European Central Bank

Based on its debt maturation cycle I expect we’ll see an Italian default within the next six months. Indeed, no matter what happens with Greece, Italy will make sure that the EU in its current form no longer exists within the next year.

Like two children bickering over spilled ink... Listen fellas, there's only one way out of this, and that way is not through the ACME Print-O-Matic 2000 (Euro edition). It didn't work for Japan, it didn't work for the US, and it ain't gonna work for the EU!

The political pressure on the ECB (and implicitly the Bundesbank's oh-so-stubbornly sensible and correct bankers) to just-print-baby-print is growing by the hour (or down-tick in BTPs and OATs). The cacophony of long-only strategists, Keynesian central bankers, and desperate (under speculative attack) politicians has perhaps reached a crescendo as it appears (from a Reuters article) that the ECB has found a workaround. By lending to the IMF, who are able to do pretty much whatever they want with regard to on-lending and primary issuance support, the ECB denizens can maintain their tough no nonsense anti-monetization stance while providing a leveragable IMF with more support for whatever leveraged buying they deem necessary (cough France Italy Spain cough). And all this as the IMF scrambles to replace its European Director - what could possibly go wrong?

The demand that the ECB becomes the lender of last (and only) resort has reached a crescendo.  Virtually everyone in the world is pleading with Germany to allow the ECB to print money and buy massive amounts of Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Irish, Belgium, and possibly Austrian debt.  But as far as I can tell, the analysis doesn’t go beyond buy and the problem will be solved.Before taking the step to print, all that we can hope for is that someone will actually do some serious analysis of the potential consequences, beyond the immediate relief rally.It may be the best solution, but until I see some real analysis convincing me the consequences of printing have been thought out, we will remain in the camp that letting some defaults, break-ups, write-downs, is the best longer term solution in spite of short term pain.

In yet another attempt which will backfire miserably, starting about 30 minutes ago the ECB has gone absolutely apeshit in the market and has been buying every single piece of paper it could get its hands on, focusing on BTPs with Spanish bonds in second place. As the chart below shows, following what has been a non stop buying spree, the Italian benchmark 4.75% of 2021 has soared from 84.75 to 86 in one non-stop run. The implicit motive is to get the Spanish Bund spread down from 500 bps which virtually guarantees a margin hike and a collapse into the toxic debt hole. Will they be successful? Of course not: we give this intervention another 10-15 minutes tops before Draghi's bond buyers are exhausted and the selling resumes. In the meantime, the ECB's SMP cumulative total is now well over €200 billion.

• Focus remains on the debt and political turmoil surrounding Spain and Italy, with particular widening observed in the Spanish/German 10-year government bond yield spread. There was market talk of the ECB buying the Spanish and Italian government debt
• Spain had a lackluster bond auction, with the auction yield printing an Euro-era high
• Fitch said that the Euro-zone contagion poses a threat to the US bank rating outlook. Eurodollar and Euribor futures have remained under pressure throughout the European session
• Italian PM Monti said will fully implement the previous government's letter of intent to the EU, and will consider necessity of additional measures
• GBP/USD gained around 30 pips following higher than expected retail sales data from the UK

Today is a rerun of Tuesday when it was all about the horrible Spanish auction. Well, let's use a different adjective for what came out of Spain today: dreadful, atrocious, awful: all words used not by us but by Wall Street experts to describe what just happened (see below). To summarize: Spain sold €3.56 billion euros of a new ten-year benchmark bond, well below the €4 billion targeted. The average yield on the bond was 6.975 percent, the highest paid since 1997, and almost 2% higher compared to the 5.433% paid on October 20. The highest paid for a ten-year bond this year was on July 21 when it paid 5.986 percent. The bid-to-cover ratio, an indicator of investor demand, was 1.5: this compares to 1.76 a month ago, and 1.95 average of the last 6 10 year auctions. The result: Spain Bund spreads are at a record 499 and about to pass 500 bps: the level at which LCH hiked Italian bond margins, and is resulting in another round of rumor of an imminent Spanish bond margin hiked which in turn would lead to more selling of sovereign bonds both in Spain and everywhere else. The Spanish 2s10s has collapsed and is under triple digits for the first time in years: at this rate it may well invert in days. And speaking of everywhere else, French Bund spreads hit a record 202 earlier, a level which will be promptly taken out; Italian spread tightened modestly after the ECB stepped in with another brief intervention which will be promptly steamrolled. It has gotten so bad, the EFSF spread to Bunds also just hit an all time record - kiss the EFSF goodbye. Lastly, futures are at overnight lows or just over 1220. Looks like we will have another Risk Off day at least until Europe close.

