Housing Market

What's your wild guess? 

What we need to understand is that we are in one of the most dangerous phases of this crisis at the moment. The priests of fiat are being attacked from all sides. People have awoken to the Fed and how criminal and deceitful this organization is and the existential threat it poses to economic freedom and hence human liberty. The arguments against the Fed are blistering and the only rebuttal the Fed has is to spout the same old nonsense like “we saved the world” or some trite derivative of this fallacy. The only thing they saved are untalented speculators from their bad bets. What the Fed has systematically done is literally transfer all of the bad debts and bets from the banks to the taxpayer. We are living this reality to this day. This fact is becoming increasingly understood throughout society, hence the emergence of the tea party and then last year’s Occupy Wall Street movement. So the thing I want my readers to really internalize is that the Fed and indeed TPTB generally are getting slaughtered in the intellectual arena and they know it. As a result, they feel cornered and will thus act increasingly aggressive to prove they are right and everyone else is wrong.

Much has been made, and rightly so, of the echoing crisis that is evolving in Spanish bank and sovereign credit (and equity) markets in the last few weeks. The impact of the LTRO on the optics of Spain's problems hid the fact that things remain rather ugly under the surface still and with the fading of that cashflow and reach-around demand from the Spanish banking system, the smaller base of sovereign bond investors has shied away. Stephane Deo, of UBS, notes that while the Spanish budget is a positive step (with its labor market reforms), Spain's economy remains weak and will face a severe recession this year followed by still significant contraction next year. However, he fears the measures announced may not be enough to calm investor angst as he doubts the size of fiscal receipts numbers and the ability to half the deficits of local authorities. Furthermore, the measures will have a large impact on corporate earnings - implicitly exaggerating the dismal unemployment numbers (which is increasingly polarizing young against old) with expectations that the aggregate unemployment rate could well top 26% and youth well over 50%. This will only drag further on the housing market, which while it has suffered notably already, is expected to drop another 25% before bottoming and credit is contracting rapidly (compared to a modest rise overall in Europe). Spanish banks remain opaque in general from the perspective of the size and quality of collateral and provisioning and Deo believes they are still deep in the midst of the provisioning cycle and tough macro conditions will force restructuring and deleveraging. Spain scores 5 out of 5 on our crisis-prone indicator and markets, absent intervention, are starting to reflect that aggressively.

Who will buy our debt in the coming months and years? Europe is saturated with debt and doesn’t have the means to purchase our debt. Japan is a train wreck waiting to happen. China’s customers aren’t buying their crap, so their economic miracle is about to go in reverse. The Federal Reserve cannot buy $1 trillion of Treasury bonds per year forever without creating more speculative bubbles and raging inflation in the things people need to live. The Minsky Moment will be the point when the U.S. Treasury begins having funding problems due to the spiraling debt incurred in financing perpetual government deficits. At this point no buyer will be found to bid at 2% to 3% yields for U.S. Treasuries; consequently, a major sell-off will ensue leading to a sudden and precipitous collapse in market clearing asset prices and a sharp drop in market liquidity. In layman terms that means – the shit will hit the fan. The Federal Reserve and Treasury will be caught in their own web of lies. The only way to attract buyers will be to dramatically increase interest rates. Doing this in a country up to its eyeballs in debt will be suicide. We will abruptly know how it feels to be Greek....The entire financial world is hopelessly entangled by the $700 trillion of derivatives that ensure mass destruction if one of the dominoes falls. This is the reason an otherwise inconsequential country like Greece had to be “saved”.

Everyone's favorite stock pitchman, Bob Pisani, who lately apparently has the capacity to learn just one line and just regurgitate it ad nauseam, was on CNBC earlier screaming how gold is down because the US is so much better than the world, when in reality gold is once again being sold to fund early margin calls (yes, institutionals are that levered right now). As for the US decoupling story, which time after time is dragged out, only to be shelved once the impact of trillions in liquidity fades, and which is never different this time, here is none other than Bank of America explaining to the likes of Pisani why "the US economy is likely to prove a faulty engine of global growth." Read - no decoupling, despite what the market may be trying to say. And yes, the market, and especially the Russell 2000 is never the economy.

Bernanke has laid the groundwork for the next massive dislocation.

Seasonal adjustments are not forever. 

