Deutsche Bank

Against a background of 30%-plus falls in bank share prices around the world and growing fears of a severe blow to the European bank sector in the event of a sovereign debt default, Deutsche Bank has produced a lengthy tome that answers 'everything you wanted to know about the global banking sector but were afraid to ask'. A compendium of charts and tables, summarized effectively by 'Danger Maps' designed to highlight countries which face greater (or lesser) stresses for their banking systems is further extended into a country-by-country breakdown for developed and emerging markets. While their findings may not line up perfectly with our more global contagion perspective, they do create a systematic framework for judging relative investment opportunities that sees Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, and the Nordics as the least risky; US and UK about average on macro scores; while unsurprisingly (with the exception of Germany) the Eurozone countries have the highest danger scores. Transmission channels are discussed and they make a critical point on bank valuations that earnings estimates are extremely sensitive now to bad debt charges and credit quality assumptions. We then point out their more trading-focused (and negative stance) on European banks citing long-term funding, short-term liquidity, and capitalization as enormous systemic hurdles to anything other than short-term compressions.

Following recent disclosure that Bill Ackman's latest so-called 'slam dunk' idea is a bet on a revaluation of the Hong Kong dollar (as described here), it is interesting to see what someone like Deustche Bank's Mirza Baig thought precisely about the trade that Ackman is proposing as some unique concept (in 151 pages no less) as long ago as November 2010. To wit: "Public complaints against inflation are already loud, and may intensify if the reflationary tide swells further. This could turn up the heat on the authorities. Since 1983 when the current regime was adopted, Hong Kong has experienced CPI inflation as high as 12% and deflation as low as -6%. The current inflation rate of roughly 3% looks benign in this context. In 2008 when inflation crossed 5%, the public debate on monetary policy became more intense, but Hong Kong ultimately braced the peg. In short, we feel the situation will have to become far more extreme, and other policy tools prove ineffective before authorities capitulate and allow a revaluation of HKD. At present, the probability of this scenario is low, in our view. This is why we noted earlier that we expect the reval trade to attract more interest from offshore investors, and possibly reach blow-out levels by the middle of [2011]." And after highlighting the Ackman's trade from 10 months later, DB concludes that "[t]he more likely scenario is that Hong Kong will attempt to ride out the reflation tide with its current policy. The public would gradually move to using RMB for payments, and the HKD would fall into relative disuse. Once China’s capital account is sufficiently open (5-10 years later), Hong Kong would endorse the shift towards China through a formal peg vs. RMB at the then prevailing exchange rate  (i.e. without any revaluation)."

Step aside Goldman "Shitty Deal" Sachs and JP Morgan MBS settlements. Enter Deutsche Bank. After the two biggest American hedge funds already settled with the SEC over their transgressions of selling MBS to clients even as they were betting actively against such securities, now it is Deustche Bank's turn, and more specifically head Deutsche bank MBS trader Greg "I Am Short Your House" Lippman. And unlike Goldman and JP Morgan which actually are profitable, and could afford the settlement, life for DB may not be just as simple. Reuters reports: "Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossman filed a scorcher of a suit against Deutsche Bank Wednesday, claiming that the bank sold financial services group Dexia more than $1 billion in mortgage-backed securities at the same time Deutsche Bank bet $10 billion that those notes would fail. The 175-page (!) New York state supreme court complaint is Bernstein Litowitz's second major new MBS filing in a week, coming on the heels of Allstate's suit against Morgan Stanley. The Deutsche complaint is filled with eye-popping allegations. Bernstein claims, for instance, that senior traders at the bank described the securities they were peddling to clients like Dexia as "crap," "pigs," and "generally horrible." One trader, Greg Lippman, allegedly wrote, "DOESN'T THIS DEAL BLOW" in an e-mail to a colleague about an offering Dexia sank $23 million into. In another e-mail the complaint cites, this one to a hedge fund investor, Lippman allegedly disclosed a $1 billion short position on mortgage-backed securities that was going to make him "oceans of money." And courtesy of said oceans, Greg will be more than happy to afford the drop that will be imminent settlement he wil have to pay as nothing ever changes. 

