Fisher

European cash equity markets were seen on a slight upward trend in the early hours of the session amid some rumours that the Chinese PBOC were considering a cut to their RRR. However, this failed to materialise and markets have now retreated into negative territory with flows seen moving into fixed income securities. This follows some market talk of selling in Greek PSI bonds due to the absence of CDSs. This sparked some renewed concern regarding the emergence of Greece from their recovery. Elsewhere, we saw the publication of the BoE’s financial stability review recommending that UK banks raise external capital as soon as possible. This saw risk-averse flows into the gilt, with futures now trading up around 40 ticks.

Moments ago we saw headlines flashing of a major 7.6 magnitude earthquake swaying Mexico City. It turns out the earthquake was even stronger, and according to the USGS is now classified as 7.9. From Reuters: "MEXICO CITY, March 20 (Reuters) - A major 7.9 magnitude earthquake struck near Acapulco on Mexico's Pacific coast, the U.S. Geological Survey said on Tuesday. Earlier it had been reported at 7.6 magnitude." Luckily, as Al Jazeera's Alan Fisher notes, "Mexican TV reports no major damage in the State of Oaxaca" citing the local governor.

For today's definitive example of peak cognitive dissonance and self-delusion among those who determine the monetary fate of the world no less, look no further than the Dallas Fed's Dick Fisher, who just said the following according to Reuters:

• No one presently believes that the Fed is going to proceed with QE3

Funny considering earlier, we got this from Goldman's Bill Dudley:

• No decision yet on QE3, New York Fed's Dudley says

And that is why central planning always fails. Because a room of these terminally confused people sits down and determines the fate of the world based on their naive academic interpretation of what they perceive is reality.

 I believe Central Bank intervention is not a drug or “hit” for an addict. Instead, it is a cancer that has spread throughout the financial system’s psyche and which is killing the markets and Democratic capitalism.

Confused why every asset class is up again today (yes, even gold), despite the pundit interpretation by the media of the FOMC statement that the Fed has halted more easing? Simple - as we said yesterday, there is $3.6 trillion more in QE coming. But while we are too humble to take credit for moving something as idiotic as the market, the fact that just today, none other than Goldman Sachs' Jan Hatzius came out, roughly at the same time as its call to buy Russell 2000, and said that the Fed would announce THE NEW QE^TM, as soon as next month, and as late as June. Furthermore, as Goldman has previously explained, sterilization of QE makes absolutely no difference on risk asset behavior, and it is a certainty that the $500-$750 billion in new money (well on its way to fulfilling our expectation of a total $3.6 trillion in more easing to come), in the form of UST and MBS purchases, will blow out all assets across all classes, while impaling the dollar. Which in turn explains all of today's action - dollar down, everything else (including bonds, which Goldman said yesterday to sell which we correctly, at least for now, said was the bottom in rates) up. Finally, as we said, yesterday, "In conclusion we wish to say - thank you Chairman for the firesale in physical precious metals." Because when the market finally understands what is happening, despite all the relentless smoke and mirrors whose only goal is to avoid a surge in crude like a few weeks ago ahead of the presidential election, gold will be far, far higher. Yet for some truly high humor, here is the justification for why the Fed will need to do more QE, even though Goldman itself has been expounding on the improving economy: "The improvement might not last." In other words, unless the "economic improvement" is guaranteed in perpetuity, the Fed will always ease. Thank you central planning - because of you we no longer have to worry about either mean reversion or a business cycle.

As we have repeatedly said in the past, the quarterly Flow of Funds (or Z.1) statement is most interesting not for the already public household net worth and leverage data which serves to make pretty charts and largely irrelevant articles, but due to its insight into the stock and flow of both the traditional financial system but far more importantly - into shadow banking. And this is where things get hairy. Because while equities may have returned to 2008 valuations, the credit shortfall across combined US liabilities - traditional and shadow - still has a $3.6 trillion hole to plug to get to the level from March 2008 (see first chart). It is this hole that is giving equities, which have already surpassed 2008 levels, nightmares. Because while the Fed is pumping traditional commercial banks balance sheets via reserve expansion (read: fungible money that manifests itself most directly in $5 gas at the pump) resulting in a $2.3 trillion rise in traditional liabilities from Q3 2008 through Q4 2011, what it is not accounting for is the now 15 consecutive quarters of shadow banking system contraction, which peaked at $21 trillion in Q1 2008, and in Q4 2011 declined to $15.1 trillion... and dropping. It is this differential that will be the source of the needed "Outside" money, discussed yesterday, and that is only to get equity valuations to a fair level! But considering the Fed's propensity to print at any downtick, this is very much a given, much to the horror of Dick Fisher. Any additional increase in stock prices will require not only the already priced in $3.6 trillion, but far more direct Outside money injections.

Mark Fisher is a staple contributor on CNBC. Or at least was. According to various headlines flashing across both Bloomberg and Reuters, it seems that his MBF Clearing Corp is the first victim of the CFTC expanding its MF Global inquiry, and Fisher's MBF Clearing Corp of performing just the same "vaporization" activity that MF Global engaged in and that boggle regulators' minds.

MBF CLEARING CORP SUED BY CFTC FOR FAILIING TO SEGREGATE FUNDS
CFTC ACCUSES MBF OF DEPOSITING CUSTOMER FUNDS INTO A NON-SEGREGATED ACCOUNT THAT ROUTINELY HELD BETWEEN $30-90 MLN
CFTC ALLEGES CUSTOMER ACCOUNTS WEREN'T PROPERLY SEGREGATED

Oops. In other news, JPM and Jon Corzine are both completely innocent of anything. But at least the CFTC can say it has done its duty of punishing transgressors and all is now well.

