European Central Bank

Following closely on the heels of our recent (now must read) discussion of the potential illegality of Draghi's OMT, Reuters is reporting the somewhat stunning news that the ECB and Bundesbank are getting lawyers to check the legality of the new bond-buying program. Germany's Bild newspaper - via the now ubiquitous unnamed sources - said in-house lawyers were checking both what proportions the program would have to take on and how long it would have to last for it to breach EU treaties (that specifically ban direct financing of state deficits). While Draghi - full of bravado - likely said whatever he felt was necessary at the time to stop the inversion in the Spanish yield curve, it is becoming clearer that, as usual, the premature euphoria (in the complacent belief that central banks can solve every problem with a wave of the magic CTRL-P wand) was misplaced. Bild goes on to note that this matter could be referred to the European Court of Justice - and the ECB/Buba were preparing for such an event. Of course, since every other rumor in recent months, most of which have originated in credible media, has proven to be a lie, it is likely this is also merely leaked disinformation to push the German case, i.e. anti-Europe.

Meanwhile, pretty much all of Europe is in recession now, including Germany. True, the ESM bailout fund has been ratified… but the question remains who actually has funds to support it (Spain and Italy are meant to supply 30% of its funding… and they’re the ones who will be requesting a bailout!).

In the spirit of the European Bank Stress Tests and in the continuum of the Ring around the Rosie concocted by Brussels we are about to be handed another slew of numbers that will show that Spain is fine, prospering and running along just with no difficulties at all; thank you. This data is being prepared by the German firm Oliver Wyman, the German consulting firm. You may recall that we were supposed to have audited financials by the end of September, which was promised by Spain, however that was apparently canceled and there is no such audit underway. So much for the promises of Spain. We can tell you now, with surety, that the evaluation that we will be handed by Oliver Wyman will have all of the value of the paper found in the 'banos' of any restaurant in Madrid.

The last time we saw a bevy of regurgitated European rumors shortly refuted was last Friday. Today we get a redux, following a hard push by none other than Spiegel (precisely as we predicted a month ago: "And now, time for Spiegel to cite "unnamed sources" that the EFSF is going to use 3-4x leverage") to imagine a world in which the ESM can be leveraged 4x to €2 trillion. This is merely a replay of last fall when Europe's deus ex for 2 months was clutching at a cobbled up superficial plan of 3-4x EFSF leverage, which ultimately proved futile. Why? Because, just like in 2011, one would need China in on this strategy as there is simply not enough endogenous leverage in either the US or Europe which would make this plan feasible. And China, we are sad to say, has a whole lot of its own problems to worry about right about now, than bailing out the shattered dream of a failed monetary unions still held by a few lifelong European bureaucrats, which this thing is all about. As expected, moments ago Germany refuted everything. Via Reuters: "Germany's finance ministry said on Monday that talk of the euro zone's permanent bailout fund being leveraged to 2 trillion euros via private sector involvement was not realistic, adding that any discussion of precise figures was "purely abstract." This also explains why we devoted precisely zero space to this latest leverage incarnation rumor yesterday: we were merely waiting for the refutation.

There was a time about a year ago, before the second Greek bailout was formalized and the haircut on its domestic-law private sector bonds (first 50%, ultimately 80%, soon to be 100%) was yet to be documented, when it was in Greece's interest to misrepresent its economy as being worse than it was in reality. Things got so bad that the former head of the Greek Statistics Bureau Elstat, also a former IMF employee, faced life in prison if convicted of doing precisely this. A year later, the tables have turned, now that Germany is virtually convinced that Europe can pull a Lehman and let Greece leave the Eurozone, and is merely looking for a pretext to sever all ties with the country, whose only benefit for Europe is to be a seller of islands at Blue Aegean water Special prices to assorted Goldman bankers (at least until it renationalizes them back in a few short years). So a year later we are back to a more normal data fudging dynamic, one in which Greece, whose July unemployment soared by one whole percentage point, will do everything in its power to underrepresent its soaring budget deficit. Case in point, on Friday the Finance Ministry proudly announced its budget deficit for the first eight months was "just" €12.5 billion, versus a target of €15.2 billion, leading some to wonder how it was possible that a country that has suffered terminal economic collapse, and in which the tax collectors have now joined everyone in striking and thus not collecting any tax revenue, could have a better than expected budget deficit. Turns out the answer was quite simple. According to Spiegel, Greece was lying about everything all along, and instead of a €12.5 billion deficit, the real revenue shortfall is nearly double this, or €20 billion, a number which will hardly incentivize anyone in Germany to give Greece the benefit of another delay, let along a third bailout as is now speculated.

Let’s review the tricks the central banks & governments have available to beat back any financial challenges presented by the debt reaper.

• Money tool # 1 = deficit spending. For years, the G7 countries have believed that spending more than you make, will create jobs and prosperity. To measure the success of this strategy, we invite you to hang out in Spain, Greece or Italy.
• Money tool # 2 = cut interest rates to 0%. All the really smart people in the World know that lower interest rates encourage people and companies to borrow more money and spend this money. To measure the success of this strategy, we invite you to hang out at the US Federal Reserve and help them count the $1.5 trillion in excess money held by the big banks.
• Money tool # 3 = when all else fails print money. Everyone knows by now the reason the Great Depression was great was because no one had the idea to print money to kick start the economy. To measure the success of this strategy, we definitely do not invite you to visit Japan. The Japanese have been printing money for over 10 years and that hasn’t shaken their economy from its funk one bit.