UPDATE 1: Chatter that SMP is in BTPs saving the EUR84.50 level again - rest of sovereigns remain weaker.

UPDATE 2: WTI $103

As traders hold their breaths for what will likely be a 'well-managed' French auction this morning, the sentiment from the late US markets is spilling into Europe as Sovereigns - especially France (record wides at 196bps), Italy, and Spain (record wides at 475bps) are all seeing yields and spreads surge. EFSF spread to Bunds just cracked 190bps for the first time as Italian 10Y spreads are back into the record-breaking zone from 11/9 and the Italian 2s10s curve is bear-flattening further by 13bps. ES managed to sustain a low volume recovery off spike lows after hours and is currently +0.5% (though leaking back) as European credit markets open leaking wider with XOver +13bps and Main +4bps. EUR remains under 1.3475 (and EUR-USD swap spread model is reverting back down towards EURUSD) as JPY strengthens modestly. Oil is diverging (higher - breaking $103!) from the rest of the commodity pack and is the main driver of a CONTEXT-based correlated-risk-basket rally (as TSYs drip back towards day low yields levels) that is mildly supportive of ES. Little sign of the ECB yet, but we suspect they are saving their fire-power for pre-auction shenanigans.

Physics has the elusive Theory of Everything which consists of several Grand Unified Theories and which represents the holy grail of the science and which "fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena, and predicts the outcome of any experiment that could be carried out in principle." In other words, once proven it would make life boring. We doubt it ever will be. Finance does not have anything like it, for the simple reason that while physics is a deterministic science, finance, predicated to a big extent on assumptions borrowed from the shaman cult known as 'economics' is always and everywhere open ended, and depends just as much on chaotic 'strange attractors' as it does on simple linear relationships. Yet when it comes to presentations, especially of the variety that attempt to explain not only where we are in the world, and how we got there, but also where we are headed, we have yet to see anything as comprehensive as the Investment Strategy guidebook from Pictet's Christophe Donay. If there is indeed a holy grail of presentations, this is it, at least for a few more instants, until something dramatically changes and the whole thing becomes an anachronism. In the meantime learn everything there is to know about global decoupling and the lack thereof, the reality of an over-indebted global regime and its 3 incompatible targets, the outlook for the US and the 30% probability of a hard recession, a recessionary Europe and the five possible outcomes of its crisis, China and its hard landing, and how this all ties into an outlook on where the world is headed together with appropriate investment strategies and proper asset allocation, the fair value of the EURUSD, systemic risk evaluation, cross asset correlation, the impact of central bank intervention, debt redemption profiles, the role of gold and commodities in the new reality, and virtually everything else of importance right here and right now.