As the first day of the quarter brings new money and new hope for global asset allocators, Credit Suisse has shifted to a more negative 'underweight' stance to European equities. Laying out 10 reasons for their displeasure, they dig into the details a little with a positive view on domestic German equities and the broad DAX index (and USD earners) while notably negative on France and Spain in general (with Spain expected to underperform Italy). Varying from too much complacency on the resolution to the crisis, to political flash points, valuations, and relative economic momentum. This smorgasbord of anxiety-inducing 'facts' may well prove enough to topple the 'fiction' of a liquidity-levitated equity market - that credit seems to have already realized. Most notably the five factors that need to be 'fixed' before the Euro crisis is resolved, and the under-estimation of the de-leveraging required in the periphery, leaves mutualization of debt as the game-changer that still seems a long-way off. The complacency angle seems the most relevant to us - and we see equities once again pull away from any sense of reason indicated by the sovereign, financial, and corporate credit market, this complacency becomes more and more dangerous.

Inflection point, yes. There yet, no. 

In advance of ever louder demands for more, more, more NEWER QE-LTROs (as BofA's Michael Hanson says "If our forecast of a one-handle on H2 growth is realized, then we would expect the Fed to step in with additional easing, in the form of QE3") , it is an opportune time to demonstrate just what the traditional monetary "plumbing" mechanisms at the discretion of the Fed are, and more importantly, just how completely plugged they are. So without any further ado...

• Greek PM does not rule out new bailout package (Reuters)
• Euro zone agrees temporary boost to rescue capacity (Reuters)
• Madrid Commits to Reforms Despite Strike (FT)
• China PBOC: To Keep Reasonable Social Financing, Prudent Monetary Policy In 2012 (WSJ)
• Germany Launches Strategy to Counter ECB Largesse (Telegraph)
• Iran Sanctions Fuel 'Junk for Oil' Barter With China, India (Bloomberg)
• BRICS Nations Threaten IMF Funding (FT)
• Bernanke Optimistic on Long-Term Economic Growth (AP)

The last time the S&P 500 rallied in such a serene manner as the current trend was March 1987 - a few months before monetary imbalances came undone and crashed in October 1987. Further, JPMorgan's Michael Cembalest notes that prior to WWII, the previous rally as calm and uninterrupted as this was in November 1928 - a year before the crash. The JPM CIO points out how the Fed's ZIRP has created a 'Portfolio Rebalancing Channel' (PRC) transmission mechanism from cheap credit to wealth effect through spending and profits (that has worked as planned) but the last leg on this mechanism has not functioned so well. Payroll growth has been underwhelming and the housing market remains stunted - leaving the real economy remaining fragile despite the market's appearance. The Fed remains committed to driving this 'channel' but, as Cembalest points out this could easily be derailed by inflation, a bond market revolt towards funding our 'Ecuadorean' deficits, or the pending fiscal cliff legislated for 2013. "So the PRC keeps chugging along, until the Fed's job is done (and Goldilocks continues), or something breaks." History does not rhyme; ninety years ago, money-printing led to calamity in Germany, and eventually, to disaster in Europe. Today, money-printing is designed to save it.

It is funny to hear the talking heads preface virtually every bullish statement with "the US economic data is getting better." It's funny because it's wrong. We have been tracking economic data based on our universe of indicators and as of today we have seen a miss rate of about 80%. And now, Deutsche Bank has joined us in keeping track of economic beats and misses, with their own universe of 31 economic indicators. The results are shown below and the verdict is in: the US economy has officially turned the corner... lower, now that the seasonally adjusted boost from a record warm winter fades and becomes an actual drag (not to mention the fading of the $2 trillion in central bank liquidity).

Going into the US open, European equity markets are trading slightly lower with some cautious trade observed so far. In individual equity news, France’s Total have shown some choppy trade following reports from their Elgin gas field in the North Sea, shares were seen down as much as 3% but the company have played down the gas leak and have regained slightly in recent trade; however they remain down 1.4%. In terms of data releases, the final reading of Q4 GDP from the UK has recorded a downward revision to -0.3%. Following the disappointing release, GBP/USD spiked lower 20pips and remains in negative territory.  In the energy complex, WTI is seen on a downward trend following last night’s build in oil reserves shown by the API data. Earlier in the session French press reported that France had made contact with the UK and the US regarding the release of emergency oil stocks, following this, WTI spiked lower around USD 0.30 but quickly regained.  Looking ahead in the session, international market focus moves to the US, with durable goods orders and the weekly DOE oil inventory due later today.

Housing is improving! Housing is improving! Housing is improving!

if I say it enough will someone believe it?

This post has a link to a Bloomberg story about a revival in Seattle where house bidding wars are in progress: Date March 27, 2012. You won't believe it. It reads like a story from the heart of the days of the bubble market.