Market Conditions

Earlier today Portugal had a deplorable bond auction of €1 billion in 12 month Bills, which saw the interest rate paid jump to nearly 4.5% even as general demand indicated by Bid to Cover plunge from 3.1 to 2.2. And even so, the bulk of the purchasing was from Asia, read China, as the last thing Japan needs now is to rescue a insolvent Portugal, according to a finance minister disclosure. From Reuters: "The 12-month T-bill yield rose to 4.331 percent from 4.057 percent in an auction on March 2, in line with analyst expectations of around 4.3 percent and with the secondary market. It also stayed below record levels seen in December." Alas, while Portugal purchased a few days of funding, it merely confirmed that it is now effectively bankrupt as paying 4.3% for 12 months worth of debt indicates the Rubicon has long been passed. Look for Portugal to be bailed out any minute. And in attempting to avoid the same fate, Belgium decided to "postpone" its own bond issuance of 6 year benchmark notes on concern investors will puke all over the paper. "Belgium delayed the sale of a new six-year benchmark bond on Tuesday due to market volatility caused by the Japan earthquake and explosions at a nuclear power station there. Plans to issue the new bond, maturing in June 2017, were announced on Monday, with Deutsche Bank, KBC Bank and Morgan Stanley mandated as joint bookrunners. The markets are so volatile at the moment and attention is concentrating on what is happening in Japan," debt agency chief Anne Leclerq told Reuters." Luckily unlike Portugal which has no choice but to raise debt at every opportunity, Belgium has the choice to await greener pastures. For now.

Something scary this way comes from Morgan Stanley's Quantiative and Derivative Strategies: "market conditions over the last two weeks are somewhat reminiscent of that during the August 2007 ‘Quant Crisis’. In only a few days, a number of quantitative long-short equity funds experienced unprecedented losses in seemingly ‘normal’ market conditions. We do not suggest here that the magnitude of hypothetical losses match those from 2007, however, there is little question that the rotation has drawn attention of many quant investors." In other words, the massive groupthink trade that we have been warning about for months may be about to claim its first mass casualties. The just released report by author Charles Crow elaborates what many have been suspecting, yet few dared to voice: "Recent substantial factor movements in Europe have contributed to portfolio volatility and, in some cases, abrupt performance degradation. Portfolios positioned to take advantage of prevailing factor trends may have suffered substantially over the last two weeks." Is the groupthink trade about to end? If so, does that mean the funds will be forced to stop "not fighting the Fed" as this is really the only factor-driven trade that has made sense. If so, we have reached the critical point where being aligned alongside the Fed has no incremental marginal returns, at least for the non-Primary Dealers. This could promptly transform to a watershed event, especially since as Morgan Stanley adds, the market currently has "relatively low liquidity" to absorb the fringe moves.

Once again we are left scratching our heads how a market trading near its year highs can constitute a "market condition" out for an IPO, but that's precisely what happened to mega LBO Harrah's which as of this morning is no longer going private. Of course, the only market condition involved is not having Getco as your DMM, which is willing to bid up all shares below a certain threshold, only to subsequently go ahead and cell to Citadel in dark pools. Where those shares go afterwards, only Brian Sack knows. The biggest loser however in today's fiasco is John Paulson who is now stuck with holding $710 million of equity in a company that may or may not be viable post the tens of dividend recap deals that are sure to follow the failed IPO.

It's official - KKR has pulled its US Offering (S-1). It appears distribution is actually a relevant metric when it comes to pricing overbloated, DOA PE corpses (especially when the memory of BX and FIG is still fresh). HFTs get an F for pushing the market up 10% on next to negative volume. And since when is a parabolic move up of almost 10% considered "Unfavorable Market Conditions." Just how much bullshit is going on behind the scenes of this market?

This week showed just how jittery the IPO sentiment was, with so many IPOs pulled on "market conditions" even including perpetual cash cows such as porn sites. Now the weakness in the market is shifting to bonds. The latest casualty is Brazil's BES Investimento bank which has postponed a $350 million bond on "market conditions." We are not so sure if the reason is with "market conditions" or whether the true reason has to do with BES being a local unit of Portugues bank Banco Espirito Santo S/A. We anticipate any corporate entities that have a relation with an increasing number of European countries will soon become locked out from the capital markets.

Damn, those windows of opportunity sure are brief: it seems syndicators now think the high frequency trading mentality has taken over the primary market. Less than 24 hours after launching a $1.75 billion unsecured note offering, Energy Transfer Equity pulled the very same refinancing attempt. Zero Hedge Capital Markets, Inc. is happy to undercut all eight (yes, eight) members of the underwriting syndicate and place the offering at one tenth the proposed underwriting fee, and will even provide a highly confident letter (that has the simple contingency that the placement be done only if the equity market has had twenty successive 1%+ up days and not a single downtick in the past 24 hours). If ETE management finds our terms attractive, they know how to reach us.

What? Huh? Market Conditions? Have they seen the market today? Credit and equity markets have now completely decoupled.

Trader commentary:

Hearing the [MF Global Ltd "MR"] USD250m SEC registered 10y issue has been pulled due to market conditions. JPM sole books. Co-mgrs: Citi, MF, Wm Blair. Rated Baa2/BBB.

That's not good for the equity bubble chasers. Credit is always right in the end. And if even JPM can't sell an IG bond, the window is now closed, except for the momos chasing every offer higher.