Housing Market

Just in case anyone is confused about how fixed Europe is, insolvent Spanish TBTF megabank, which F'ed last year and had to be bailed out by the government, will post earnings (and in this case we use the term very loosely) next week at which time it will report the biggest corporate loss in Spanish history. From Telegraph: "On Thursday Bankia will report full-year earnings, including a €12.6bn provision taken at the end of last year. The writedown is a result of the lender moving assets into Spain’s “bad bank” at heavy discounts. Bankia, which is seen as a symbol of Spain’s financial woes, was created through the merger of seven smaller savings banks before being listed on Madrid’s stock exchange. When the company failed, hundreds of thousands of people who had been sold shares saw their savings wiped out. The collapse forced Spain to ask Europe for a bailout for its banking sector, which has meant the lender is subject to tight controls.  Bankia is trying to sell its 12pc stake in International Consolidated Airlines Group, the parent company of British Airways, which is valued at about £510m, and 5.3pc of the power company Iberdrola, which is worth about €1.24bn."

• China drains cash to curb liquidity (FT) - no longer just a New Year issue...
• Hilesnrath speaks (but nobody cares anymore) - Fed Split Over How Long To Keep Cash Spigot Open (WSJ)
• Chasm opening between weak French and strong German economies (Reuters)
• JPMorgan Said to Seek First Sale of Mortgage Bonds Since Crisis (BBG)
• China's Bo Xilai not cooperating on probe, been on hunger strike (Reuters)
• Fed minutes send warning on durability of bond buying (Reuters)
• Sony Seeks an Extra Life in New PlayStation 4 (BBG)
• Rajoy pledges fresh round of reforms (FT) - and by reforms he means kickbacks?
• Doubts loom over eurozone recovery (BBG)
• China Extending Zhou Stay Seen as Aid to Financial Overhaul (BBG)
• King Pulls Out Stops to Energize Economy in Carney Handover (BBG)
• Central Banks Discussed Nominal GDP Targets at G-20 (Businessweek)
• Grand Central Owner Opposes IPO of Empire State Building (BBG)

Every voice in the FOMC minutes is not a voting member. Bernanke, Yellen, Dudley are the keys and they are committed to QE. That is a descriptive claim not normative. Debt market has shown little reaction to FOMC minutes compared with the dollar and stocks. PBOC drained, but did not really tighten monetary policy. Euro zone PMI poor and gap between Germany and France grows. And what's up with Abe's trip to the US ?

In the aftermath of yesterday's surge in German hopium measured by the ZEW Economic Survey which took out all expectations to the upside, it was inevitable that the other double-dipping country, France, telegraphed some optimism despite a contracting economy and would follow suit with a big  confidence beat, and sure enough the French INSEE reported that February business sentiment rose from 87 to 90, on expectations of an unchanged number. And the subsequent prompt smash of investor expectations in Switzerland, where the ZEW soared from -6.9 to +10.0 tells us that something is very wrong in the Alpine country if it too is trying so hard to distract from the here and now. And while one can manipulate future optimism metrics to infinity, it is reality that is proving far more troublesome for Europe, as could be seen by the Italian Industrial Orders print which crashed -15.3% Y/Y on expectations of a smooth -9.5% drop, down from -6.7% previously. Since industrial orders are a proxy for future demand, a critical issue as Italy enters 2013 after six consecutive quarters of economic contraction and with no relief on the horizon, it is only fitting that Italy should shock the world with an off the chart confidence beat next.

It's no shock that the Spanish housing market is horrible but hope has been, following the government's nationalization of various banks and creation of the 'bad bank' to soak up all the toxic crap those banks had on their books, that a recovery could blossom. It appears not - not at all. Not only are bad loans rising at record rates with house prices remaining down over 40% but now Reyal Urbis has filed for insolvency making it the nation's second largest bankruptcy as dozens of smaller firms have failed. What makes this so important is the fact that the banks were unwilling to refinance the debt - seemingly comfortable with liquidation - summed up perfectly: "Many loans were refinanced one or two years ago, in the hope that things would get better, but it has not been the case and there is now more realism about the situation. Why would you extend a new loan today?" A good question, one that Tepper's Appaloosa will be pondering as its EUR450mm loan looks in trouble.

