Eurozone

"We believe that the path of least resistance would be to effectively ban capitalism and by-pass banking and capital markets altogether. We gave this policy change several names (such as “Cuba alternative”, “British Leyland”) but the essence of the new form of QE would be using central banks and public instrumentalities to directly inject “heroin into blood stream” rather than relying on system of incentives to drive investor behaviour."

"If only it was that easy to print our way out of a global crisis." 

As more and more "reputable" analysts realize that the 30 Year bull market in Treasury isn't going anywhere, another firm jumped on the "more easing" bandwagon overnight, when HSBC's Steven Major slashed his target yield on 10Y Treasurys for 2015 and 2016, from 2.4% and 2.8% to 2.1% and 1.5% respectively. The reason: more easing of course, or rather expectations for further ECB monetary easing which will help U.S. curve to perform.

The market is prone to temporary fits of shared enthusiasm – for emerging-market debt, for Internet stocks, for residential mortgage-backed securities, for Greek government debt. Traders need not wait to see when or whether the profits materialize. IBGYBG, they say – I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone. There are numerous routes to bezzle and febezzle...  traders borrowed money from the future. And then the future came, as it always does, turning the bezzle into a bummer.

Like other banks, Deutsche has been caught up in the Libor-rigging scandal, and faces another investigation in Switzerland for suspected price-fixing in the precious metal market.

Gillian Tett, ourselves and many others have warned that Deutsche and its massive derivative book has the potential to be a ”European Lehman Brothers”. Is Deutsche Bank, the largest holder of Warren Buffett’s “financial weapons of mass destruction” derivatives in trouble?

"The collapse in inflation expectations tells us that the market believes the central banks, despite their monetary profligacy, are failing to prevent the western economies from turning Japanese, and thus at risk of repeating their devastating slide into outright deflation in the 1990s."

The US and world economies are drifting inexorably into the next recession owing to the deflationary collapse of commodities, capital spending and world trade. These are the inevitable “morning after” consequence of the 20-year global credit binge which has now reached its apogee. The apparent global boom during that period was actually a central bank driven excursion into the false economics of household borrowing to inflate consumption in the DM economies; and frenzied, uneconomic investing to inflate GDP in China and the EM. The common denominator was falsification of financial prices. By destroying honest price discovery in the financial markets, the world’s convoy of money-printing central banks led by the Fed elicited a huge excess of financialization relative to economic output.

"The helicopter. Rather than buying assets, central banks drop money on the street. Or even better, in a more modern and civilised fashion, credit our bank accounts!" Yes, "even better!"...

For SocGen, as a result of a rather unfortunate credibility-losing accident, the Fed will not be one of the two major factor that will drive markets in the fourth quarter. So what will? According to the French bank, it is all up to China and Earnings now.

News That Matters

News That Matters

The Fed understands that economic cycles do not last forever, and we are closer to the next recession than not. While raising rates would likely accelerate a potential recession and a significant market correction, from the Fed's perspective it might be the 'lesser of two evils. Being caught at the "zero bound" at the onset of a recession leaves few options for the Federal Reserve to stabilize an economic decline... For Janet Yellen, the "window" to lift interest rates appears to have closed.

Following Friday's disastrous payrolls report, which confirmed all the pre-recessionary economic data and signaled that instead of approaching "lift-off" and decoupling from the rest of the world, the US economy is following the emerging markets into a slowdown in what may be the first global, synchronized recession since 2008, the market saw its biggest intraday surge since 2011 and the sharpest short covering squeeze in history, we are happy to announce that the "market" is now solidly back in "bad news is good news" mode.

When "whatever it takes" is not enough... Despite Draghi's promises and EU leaders' exuberance, European Investor Confidence tumbled to its lowest since January as the Q€ bounce has now well and truly died. While volatility has picked up over the last month and reassuring tones have been uttered by every central banker in the world, it is the real economy that appears to be weighing on confidence as Eurozone Composite PMI prints at 53.6 - its lowest since February.

The results from Portugal's elections are beginning to trickle in and according to exit polls, Coelho's coalition has prevailed. According to Bloomberg, the ruling coalition of Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho has won 38%-43% of vote and 108-116 seats.