European Union

All you need to read.

• Political and debt concerns surrounding Italy together with a downbeat ECB’s monthly bulletin promoted risk-aversion
• Gilts received support following a well-received conventional Gilt auction from the UK, together with comments from BoE's Bean in favour of further QE
• The USD-Index gained amid risk-averse trade, which in turn weighed upon EUR/USD and GBP/USD
• The third quarter corporate earnings from JP Morgan beat on the EPS and revenue

All you need to read.

All you need to read.

Many western politicians have harbored deep suspicions of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Vladimorovich Putin since he first emerged on the Russian political stage in 1999. This is hardly surprising, given his KGB background, though those with longer historical memories will recall that Yuri Andropov came from the same organization and that the West grudgingly found a way to work with him. While the worst aspects of the Cold War faded away with the peaceful collapse of the USSR in late 1991, twenty years later, trying to figure out Kremlin politics remains as vital an exercise as ever, and the “Putin era” has provided Washington analysts desperately reinventing themselves to hang on to their jobs with rich fodder. Is Putin a democrat? Stalinist? Or something in between? Place your bets.

A few weeks ago Steve Liesman ramped stocks higher for the day after he released a subsequently disproven rumor that the EFSF would become a CDO square, recycling private investments into sovereign debt. Well that rumor is now dead and buried, so it is time for the next one involving that uber multi-functional Swiss Army Knife which is the EFSF, and apparently has an infinite+1 number of applications, none of which involve actual cash funding. The source of this latest brilliant idea is Pimco parent, Allianz, which has trillions in fixed income exposure all over the world, so it is no wonder it is pushing hard for the world's taxpayers to bail it out. Only instead of a recycling cash, this time the EFSF will become Fed-Lite, "insuring" trillions in debt.

Update: Slovakia’s Lawmakers Delay European Bailout Fund Vote, WSJ Says. WSJ reports that Repeat vote on EFSF may be held later this week; unlikely to take place Wed. as more time for political talks needed, WSJ reports, without citing anyone. Govt expected to lose confidence vote, paper says. However, the confidence vote is expected to still pass, or rather, fail. Which would lead to a government reshuffle into a configuration that will pass the EFSF vote. All speculation.

In terms of binary events on today's docket, the most important for the euro and eurozone by a wide margin is the Slovakian EFSF-ratification vote which is set to begin shortly, and where hopes have faded that a favorable resolution can be reached, at least in the immediate horizon. Those who want to follow developments in real time can do so courtesy of the following live blog at sme.sk updated every several minutes.

A week ago our post announcing that the Greek deficit target was going to be revised higher once again, from 7.6% to 8.5%, started with the following sentence: "As the Greek parliament meets to finalize huge public sector job cuts, Reuters is reporting that Greece will miss the deficit targets set in its EU/IMF bailout this year and next... We would say "again" but at this point "as usual" makes far more sense." Guess what: it is time to "as usual" re-re-revise it once again.

All you need to read.

No ... Only True Public Servants

Who would have thought it possible? Greece, a tiny country on the Mediterranean which is, in the grand scheme of things, economically insignificant, has become the centerpiece of the global financial media and the “make or break” sovereign debt battle for the entire European Union. Let’s face it; Greece dominates the psychology of the markets. Even after a “partial” default this year, equities still hang upon every new EU meeting, every new IMF press release, every meaningless conference between Merkel and Sarkozy, causes violent swings in the Dow, not to mention every other stock index across the world. Greece collapsed months ago. The discussion is over. Yet, global investors still wait anxiously for a sign that all is well in the land of the Parthenon and the Gyro.

With the zEURQ.BB surging, it appears nothing can possibly rain on Europe's parade today. Nothing, perhaps, except for the poorest country in the Eurozone, Slovakia, which as we detailed over the weekend appears poised to destroy the Eurozone, the Euro, and force a fresh restart, one that actually works. As Reuters reports, "Slovakian coalition leaders meet on Monday in a last-ditch bid to reach agreement on widening the mandate of the euro zone's bailout fund, under increasing pressure from turmoil in euro zone banks and a shift in public opinion at home. The small liberal Freedom and Solidarity (SaS) party argues that, as the zone's second poorest member, Slovakia should not have to bail out other euro zone countries, but it says it is still open to talks. The coalition parties called a meeting for 4 p.m. (1400 GMT) ahead of a vote on the EFSF in parliament on Tuesday, a spokesman for the SaS said. The party has so far said it will vote against the EFSF expansion." Alas, that was 4 hours ago. We just got an update from Bloomberg: Slovak SAS Party Says Won’t Change Position on EFSF. It may be time to book those EURUSD profits and sit it out for the rest of the day as it can get quite messy.

Yesterday we reported that tiny Slovakia's refusal to ratify the expansion of the EFSF 2.0 (even though a 4.0 version will be required this week after the "Dexia-event"), may throw the Eurozone into a tailspin as all 17 countries have to agree to agree to kick the can down the road: even one defector kills the entire Swiss Watch plan. Yet an interview conducted between German Spiegel and Slovakia party head Richard Sulik confirms that tiny does not mean irrelevant, and certainly not stupid. In fact, just the opposite: his words are precisely what the heads ot the bigger and far less credible countries should be saying. Alas they are not. Which is precisely why the euro is doomed.

Could more conspiratorial environmentalistas’ interpretations of our times be correct, that is, someone has been putting something in the water and we are all being lobotomized, even without major brain surgery?  You could make the case this week. Much of the world’s leadership, even though presumably suckling their bottled water, exhibits all the manifestations of imbibing something adversely affecting the normal cognitive processes

A few days ago we mocked the market's naive belief that a loose union of 17 different countries and hundreds of separate political organizations, each torn by thousands of unique interests and lobby groups, can all agree unanimously in the pursuit of the common monetary (read: banker) good, over that of their own people. Yet that did not stop stocks from enacting the second weekly massive short covering squeeze, in 3 weeks, purely on hype, rumors, innuendo and lies. And just like the last time the market soared by nearly double digits in a few short days, only to plunge when hopes of a quick resolution were mercilessly dashed, Monday has all the makings of another epic risk off day. Because while all it takes is a rumor (of a plan for a plan) to start a squeeze, we are about to get some very nasty actual events which will demand immediate and forceful intervention by the powers that be, something which Europe (and the US) has proven is virtually impossible. The events in question are, as Reuters reports, that i) "Dexia's Funeral Will Be Announced On Sunday" and, as Bloomberg reports, that ii) Slovakia’s ruling Freedom and Solidarity party won’t back the overhaul of the European bailout mechanism after Prime Minister Iveta Radicova rejected the party’s conditions for approval, a lawmaker said. Said otherwise, bonds are currently thanking their lucky stars the bond market is closed because not only will Europe have to deal with the headline risk that the weakest link in Europe, the tiny country of Slovakia, can scuttle the entire second Greek rescue operation, and thus, lead to the expulsion of Greece from the eurozone following its bankruptcy, but this will have to take place as Europe fights the stem the contagion resulting from the collapse and nationalization of the first Greek bank, which nobody, nobody, could have foreseen.