With the honey badger market continuing to be completely dislocated from absolutely every piece of underlying data (except for German hope and confidence reported earlier this morning), moments ago the NAHB housing market index printed at 46, on expectations of an increase from January's 47 to 48. This makes it the first drop in the index in 10 months, and the first drop to expectations since April 2012, which in turn sent the ES to fresh highs (don't ask). And while we are confident the decline will be blamed on such unpredictable aberrations as snow in January and February, a meteor shower in Russia and, of course, Bush, despite last February's print posting a solid rise from 25 to 28, perhaps the more worrying indicator was that the component gauging traffic of prospective buyers slipped a whopping 4 points to 32. The drop matched the biggest sequential declines going back all the way to 2007. And now back to your pre-spun housing recovery.

But if we examine the history of lumber prices relative to the strength of the housing sector, lumber prices may be getting slightly ahead of themselves from a valuation standpoint. 

Europe's double dipping economy may be continuing to implode, but at least confidence abounds. And while the conifidence game was the purvey of career politicians and ex-Goldman central bankers in January, it has now shifted to Europe's equivalent of the reflexive UMichigan consumer confidence, after Germany's ZEW investor confidence soared to 48.2 vs expectations of a modest 35.0 print, leaving January's 31.5 print in the dust, and the highest since April 2010. And all of the surge was based on the hope, with none attributed to reality, or current conditions. From SocGen: "The positive mood in both the equity and bond markets since the beginning of the year has led to a strong surge in expectations (economic sentiment) in the ZEW survey, a survey completed among German investors. This surge was entirely driven by expectations while current activity remains muted. Expectations in most surveys have recently been rising more strongly than expected, but at one point we expect some moderation. We consider that Germany and the euro area are in a situation of readjusting expectations and activity from the weakness at end-2012. The recovery in expectations may already have overshoot if hard data disappoint in the coming weeks." And while Europe is starry-eyed with hope about the future, as it is in the beginning of every year, it blithely ignored the fact that new car registrations collapsed in January by 14.2% to a new record low, while construction output in the Euroarea declined for a second month in December, tumbling by 4.8% led by slumping activity in, wait for it, Germany. But this time the future will be different.

With the end of Asia's lunar new year celebration and the return of the US and Canadian markets after yesterday's holiday, there is full liquidity in the global capital markets for the first time in over a week. The currencies are mixed, with the yen, sterling and the Australian dollar posting modest gains, while the euro, Swiss franc and Canadian dollar have heavier tones.

The Chinese yuan has weakened for the second day after returning from the extended holiday and is near 2-month lows. After reversing lower yesterday, the Shanghai Composite led the regional bourses lower with a 1.9% decline. The Composite is approaching its 20-day moving average (~2365) which it has not traded below since early December. European equity markets are higher and the Dow Jones Stoxx 600 is up a little more than 0.5% led by consumer goods and basic materials. Of the main industrial sectors, only telecom is lower. European bond markets, core as well as periphery are lower.

Broadly speaking, we identify five factors that will shape foreign exchange rates in coming days.

Following on from our earlier discussion of the boomerang foreclosure problem, we thought a recent interview between Goldman and Bob Shiller well worth considering - given his relative independence and honesty - on the reality of the housing 'recovery' - he is not gung ho. Has the US housing market bottomed? "Maybe, but I still worry about further price declines. There’s no really concrete reason for an upturn now... are all clouds on the horizon. That’s why I think home prices may still go down," and on the recent improvement in prices, "I also think that price increases that were likely caused by the decline in foreclosures may have been mistakenly taken by the public as a note of optimism." And with Obama pushing homeownership and refinancing acts once again, Shiller adds: "We were so single-mindedly pursuing home ownership that we allowed our lending practices to deteriorate to a tragic end. And there are many advantages to renting, which oftentimes allows more flexibility and more convenience." 

