Deutsche Bank

• What bread... What circuses... JPMorgan Chase Faces Full-Court Press of Federal Investigations (NYT)
• European Regulators to Charge Banks Over Derivatives (WSJ) ... but forgive us if we don't hold our breath
• Cyprus readies capital controls to avert bank run (Reuters)
• Damage ripples through Cypriot economy (FT)
• G4S readies guards as Cypriot banks prepare to open (Reuters)
• Global pool of triple A status shrinks 60% (FT)
• Customers Flee Wal-Mart Empty Shelves for Target, Costco (BBG)
• BOE Says U.K. Banks Have Capital Shortfall of $38 Billion (BBG)
• U.K. Banks Facing Capital Shortfall (WSJ)
• Cyprus Details Bank Revamp (WSJ)
• Kazumasa Iwata Joins Kuroda Naysayers as BOJ to Meet (BBG)
• BRICS Nations Need More Time for New Bank, Russia Says (BBG)

Here we go again:

EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT TO PUSH FOR DEPOSITORS WITH ABOVE 100,000 EUROS TO FACE BAIL-IN UNDER NEW BANK RESOLUTION LAW - EU LAWMAKER - RTRS

Basically, this is DieselBOOM ver 2.0. How long until someone scrambles to announce that this, too, was taken out of context?

After one of the most fabulous verbal faux pas in recent history was committed yesterday, in which the truth briefly escaped the lips of the new Eurogroup head who still has to learn from his masterful "when it becomes serious you have to lie" predecessor and ever since both he and all of uber-incompetent Europe have been desperate to put the genie back into the bottle to no avail, everyone has been caught in a great debate: to template, or not to template?  Below is a summary of Wall Street's thinking on this key for so many European (and soon global) depositors.

In 2013, we are receiving the same banker and mass media propaganda that we heard in 2008. The stock markets are okay, economies are recovering, blah, blah, blah. However, do any of the facts support the propaganda? For example, this “bullish” US stock market has not even recovered to the levels of October, 2007. And even, if more QE, more HFT low-trading volume rigging can rig US and other western markets higher, do rising stock markets even matter if the growth of stock markets are less than

Retail investors are piling into the stock market again in the false belief that the worst of the economic crisis is over. Alas, those who are not properly diversified may again be in for a rude awakening.

In addition to the phenomenon of "foreclosure stuffing" described here extensively before, one of the main reasons for the artificial drop in housing supply has been the ongoing government-subsidized, GSE/FHFA endorsed REO-to-Rent initiative, through which large asset managers have been encouraged to take advantage of government funded, risk-free financing and purchase foreclosed properties in bulk, with the intention of converting them into rental properties. The REO-To-Rent has traditionally been open to the biggest of financial companies, or at least those who don't have the stigma of legacy mortgage origination resulting in billions in litigation reserves, which means mostly hedge funds and PE firms. One of the main players in the space, Och-Ziff, decided to pull out of the landlord business in October of last year because, as Reuters reported, "the returns it is generating from rental income are less than expected and it is looking to take advantage of a recent rebound in home prices in northern California." In other words, selling while the selling is good. Of course, there is another, far more traditional way to offload risk while preserving some of the upside: dump the balance sheet exposure to others while giving them a fraction of the potential upside yield. This is precisely what the big banks were doing during the last housing bubble when massive residential mortgage-backed security portfolios were packaged, spliced, securitized (sometime without the feedback of firms like Paulson pre-shorting the MBS courtesy of firms like Goldman) and sold off to other yield-starved investors. Everyone knows how that ended. So fast forward to today, when this final missing link from the credit and housing bubble is finally here too, following news that mega-PE firm Blackstone is pushing forward with the first ever REO-To-Rental securitization.

The “Fix” Is In?

Years after the CFTC, under the leadership of Goldman's Gary Gensler, theatrically agreed to investigate whether the price of precious metals was manipulated during trading - whether systematically or ad hoc - only to let that inquiry fizzle and drop the whole idea proclaiming there is manipulation, the commodity futures regulators are once again taking a look at shady activities originating at London. Or rather, it is "discussing internally" whether the daily London gold and silver price fixing is open to manipulation.

Below are the expectations of the biggest banks for today's Nonfarm Payroll number to be announced in just over two hours:

• Morgan Stanley +135K
• Barclays Capital +150K
• Goldman Sachs +150K
• Bank of America +160K
• JPMorgan +165K
• HSBC +179K
• Deutsche Bank +180K
• UBS +190K

And the Stock Rally Is Due to Money-Printing

• Must defend against Chinese colonial expansion and get the Nigerian oil: U. S. Boosts War Role in Africa (WSJ)
• BOJ nominee Kuroda sets out aggressive policy ideas (Reuters)
• China becomes world’s top oil importer (FT)
• Baby Cured of HIV for the First Time, Researchers Say (WSJ)
• Obama to nominate Walmart's Burwell as White House budget chief (Reuters)
• Wal-Mart Anxious to Combat Amazon’s Lead in Web Vendors (BBG)
• Nasdaq executing trades at a loss (FT)
• Spending cut debate casts pall over Obama's second-term agenda (Reuters)
• Russell Indexes to Reclassify Greece as Emerging Market (BBG)
• Bond Bears Collide With Swaps Showing Low Rates (BBG)
• Buffett Deputies Leaving Billionaire in the Dust Get More Funds (BBG)
• Brazil's leftist president fights to win back business (Reuters)
• U.S. Special Forces train Syrian Rebels in Jordan (Le Figaro)
• Carlos Slim Risks Losing World’s Richest Person Title as Troubles Mount (BBG)

Earlier we reviewed the overnight plunge in China stocks, especially those related to the real-estate market in the aftermath of the latest move by the State Council to be far more hawkish than expected, in its effort to curb property inflation. The economic and market weakness that resulted has followed through to overnight US and European futures, even as peripheral bonds are trading roughly unchanged, surprising many who thought this weekend's Beppe Grillo statement on the future of Italian debt and presence in the Eurozone would be market moving: it wasn't as Grillo said nothing that he had not already made quite clear. In other, more recent economic news, UK construction PMI imploded to recession levels, plunging to 46.8 from 49.0, far below expectations and the lowest print since October 2009, setting the stage for much more Goldman-led reflation by the BOE. Also negative was the drop in the Eurozone Sentix Investor Confidence index which tumbled to -10.6 from -3.9 on expectations of -4.3, sending the EURUSD deep into 1.29 territory. It appears the Sentix excludes the soaring German confidence, which two weeks ago was the sole driver of all upside, not once but twice in one week. Today we get the first day of the sequester being digested by the market - this togetger with an empty macro calendar in the US means rumors and headlines will determine how far GETCO's algo push the stop hunts during the first and last 30 minutes of trading.

No, American Banks DON'T Need to Be Big to Compete with Bigger Foreign Rivals

Gold is trading flat today near a one and a half week high hit yesterday as Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke defended the U.S.  ultra loose monetary policy.

The selloff in gold ETFs in February underscores the weakness in gold sentiment among retail investors that has been prominent recently. 

Speculation, derivatives, and the price of food in poor countries