For all this talk and hype, QE 3 is nowhere to be found. And it won’t be showing up anytime soon unless a full-scale Crisis hits. The reason for this is that the political landscape in the US has changed dramatically with the Fed becoming more and more politically toxic. As a result of this, the Fed (with few exceptions)  has begun to shift into damage control mode.

Something interesting happened when the ECB announced last week that its balance sheet was about to rise by €1 trillion gross, and hit a record €3 trillion net earlier today: the EURUSD barely budged. Why? Because as a reminder, the key driving relationship for relative risk performance of 2012 as we forecast back in December is the correlation of the Fed and the ECB's balance sheets, and the EURUSD, respectively, because while we may pretend that there is still alpha in this joke of a market, the truth is that in this new normal only beta matters (the more lever the better), and the only beta that matters is that generated by relative USD strength/weakness. In this context, we bring back readers to the chart that may be the only one that matters: the cross-correlation of the Fed/ECB total assets, and the EURUSD spot, where the first thing that stands out is that the pair should be 1000 pips lower at least. And yet it isn't. The reason for that is that the FX market is actively expecting, despite all rhetoric otherwise, an injection from the Fed. What is convenient is that the chart allows us to calculate how much the expected QE3 will be: since the absolute value of the Fed/ECB size (currency invariant) is now 0.9685m or the lowest in history, the ratio would have to raise to 1.18 for EURUSD asset implied parity. Which means the Fed's balance sheet would have to increase by about $650-700 billion promptly.

Markets are exhibiting very risk-averse behaviour ahead of the US open, with European equity markets making heavy losses across the board with flows into the safer assets. This follows Greece dominating the headlines once again, with a report from the IIF warning of dangerous ramifications for Europe should Greece default. These reports got the European session off to a bad start, with losses made throughout the morning. Market talk of a delay in the Greek debt swap deal deadline has also been circulating, however this was swiftly denied by the Greek Debt Agency chief as well as the Greek Finance Ministry, although this failed to reassure markets and they continue on a downward trend into the US open. Eurozone GDP data released earlier in the session showed a contraction in the last quarter of 2011, although expected, this has reignited concerns of a recession in Europe. The ECB have recorded yet another record level of deposits from European banks in its overnight lending facility, with institutions depositing EUR 827.5bln on Monday night.

All you need to read.

And now for some pure irony, we have a member of the Fed, granted a gold bug, but a Fed member nonetheless, one of the same people who not only enacted ZIRP, but encourage easy money every time there is a downtick in the market, complaining about, get this, Wall Street's "continued preoccupation, bordering upon fetish" with QE3. The irony continues: "Trillions of dollars are lying fallow, not being employed in the real economy. Yet financial market operators keep looking and hoping for more. Why? I think it may be because they have become hooked on the monetary morphine we provided when we performed massive reconstructive surgery, rescuing the economy from the Financial Panic of 2008–09, and then kept the medication in the financial bloodstream to ensure recovery....I believe adding to the accommodative doses we have applied rather than beginning to wean the patient might be the equivalent of medical malpractice." So let's get this straight: these academic titans, who for one reason or another, are given free rein to determine the fate of the once free world with their secret decisions every two or three months, are completely unaware of classical conditioning, discovered by Pavlov nearly 90 years ago, also known as a salivation response. The same Fed is shocked, shocked, that every time the market dips, the red light goes off, and the "balls to the wall" crowd scream for more, more, more free money. Really Fisher? Really? Oh, and let us guess what happens the next time the S&P slides into the tripple digits: will the Fed a) do nothing, thereby letting the market slide to its fair value in the 400 point range, or b) print. Our money, in the form of hard yellow metal, is on the latter, just like we predicted, correctly, back in March 2009 in " Bailoutspotting (Or The Search For The Great Financial Methadone Clinic" that nothing will ever change vis-a-vis the great market junkie until it all comes crashing down.

European equity indices are exhibiting signs of risk averse behaviour, with financials and basic materials performing particularly poorly. This follows weekend reports from ECB sources that the central bank does not believe voluntary participation in the Greek debt swap deal will be sufficient, and the CACs will have to be invoked. Markets are also reacting to the weekend press from Germany, claiming the Troika believe Greece will require a third bailout of around EUR 50bln by 2020, however these reports were denied by a German spokesman earlier in the session. European Services PMI data released earlier in the session fell below expectations, compounding the already cautious market behaviour. European Banks have parked a fresh record EUR 820bln with the ECB overnight, showing further evidence that the LTRO has loosened liquidity constrictions in the continent. Commodities are making losses ahead of the North American open following overnight news that China have made a downward revision to their GDP target for 2012. Spot gold is trading down around 0.9% and WTI and Brent crude futures have been making a loss for most of the session so far, however oil has made positive movements in recent trade. These negative movements in commodities are also weighing down upon the commodity-linked currencies, with AUD particularly making losses on the session.

Last week's manufacturing ISM was a big disappointment, making a mockery of Wall Street expectations, and of course its biggest permabull , Joe Lavorgna who came 10 standard deviations above the final number. Will this weakness continue today? If yes, it is merely a loophole for the Chairman to use at the next FOMC meeting and further goose the market. If not, it likely means that Friday's NFP number will see a record 'adjustment' fudge factor with payrolls soaring well above the consensus, on a last ditch effort to get the economy to sustain a virtuous cycle. Unfortunately when one takes away the $2 trillion punchbowl injected over the past 6 months into the global economy, this is impossible.

On this leap day, we have a busy schedule which includes the second Q4 GDP revision, Chicago PMI (expect another massive beat courtesy of consumers confident that they can have Apple apps, if not so much food, since they still don't pay their mortgages), various Fed speakers, of which most important will be Ben Bernanke who takes the podium in Congress at 10 am for his semi-annual monetary policy report.