Debt Ceiling

STEPHANOPOULOS: So are you saying that if he continues to refuse to negotiate, the country is going to default?

BOEHNER: That's the path we're on.
...
STEPHANOPOULOS: So bottom line, you're saying this is your absolute position. If the president continues to refuse to negotiate over the debt limit, if Democrats refuse to continue to negotiate over the government shutdown, the government is going to remain closed and the United States is going to default?; BOEHNER: The president -- the president, his refusal to talk, is resulting in a possible default on our debt.

Same political disfunction. Same blue team indifference to soaring government debt. Same hypocrisy from those on the red team who helped set debt on its upward trajectory. Same lack of any serious effort to tackle the most important issue – the unsustainable paths of our major entitlement programs. But there is one difference.

David Stockman, author of The Great Deformation, summarizes the last quarter century thus: What has been growing is the wealth of the rich, the remit of the state, the girth of Wall Street, the debt burden of the people, the prosperity of the beltway and the sway of the three great branches of government - that is, the warfare state, the welfare state and the central bank...

What is flailing is the vast expanse of the Main Street economy where the great majority have experienced stagnant living standards, rising job insecurity, failure to accumulate material savings, rapidly approach old age and the certainty of a Hobbesian future where, inexorably, taxes will rise and social benefits will be cut...

He calls this condition "Sundown in America".

It took just four days before the Federal government caved to Congress and admitted that it can't even operate in a partial, "non-essential" shutdown. A few short hours ago Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel ordered 400,000 furloughed Pentagon civilian employees - or about half the total defense employees - back to work. it is also roughly half of the total employees furloughed since the start of the government shutdown, which is now in its fifth day, and since both the House and the Senate are now gone until Monday afternoon, it appears the shutdown, even if now at half mast will continue for at least a week.

Yesterday we described the various scenarios available to Treasury in the next few weeks should the shutdown and debt ceiling debacle carry on longer than the equity markets believe possible. As BofAML notes, however, the most plausible option for the Treasury could be implementing a delayed payment regime. In such a scenario, the Treasury would wait until it has enough cash to pay off an entire day’s obligations and then make those payments on a day-to-day basis. Given the lack of a precedent, it is hard to quantify the impact on the financial markets in the event that the Treasury was to miss payment on a UST; but the following looks at the impact on a market by market basis.

Technically, the dollar is looking a bit better.  Here is our assessment.

What if the Treasury were to go over the X date (date beyond which the Treasury cannot honor all its payments) without the debt ceiling being raised? As BofAML notes, the Treasury estimates the X date to be October 17, though they believe that the Treasury may have enough cash and incoming tax receipts to last a few more days. In either case, the date is not too far out. Market concerns over possible postponed payment have been rising as indicated by the performance of October and November bills. What are the options of for the Treasury?

It may "not be some damn game", but this sure is some damn summary of all the latest news and developments.  Via Bloomberg:

• House Democrats will attempt to use discharge petition to force House to vote on clean stopgap spending bill; 17 House Republicans would need to back the measure and 20 House Republicans have said they’d vote for a clean bill
• House in session tomorrow 10am
• White House supports House bill to retroactively pay govt staff, says Obama would veto House piecemeal spending bills
• House Speaker John Boehner says he won’t offer a clean debt limit bill, says shutdown "isn’t some damn game"
• Tea Party-backed Rep. Dennis Ross, R-Fla., says he’s in favor of spending deal that doesn’t include changes to Obamacare

The most likely outcome of the current fiscal dispute, in Goldman's opinion, is an agreement that combines an increase in the debt limit and a "continuing resolution" that reopens the federal government. Unlike the November T-Bill market traders, Goldman expects this to pass; but no earlier than the end of next week (i.e., October 11-12) and more likely sometime around the Treasury's projected deadline of October 17. Other outcomes are possible, but Goldman believes they have lower probabilities.

One of the biggest laughs of the conference came when Smith presented the slide, ‘Emperor … With No Clothes’  which compared how the value of the Roman denarius, silver coin and the U.S. paper dollar have fared during periods of currency debasement. 

The chart shows the silver denarius since Nero and the dollar since Nixon and looked at the level of debasement during the reign of each Roman Emperor and the term of each Presidency.

Until yesterday, all the action in T-Bills - that was creating anxiety in the credit markets - was focused on the end-of-October bills. But now, despite the Boehner restatement of his desire not to end-the-world yesterday that realistically said nothing new, the mid-November Bills are starting to blow higher in yield. It seems confidence in a short-term solution to the shutdown/CR/Debt-Ceiling debacle is not expected. The 11/14/13 bill is up 8.5bps to 13.5bps this morning...

Another day, another shut government and 1-month T-Bills have surged another 6bps to 18.5bps. Those who read our suggestion from Sept 26 to hedge the political stupidity and debt ceiling debate and put on the 1M1Y flattener have seen the fastest plunge and inversion (to negative!) in the curve since early 2009. Despite the relative calm in repo markets, which is likely due to expectations that any technical default will be for a minim al length, the short-term bills most likely to be affected (the 10/31/13 T-Bills) are seeing the largest daily deterioration yet as traders exit and price in the possibility of missed payment. 1Y USA CDS has spiked by a massive 26bps to 65bps, higher than during the Lehman crisis and second only to Summer 2011.

With the government shutdown stretching into an improbable 4th day (and with every additional day added on, the likelihood that the impasse continues even longer and hit the debt ceiling X-Date of October 17 becomes greater), today's monthly Non-Farm Payroll data has quickly become No-Farm Payroll. However, just like on day when Europe is closed we still get a ramp into the European close, expect at least several vacuum tube algos to jump the gun at 8:29:59:999 and try to generate some upward momentum ignition in stocks and downward momentum in gold. In addition to no economic data released in the US, President Obama announced last night he has cancelled his trip to Bali, Indonesia, to attend the APEC conference and instead to focus on budget negotiations back at home - which is ironic because his latest story is that he will not negotiate, so why not just not negotiate from Asia? Ah, the optics of shutdown.

With short-term Treasury Bills starting to price in a missed payment possibility and USA CDS surging (though still low), the debt ceiling (and implicit chance of a technical default) is nigh. As we approach yet another debt ceiling showdown (especially in light of the seeming congruence of a CR and debt ceiling debate in an entirely divided Washington), market attention will turn towards a possible US sovereign rating downgrade. In this article, we provide an outline of the likely actions by the three rating agencies (S&P, Moody’s and Fitch).

Even as the fearmongering over the debt ceiling hits proportions not seen since 2011 (when however it was the 20% drop in the market that catalyzed a resolution in the final minutes - a scenario likely to be repeated again), some banks are taking things more seriously, and being well-aware that when it comes to banks, any initial panic merely perpetuates more panic, have taken some radical steps. The FT reports that "two of the country’s 10 biggest banks said they were putting into place a “playbook” used in August 2011 when the government last came close to breaching the debt ceiling. One senior executive said his bank was delivering 20-30 per cent more cash than usual in case panicked customers tried to withdraw funds en masse. Banks are also holding daily emergency meetings to discuss other steps, including possible free overdrafts for customers reliant on social security payments from the government.