Market Conditions

Steve Forbes has a message for a nation dominated by increasingly short-term decisions made on Wall Street and in Washington D.C., and by ever greater economic, financial and currency instability.  As long as America continues moving away from sound money; away from sound financial and economic policies; and, ultimately, away from freedom, its future grows more dim.  The dot-com and housing bubbles followed by the 2008 financial crisis and the most severe economic decline since the Great Depression serve as powerful lessons.  A future of bigger government, higher taxes, more burdensome regulations, less consumer choice and more unrealistic government promises requires more and more Federal Reserve play money. Steve Forbes has a quintessentially American policy prescription rooted in American history.  The answer to America’s economic problems is—and has always been—new wealth creation.  New wealth creation doesn’t come from the government or from the Federal Reserve’s printing press.  New wealth creation is what happens naturally with stable money based on the gold standard, lower taxes on individuals, a simplified tax code, reduced bureaucracy and free markets.

Update: BlackRock to restrict subscriptions into 2 Euro money funds

We were the first to bring news that overnight JPMorgan has halted investment in its European money market funds following the ECB's decision to cut the deposit rate to 0%. Now, it is Goldman's turn:

• GOLDMAN HALTS INVESTMENTS IN EURO GOV MONEY FUND AFTER ECB CUT
• GOLDMAN SAYS MARKET CONDITIONS WILL DETERMINE WHEN FUND REOPENS
• GOLDMAN DECISION AFFECTS EURO GOVERNMENT LIQUID RESERVES FUND

And finally the conclusion, which is rather obvious:

• GOLDMAN FUND MEMO: EUROPEAN MARKET IN `UNCHARTERED TERRITORY'

The median estimate for tomorrow's all-important report is a +100k change in non-farm payrolls (up from last month's +69k) with Stone & McCarthy topping the table at +165k and Jason Schenker of Presitge Economics all doom-and-gloom at +35k. Everyone's favorite permabull-coz-of-QE3-advocate, Joe LaVorgna, is a more negative-than-consensus +75k and Hatzius et al. at Goldman just notched it up to +125k; but we focus on what Morgan Stanley's David Greenlaw has to say as they appear to have the best handle on just how significant an impact the weather has had on job growth data. Most importantly, given the Fed's admitted focus on the labor market, this is the last employment report before the End-of-July FOMC fireworks. There is a chance that the FOMC could conceivably take further action at the next meeting if Friday’s report is disappointing, but given that this is a divided FOMC which appears to be resigned to the status quo, the bar to such action seems relatively high at this point.

Haim Bodek thought practically nonstop for days about what the trade-venue representative had told him that night at the New York party.  The way that the abusive order types worked made him think back to a document he’d been given by a colleague that summer as he researched what was going wrong at Trading Machines. The document was a detailed blueprint of a high-frequency method that was said to be popular in Chicago’s trading circles.

It was called the “0+ Scalping Strategy.”

We can finally close the case on the massive Libor manipulation issue that we first brough to the world's attention back in January 2009 when we penned: "This Makes No Sense: Libor By Bank." As of minutes ago, Barclays is the first bank to admit it has engaged in gross manipulation of the key benchmark rate that sets the cost of capital for $350 trillion in interest-rate sensitive products. As the CFTC notes, as it produly announces an epic wristslap of $200 million for Barclays Bank: "The Order finds that Barclays attempted to manipulate and made false reports concerning two global benchmark interest rates, LIBOR and Euribor, on numerous occasions and sometimes on a daily basis over a four-year period, commencing as early as 2005." Surely this massive fine will teach them to never do it again, until tomorrow at least, when the British Banker Association once again finds 3 month USD liEbor to be... unchanged. In other news, who would have thought that the fringe "conspiracy" brigade was right all along once again.

The no frills summary of the past week's key bullish and bearish macro events.

Goldman, which as recently as Monday night was pushing what clients it has left into believing the Fed may launch something as gargantuan as a $50-75 billion Flow-based QE program, has already come out with its take of today's action. For informative purposes, here it is.

As always, Goldman Corzined anyone who listened to its call that an epic QE is coming. Fed did the worst possible outcome for risk- merely extended Twist, just as the credit market predicted it would 3 weeks ago:

• FED SAYS IT IS PREPARED TO TAKE FURTHER ACTION `AS APPROPRIATE
• FED TWIST EXTENSION TO SWAP $267 BLN OF TREASURIES BY END 2012
• FED TO SELL OR REDEEM `EQUAL AMOUNT' DEBT DUE 3 YEARS OR LESS
• FED TO BUY TREASURIES DUE IN 6 TO 30 YEARS AT `CURRENT PACE'
• FED SAYS EMPLOYMENT GROWTH `HAS SLOWED'
• FED SAYS INFLATION HAS DECLINED, REFLECTING OIL
• FED REITERATES ECONOMY `EXPANDING MODERATELY'
• LACKER DISSENTS FROM FOMC DECISION

This means that soon Primary Dealers' entire balance sheets will be filled with the entire inventory of Fed 1-3 year bonds. Market not happy. Full June statement here.