This is not what Europe needed to hear with just hours until the official Stress Test release: while everyone expects the 26 reject banks already listed by Moody's previously to fail (and their "passing" will only further discredit the stress test), nobody had dared to utter a peep about the true shaky behemoths at the heart of Europe's banking system, chief among which is Deutsche Bank. Until today. SocGen analyst Hank Calenti just told the firm's clients in a note that not only Deutsche Bank, but also Commerzbank and Banco Popolare may be "near fails" under the adverse (we assume one exists) Stress Test scenario. To wit: "Deutsche Bank may fall into the ‘near-fail’ zone under the adverse scenario, due to the full application of CRD III in the stress test results. As noted by our equity colleagues in their publication of 19 May 2011, Will the upcoming EBA bank stress test trigger further capital raising?, Banco Popolare and Commerzbank may also be ‘near fails’." He continues: "We do not believe that the possibility of Deutsche Bank as a ‘near fail’ is currently priced in the CDS markets." Guess what that means: "We recommend buying subordinated CDS protection on Deutsche Bank and we recommend selling subordinated CDS protection on HSBC as a means to hedge against - and possibly capitalise on - the results of the EU bank stress tests." Well, there is still 100 minutes in which to put the trade on.

Deustche Bank's forensics/technicals looked downright ugly. We opined on both about two weeks ago, along with parsing the CEO's warning that all should essentially start running for the hills. Many participants in mother market missed this. Well, DB got crushed in European trading, making both the forensic research and technical trade setup shine like the sun. There's much more to come! Will those triple digit short returns of 2008 come again?

Nearly three weeks ago, on May 17, Zero Hedge, when analyzing the complete collapse in car and thus Industrial production made the following observations: "The immediate impact: the drop in the industrial production already
seen, but the bulk of it due to delayed aftereffects will likely impact
the May number, as the follow through from the Japanese supply chain
halt starts ringing a loud alarm bell across Wall Street. Of course,
this is another thing that all those calling for a 4% H2 GDP could have
absolutely not foreseen (and in fact it was originally supposed to be
positive for the economy, eh Deutsche Bank?). Expect to see drastic
downward cuts to May Industrial Production and next, to Q2 GDP." Fast forward to today, when, in an example of poetic irony, none other than Deutsche Bank's grossly overpaid economists also known as Shaman witchdoctors in less than polite circles, have just come out with a note titled: "Quantifying the impact of autos on Q2 real GDP" in which they, gasp, discover that "a near 30% decline in motor vehicle production is consistent with roughly a two full percentage point drag on Q2 real GDP. In our forecast, we are assuming a decline of around 1.5% because we think that we might see a small bounce in June production that will push the quarterly decline in motor vehicle production to something closer to -20%." Well, better late and always cluelessly wrong, than never... and still cluelessly wrong.

There is little we can add to what can only be classified as career suicide facilitated by terminal incompetence from one of CNBC's most beloved "economists" (in this case, naturally, Deutsche Bank's Joe LaVorgna), who just cut his NFP estimate from 300,000 to 160,000 in two days. From yesterday: "Our preliminary estimates were for +300k on payrolls and a three-tenths decline in the unemployment rate to 8.7%. However, in light of the softer tone of the data—particularly the inability of initial jobless claims to recover below 400k—we trimmed our projections. We lowered our May payroll estimate to +225k and raised our unemployment rate target to 8.9%." And from 10 minutes ago: "In light of the significant downside surprise in the ADP employment numbers earlier today, as well as the equally important slowdown in the ISM employment component, we are trimming our May nonfarm payroll projection to 160k from 225k as we previously estimated. We project private payrolls to increase 185k. We continue to anticipate a one-tenth decline in the unemployment rate to 8.9%."

Discussing population dynamics in elite (or is that elitist, let's just call it Wall Street) circles has always had an aura of taboo about it, due to the inevitable degeneration of any conversation into Malthusian rhetoric, especially if one of the speakers had had a little too much to drink. And for better or worse, name-dropping Malthus does not garner brownie points, nor will it lead to another horrendous straight to HBO faux morality tale about this or that. That stigma, however (and luckily) has not prevented Deutsche Bank's Sanjeev Sanyal (yes, there are people at DB who do think originally and whose day is not taken up by trips to and fro Englewood Cliffs) from penning a must read macro analysis titled "The End of Population Growth" which we will discuss more in depth shortly, but wanted to bring readers' attention to one particular chart: namely that comparing world fertility rates in 1950-1955 and 2010-2015. The surprising implication of the below chart leads Sanyal to declare that the period set to begin in just 10 years "will be one of the most important turning points in history" simply because: "the human race will no longer be replacing itself by the early 2020s. Population growth will continue for a few more decades because of momentum from the age structure and people living longer but, reproductively speaking, our species will no longer be growing." And since global reproduction will not be net additive, it will be net subtractive... and on a long-enough timeline the world's population will drop to zero...