As we enter the always dangerous months of September and October, central bankers and governments just can’t get their heads around the fact that their cherished money tools are not shaking the World. Never one to quit, someone somewhere muttered “we must do something” – and something they did.

For those to whom this comes as a surprise, following the periodic jaunts of Tim Geithner to Europe explaining just what is truly important in life, not to mention Obama's daily phone calls to Mario Monti, we feel truly sorry:

• "Obama doesn't want anything on a macroeconomic scale that is going to rock the global economy before Nov. 6," a senior EU official told
• "As far as European leaders are concerned, they don't want Romney, so they're probably willing to do anything to help Obama's chances," said the source, an EU official involved in finding solutions to the debt crisis.

One kinda wonders: just what has Obama promised a broke Europe in return? Don't answer: it's rhetorical. It's also "fair."

The last couple of months have been characterised by some weak but 'relatively positive' surprises in macro economic data compared to dismal expectations; but that rising momentum has begun to fade very recently. Sagging domestic growth and weak external demand have created noticeable slowdowns in the industrial production and manufacturing sector. This, as Bloomberg Brief notes, has been the area of the economy that has been the primary driver of growth throughout the recovery and represents the greatest risk to the current economic outlook for sub-trend growth at or below 2 percent. As Joseph Brusuelas points out, these disappointing charts indicate, fiscal gridlock aside, the deterioration in the industrial sector is a 'dagger pointed straight at the heart of a weak cyclical expansion'.

One of the classic short cons, three-card Mario is a new swindle that uses official and misleading statements and trickery to swindle victims out of large amounts of cash. It’s one of the oldest cons around, and dates back to “the shell game,” a similar scheme that was popular during the Middle Ages. The new version uses a Central Bank and a Ponzi Scheme that loans money for debt, substitutes debt for collateral and then returns cash back to the grifter as he pledges the collateral back to those that lent him the money. This new European con has eliminated the use of cards in its play. Investors are the ‘marks’ and governments are the perpetrators.

As if depressing PMI data out of China overnight was not enough (it was certainly enough to send the Shanghai Composite tumbling 2.08% to 2024.8 and just off fresh 4 year lows), we then got Europe to join in the fray with a composite PMI print of 45.9, down from 46.3, and a miss to expectations of a modest rise to 46.6 (driven by a manufacturing PMI of 46.0 up from 45.1, and a Services PMI down from 47.2 to 46.0). The biggest surprise was the sheer collapse in French manufacturing data which tumbled from 46.0 to a 4 year low of 42.6 on expectations of a rise to 46.4, which sent the EURUSD firmly into sub 1.30 territory and not even several good paradoxical bond auctions from Spain (because a good auction here means no bailout, means those who bought the bonds will soon suffer big losses) have managed to dent the very poor overnight sentiment which now implies a European GDP contraction of -1% of more. Reality has also halted the global easing euphoria (the USDJPY is now 40 bps below where the BOJ announced the injection of another Y10 Trillion), and has everyone wondering, now that QEternity is priced in, what next?

Printing paper money: “in the case of the euro, it’s actually cotton”

The BoJ obediently submitted to pressure from stimulus addicted markets and announced yet another expansion to its JGB buying program. The program now stands at JPY 80trl, the expansion impacts only JGBs and T-Bills, both of which will be monetized by a further JPY 5trl. As a result, risk assets rallied overnight in Asia and in turn supported European equity markets in early trade. However, the half life of the latest policy easing action from the BoJ proved to be very short-lived and as the session progressed, the risk on sentiment quickly subsided. As such, as we enter the North American cross over, equity markets in Europe are seen lower, led by tech and financial stocks.  Elsewhere, Bunds topped yesterday’s high and look set to make a test on the 140.00 level should the sentiment deteriorate further. Nevertheless, peripheral bond yield spreads are actually tighter today, with the Spanish 10y bond yield spread tighter by 9bps and the shorter dated 2y bond tighter by 24bps vs. German equivalent. EUR/USD and GBP/USD edged lower throughout the session, currently trading in close proximity to intraday option expiry levels at 1.3000 and 1.6200 respectively. Going forward, the second half of the session will see the release of the latest housing data, as well as the weekly DOE report.

One cannot but wonder at the idiocy blindness of those who sustain that both the European and the US central banks removed “tail risks” in the last days, with their new measures. To start, the whole idea that a tail risk exists is simply a fallacy of Keynesian economics. It assumes there is a universe of possible outcomes and, as if humans acted driven by animal spirits, randomly, each one of them has a likelihood of occurring. In all honesty... what else can occur if a central bank prints money to generate a bubble? Why would the bursting of the bubble be called a tail-risk, rather than the logical outcome? Why, if that was tried in 2001 in the US, resulting in the crisis of 2008... why would it be any different now, when there is an explicit announcement to print billions per month? Why?

The European 'Union' continues to be the most amusingly misdefined oxymoron in existence. Today's Exhibit A confirming just that: Spiegel's interview with Bavarian finance minister Markus Söder which can be summarized in the following 4 words: Everyone Wants Our Money.

These are the issues to consider going forward. Our view is that it is quite possible the Fed has played its hand too strongly and thereby damaged its future efforts to maintain market stability via intervention. Given that stocks were already decoupled from the underlying economic realities, this has made the market highly vulnerable to a sharp correction.