All you can read.

This weekend, everyone's attention will be on the Greek elections, however it is Spain that has now become the "fulcrum security" of Europe. As such, events in Greece are merely a catalyst that will set off a chain of events that will have an impact not only on Spain, but on all of Europe, and thus, the world. As we pointed out last week after the Spanish bailout announcement, based on a preliminary analysis which had been compiled by Deutsche Bank's europhiles hours before the formal announcement, and one which just happened to be a carbon-copy of what was proposed as the 'final (and failed) Spanish solution', it appears that the events in Europe are if not orchestrated by the largest German bank, then certainly receiving part-time advice. Which brings us to the present, where we find that even Deutsche Bank has given up hope for interim solutions, having realized that the market will no longer accept transitory, feeble arrangements. Instead DB is now formally calling for a big bang resolution, one coming from the ECB. Here is the punchline: "ECB has room for manoeuvre, but needs political cover for a ‘big’ policy" or said otherwise, "A shock is required to get a liquidity response." In other words: Europe's only real hope for even a stop gap solution... is a wholesale market crash, not surprisingly the very same conclusion that Citi reached on May 19 when they warned that only Crossover (XO) at 1000 bps or wider could push Europe into acting... Basically stated, anything less than a controlled market crash, one that finally gets the ECB involved with Germany's persmission of course, merely pushes the market higher on nothing but hope of an intervention that said market lift makes even more improbable, as now both Citi and DB admit, which can and will lead to an uncontrolled market collapse, one from which not even the ECB will be able to extricate Europe.

More than 80 institutions with collective assets under management of over $8 trillion attended the event and were polled regarding macroeconomic matters and their outlook for various asset classes. Gold is seen as one of the assets likely to outperform again in 2012 due to risks posed to the euro and longer term risks for the dollar. Those polled by UBS were also positive on emerging market debt. Both asset classes, gold and emerging market debt, were the top pick of 22.5% of the assembly – thereby accounting for 45% of the votes. On gold’s role as a reserve asset, the importance reserve managers attach to the yellow metal has slipped back to 2009 levels, with about 14% having the opinion that it will be the most important reserve currency in 25 years. This marks a decline from the past two years’ surveys wherein over 20% viewed gold to be the most important reserve currency. 

"Any aid that might come from the European Stability Mechanism, which is expected to start work next month, would enjoy a preferred creditor status second-only to the IMF, the spokesman confirmed."

All you need to read and some more.

Over the past 24 hours, Zero Hedge covered the various key provisions, and open questions, of the Spanish bank bailout. There is, however, much more when one digs into the details. Below, courtesy of Deutsche Bank's Gilles Moec is a far more nuanced analysis of what just happened, as well as a model looking at the future of the pro forma Spanish debt load with the now-priming ESM debt, which may very well hit 100% quite soon as we predicted earlier. Furthermore, since the following comprehensive walk-thru appeared in the DB literature on Friday, before the formal announcement, it is quite clear that none other than Deutsche Bank, whose "walk-thru" has been adhered to by the Spanish government and Europe to the dot, was instrumental in defining a "rescue" of Spain's banks, which had it contaged, would have impacted the biggest banking edifice in Europe by orders of magnitude: Deutsche Bank itself.

If it seems like it was just yesterday that Spain officially requested a bank bailout, it is because it was. Recall: "Spain Caves, Admits It Needs European Bailout" from June 5. What happened next is confusing, but it essentially appears that Spain retracted the course of action as it was unhappy with two things: i) the market's response to the announcement, and ii) Germany's response to the request for aid. The first, because as ZH first showed, did not soar as there would obviously not be enough money embedded in the current system to fund a full bailout of Spain, and the second, because Germany is not exactly delighted with having one more country on the dole, and has yet to clarify under just what conditions it will save Spain (in retrospect naive rumors that it has dropped all conditionality notwithstanding). Which brings us to this morning, when we are expected to forget that all of this already happened, and to be shocked that Spain is officially requesting a bailout for the first time./.. again... kinda, sorta... Reuters reports: "Spain is expected to request European aid for its ailing banks at the weekend to forestall worsening market turmoil, becoming the fourth and biggest country to seek assistance since the euro zone's debt crisis began, EU and German sources said. Four senior EU officials said finance ministers of the 17-nation single currency area would hold a conference call on Saturday to discuss a Spanish request for an aid package, although no figure had yet been set. The Eurogroup would issue a statement after the meeting, they said. "The announcement is expected for Saturday afternoon," one of the EU officials said." So now we have rumors of statements of conferences of bailouts. Lovely. At least our Belgian caterer long is doing great to quite great.