When we discussed yesterday's miss in April Industrial Production, and noted the plunge in the vehicle assembly rate, we merely said what anyone with half a brain would have seen as glaringly obvious ever since the Japan earthquake in March. "The immediate impact: the drop in the industrial production already
seen, but the bulk of it due to delayed aftereffects, will likely impact
the May number, as the follow through from the Japanese supply chain
halt starts ringing a loud alarm bell across Wall Street. Of course,
this is another thing that all those calling for a 4% H2 GDP could have
absolutely not foreseen (and in fact it was originally supposed to be
positive for the economy, eh Deutsche Bank?). Expect to see drastic
downward cuts to May Industrial Production and next, to Q2 GDP." Fast forward to today when we read in Reuters precisely what was predicted less than 24 hours ago: "here are fears auto production, which added 1.4
percentage points to growth in U.S. gross domestic product in the first
three months of the year, may now be a drag." And irony of ironies: "Some financial
institutions, including Deutsche Bank, are already trimming their second
quarter GDP estimates." But, but, wasn't it Deutsche Bank's very own Joe LaVorgna who first said that the disaster would actually be beneficial for world GDP, and subsequently that the world is "overreacting." Guess not: "Before Tuesday's industrial production data, Deutsche Bank had been expecting economic growth to accelerate to a 3.7 percent annual pace during this quarter after a sluggish 1.8 percent rate in the January-March period. "We lowered it by half-a-percentage point to 3.2 percent. We are going for a more conservative narrowing because other manufacturing activity is still expanding despite the supply disruptions in the auto sector."  And there you have that very dirty NC 17 three word phrase: "Wall Street Strategist."

I apologize for the language but, FUCK YOU Akerman Sentertfitt / Deutsche Bank.

For those wondering which bank domino drops first if Greece files tomorrow, Sunday, in one month, or in one year, here is the market providing the answer: Deutsche Bank put volume surges to 7,353, 11 times normal.

Step aside Goldman Sachs, welcome Deutsche Bank: "This is a civil mortgage fraud lawsuit brought by the United States against Deutsche Bank and MortgageIT. As set forth below, Deutsche Bank and MortgageIT repeatedly lied to be included in a Government program to select mortgages for insurance by the Government. Once in that program, they recklessly selected mortgages that violated program rules in blatant disregard of whether borrowers could make mortgage payments. While Deutsche Bank and MortgageIT profited from the resale of these Government-insured mortgages, thousands of America homeowners have faced default and eviction, and the Government has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in insurance claims, with hundreds of millions of dollars more expected to be paid in the future... Deutsche Bank and MortgageIT had powerful financial incentives to invest resources into generating as many FHA-insured mortgages as quickly as possible for resale to investors... DB and MortgageIT repeatedly lied to HUD to obtain and maintain MortgageIT's Direct Endorsement Lender status.... Their violations of HUD rules were egregious." And what investors are focused on: "In this suit, the United States seeks treble damages and penalties under the False Claims act and compensatory and punitive damages under the common law theories of breach of fiduciary duty, gross negligence, negligence, and indemnification for the insurance claims already paid by HUD for mortgages wrongfully endorsed by MortgageIT. In addition, the United States seeks compensatory and punitive damages." And what is also notable is that this fraud persisted well past the housing crunch, continuing well into 2009 according to the lawsuit.

Wall Street's worst kept secret is now out. From Reuters: "The United States sued Deutsche Bank AG, accusing the German bank and its MortgageIT Inc unit of repeatedly lying to be included in a federal program to select mortgages to be insured by the government." And so, 2011 continues being a carbon copy of 2010, with only Deutsche Bank taking the place of Goldman this time around. Oh yes, Greg Lipmmann we hardly knew ye (and we didn't even short your house).

This one caught us by surprise. Today, Deutsche Bank announced it was suspending new issuance in the PowerShares Agriculture Double Long ETF, the DAG. What is odd, is that unlike last week's announcement by Barclays that it would start unwinding its triple inverse S&P ETF (BXDD), which has logically been plunging as the market levitates ever higher on ever lower volume, the DAG has done exactly the opposite. In fact, as the chart below shows, the DAG is trading close to its 52 week high, having tripled from the 52 week low in July (yet still $12 away from its all time high reached in 2008). Therefore, this is not a performance issue, which needs a reverse stock split to be resolved, and likely indicates some deeper issues with creation of shares in what is rapidly becoming the hottest asset space.

One of the bigger news this morning is the so far unconfirmed report that Bundesbank President Axel Weber, who has been in the running to replace Jean Claude Trichet, has decided against an ECB future, and instead wants to make money at Deutsche Bank. The sudden about turn in the process has left many wondering why so late in the process, and just what about the ECB is it that makes Weber leery of affixing his fate to the central bank without a unified bond printing facility. From BusinessWeek: "Deutsche Bundesbank President Axel Weber will step down and wants to join Deutsche Bank AG, Deutsche Presse-Agentur reported today, without saying where it obtained the information."