As always happens when central planning is involved, when one tries to stop a leak here, two new leaks appear elsewhere. Because while the Homeowners Bill of Rights managed to grind foreclosure activity to a halt in California, what is happening elsewhere is the dreaded Boomerang Foreclosure phenomenon, or, said simply, redefaults. In other words, those homeowners who tried to take advantage of the most recent housing bubble mania created over the past year by the unholy trinity of the Fed (open-ended liquidity, REO-to-Rent programs, and $40 billion in monthly purchases of MBS), foreign buyers (who launder illicit money courtesy of the NAR's anti-money laundering exemption and park it in ultra luxury US real estate, usually sight-unseen) and of course, the banks, who with the aid of the robosigning fiasco and the Homeowner Bill of Rights, have over the past year subsidized the housing market by keeping non-cash flow generating mortgages on their books in exchange for a wholesale subsidizied rise in housing prices, ran out of cash before they could flip the "hot potato" that is the house they just bought, to a greater fool, and since they had no actual cash to pay the mortgage with, and with no fear of retribution, handed it right back to the bank. As the chart below shows, while California foreclosure activity is collapsing, things in other places are starting to indicate that the second housing bubble blown by Bernanke in 5 years, is finally starting to crack:

Following yesterday's G-7 announcement which sent the USDJPY soaring, and its embarrassing "misinterpretation" clarification which undid the entire spike, by an anonymous source in the US who said the statement was in fact meant to state that the Yen was dropping too fast and was to discourage "currency wars", it was only a matter of time before another G-7 country stepped into the fray to provide a mis-misinterpretation of the original G-7 announcement. That someone was the BoE's outgoing head Mervyn King who at 5:30 am eastern delivered his inflation reporting which he said that "it’s very important to allow exchange rates to move," adding that "when countries take measures to use monetary stimulus to support growth in their economy, then there will be exchange rate consequences, and they should be allowed to flow through." Finally, King added that the BOE will look through CPI and relentless UK inflation to support the recovery, implicitly even if it means incurring more inflation.

5% fewer words, slightly shorter than last year but just as hope-full. From a hike (and inflation-indexed) in the minimum wage to a 140x multiplier of genome sciences investment (now that is Keynesian awesomeness); from extending homeownership (and refinancing plans) even more to energy independence; from Apple, Ford, and CAT's US Manufacturing to Bridge-Building and infrastructure spending; and from Trans-Pacific and -Atlantic Trade to cyber-security; it's all gonna be great - because as President Obama reminded us at the start... "Our housing market is healing, our stock market is rebounding," and this won't add a dime to the deficit... oh and that Student loan bubble - no worries, there's a college scorecard so now you know where to get the biggest bang for your credit-based buck. Summing it all up: Guns 9 : 3 Freedom ; Jobs 31 : 17 Tax ; Congress 17 : 40 Work ; Recovery 2 : 0 Unicorns ; Spending 3 : 2 Cutting

We have long held the machinations of The National Association of Realtors (NAR) up to some ridicule. As many will note, we ignore every NAR data release due to the fact that it is certified guesswork (at best) as per the massive periodic revisions that just so happen wipe out all prior year gains. We also suspect a darker side, as the NAR, courtesy of its anti money-laundering exemption, is simply a middleman allowed to close its eyes as dirty money is ferried into the US and specifically its real estate market. But former Fannie Mae chief credit officer Ed Pinto digs a little deeper into the real driver behind the NAR. For 90 years the NAR (and its predecessor organization) has supported expanding the government’s role in housing finance. Today, the government guarantees upwards of 90 percent of all new mortgages. It is easy to reconcile the NAR’s interest in home ownership and its support for the expansion of the government’s role in housing finance. In Ed's research he has not come across a single instance where the NAR has stated that lending standards should be tightened. To the contrary the NAR has almost always called for loosened lending standards and continued or increased government involvement, no matter the market conditions.

The problem with “too-big-to-fail” is first and foremost the behavior of our beloved political leaders in Washington