The late day collapse in financials (thanks to Fitch's comments that seemed to wake up a sleeping equity market to the reality that credit has been screaming for weeks) helped drag equities (and HY debt) significantly lower. Most notably, amid a much higher than average volume day today, the dislocations of the last few days - that we have highlighted - have converged very rapidly this afternoon. ES significantly underperformed a broad basket of risk assets (CONTEXT) into the close as copper and oil gave back some of the day's gains. TSYs closed at low yields for the day - and 2s10s30s dropped significantly - as we warned it would have to sustain any sell-off as EURUSD tracked back towards its lowest levels of the day dragging DXY up to almost unchanged on the day (+1.7% on the week). On a longer-term basis, HY markets are priced for an S&P around 1190 currently but as HY also collapses wider, we will rapidly see the 'expected' S&P level drop further. Credit Anticipates and Equity Confirms is often cited by old-school credit market professionals - it seems once again that it is true. What is more evident, and discussed by Peter Tchir of TF MArket Advisors, is the morphing of the sovereign crisis into a banking system crisis as TPTB are unable to achieve anything of note.

Citi's Willem Buiter whose succinct analysis a few weeks ago sealed the coffin of the worthless EFSF, has just come out with another knock out punch this morning after telling Bloomberg TV what everyone else knows is true, but is terrified to say out loud: namely that, "time is running out fast." He adds: " I think we have maybe a few months -- it could be weeks, it could be days -- before there is a material risk of a fundamentally unnecessary default by a country like Spain or Italy which would be a financial catastrophe dragging the European banking system and North America with it. So they have to act now." In sum -  a rehash of the Deutsche Bank pitchbook to the ECB we posted earlier, only in Mutually Assured Terms that would make even Hank Paulson blush. At this point Germany has an option: tell Europe to take a hike, or go balls to wall in bailing out 250 million European's early retirement packages. The ball is in Merkel's court, who unlike Citi, JPM, DB, and everyone else, has to worry about this fickle, and potentially pitchfork bearing, thing called "voters."

In 2007 and 2008 the Fed instituted all sorts of programs to enhance liquidity. It was the first time they went beyond simple rate cuts (which they also employed).  In the end it didn't help much.  It ensured that banks could fund the positions they wanted, but it didn't stop the sell-off in assets, because the banks didn't want the risk.  No one wanted the risk. Liquidity concerns and even some capital concerns are driving down Italian and Spanish bonds, but behind that, there are real solvency concerns. There are clearly liquidity problems again, but they are directly tied to solvency.  The Euro basis swap isn't getting worse because US banks don't have money to lend to European banks, they don't want to lend to European banks.  Maybe we should be worried the Fed knows something we don't about how bad it is and are trying this ploy again, because it is one of the few things they can do to help Europe?

We are trying to decide what is funnier: Italy cancelling bond auctions and telling the world it does not need the cash, even as its Treasury Director tells the world the country will need to raise €440 billion... that's €440,000,000,000 in cash, next year, or that as Reuters reported earlier, the country has simply decided not to issue preliminary Q3 GDP data. It makes sense: due to austerity Greece had to clamp down on ink costs and as a result was unable to print tax forms. And now Italy gets two ministers for the price of one (PM and FinMin) and now its statistic office is cutting back on calculator and abacus costs. Very prudent and we are sure the ECB will be delighted with this proactive expense management.

....or else you will figure out not only that there is such a thing as sovereign crisis spillover into financials, but why UniCredit was once again the most active name on Sigma X yesterday, and why earlier today it is rumored that the bank is scrambling for emergency ECB assistance. But such is life when your equity is €14.5 billion and your total holdings of Italian bonds ar... €40 billion! If we were betting people, we would probably out a dollar down that UCG is the next Dexia.

As the ECB remains the liquidity provider of last and only resort, we suspect the oh-so-transparent central bank is causing some banks to avoid it and look to the cross-currency basis swap market to fund themselves in USD as the 3 month EUR-USD swap reaches 126bps (-6bps more today). These levels are the lowest (widest and most USD desperate) since December 2008 and perhaps, away from the SMP-driven sovereign spread markets, are the cleanest and least interfered with market view of the extraordinary USD funding crisis that is occurring. These stresses are just as evident in the GC repo markets and Goldman agrees with us that this crisis is escalating and offers a primer on why the GC repo / Libor markets are dysfunctional currently.