So with everyone at least superficially pretending there may be a question about ultimate Fed strategy, Ben will take the podium shortly to answer Steve Liesman's and several other fawning 'journalists' questions on what the Fed sees for the future, which in turn will be driven by the just released revised Fed forecasts (see below). Our question is why does the Fed not sell one or more ad spots on its livestream? Each can sell for at least a few millions - the money could then be used to pay down the debt.

Forget Big Macs, the only ubiquitous commodity that counts now in the global purchasing-power-parity pyramid of currency-wars is the iPhone. Deutsche Bank has created a comprehensive set of tables on what costs how much and where around the world so whether it is soft-drinks in Brazil or Germany (over 690% of New York prices), Beer in Japan (192% of US prices), or exercise in Russia (sports shoes are 221% of US prices), it is perhaps evident that the impact of these overseas revenues in nominal USD may indeed be helping juice US corporates as they bow to Bernanke's debasement wisdom. But how much longer will Russians (or the Chinese for that sake) continue to pay around 50% more for their iGadgets than us lowly Americans.

All you need to read.

Here is the point; Bernanke thinks he can deal with this falling growth outlook and a deleveraging consumer by adding to QE to keep rates very low. I am not sure it will work and if it doesn’t yields could start to rise and the more he throws at it the more yields actually rise as vigilantes will fear pent up inflationary pressures. This is a potential disaster for central bankers and at some point the impact of QE may be proven limited. When it is the central banks will have shot the last bullet. Why is no one discussing this?

All morning we have been blasted with 2011 deja vu stories how the IMF panhandling effort has finally succeeded, and how Lagarde's Louis Vuitton bag is now full to the brim with $400 billion in fresh crisp US Dollars bills courtesy of BRIC nations, and other countries such as South Korea, Australia, Singapore, Japan (adding $60 billion to its total debt of Y1 quadrillion - at that point who counts) and, uhh, Poland. From Reuters: "The Group of 20 nations on Friday were poised to commit at least $400 billion to bulk up the International Monetary Fund's war chest to fight any widening of Europe's debt crisis." We say deja vu because it is a carbon copy of headlines from EcoFin meetings from the fall of 2011 in which we were "assured", "guaranteed" and presented other lies that the EFSF would surpass $1 trillion, even $1.5 trillion on occasion, any minute now. Alas, that never happened, and while we are eagerly waiting to find out just what the contribution of Argentina will be to bail out Spanish banks (just so it can expropriate even more assets from the country that rhymes with Pain), we have one simple question: does the I in the IMF stand for Idiots? Why? Because this is merely yet another example of forced capital misallocation, only this time at a global scale.

Over the past month, the world has finally awakened to the reality that when it comes to easing, there is more than just one central bank (i.e., the Fed). in fact, as we have been showing since early this year, the bulk of the easing over the past 5 months has happened elsewhere, primarily in Europe with LTRO 1+2, and subsequently at the BOE, and more recently at India and Brazil. Yet some holdouts still remain. One of these naturally is China, which everyone would love to see cut RRR or even the benchmark rate, yet which as recent CPI data has shown still has lingering packets of inflation precisely where it hurts: food (and of course recall China's Schrodinger economy). Which leaves Japan, which already eased more a few months back when it expanded its LSAP program... but it is never enough. Needless to say strategists, in their quest to shake any and every central banker here or there for some free money, have been seeing imminent BOJ easing in the form of yet another Y5 trillion LSAP any second now. Yet it is one thing for bankers to do what they are programmed to do, which is demand more free money, it is something very different when politicians step in and defuse the myth that any central bank is even remotely independent, especially when reelection is at stake. As Bloomberg points out this morning, the fight for the BOJ's "independent" balance sheet is starting to get lethal.

Japanese Finance Minister said an IMF funding increase to USD 400bln is "coming into sight", and that he expects the BRIC nations to offer funds to the IMF at the appropriate time. The finance minister sees funding figures to be released as early as tomorrow. (Sources) The IMF looks set to reach or pass that target, with USD 320bln secured yesterday and many of the largest emerging economies still to contribute. ECB’s Knot and EU’s Rehn have said IMF commitments may have to be up to USD 500bln, and expects China to boost resources.  Brazil’s finance minister has said his country is still not ready to give numbers on their IMF contribution. The Indian finance minister has said he will take time to provide an answer to the funding question for the IMF. China also remains undecided on an increased IMF contribution.

The global reliquification continues:

• BRAZIL CENTRAL BANK DECREASES BENCHMARK LENDING RATE TO 9.00%
• BRAZIL CEN BANK SAYS RATE CUT PART OF CONTINUED ADJUSTMENT

First India, now Brazil (even if the move was largely expected). When are Russia and China joining the fray?

Because no day can be truly complete without a brief comic interlude by everyone's favorite FX strategist...