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All you need to read and some more.

All you need to read.

Confused by the latest developments, headlines, stories, counterstories, denials, counterdenials and rumors, but mostly prayers out of Europe? Here is your one stop shop of everything that has transpired in the Eurocrisis most recently.

Ten days ago when presenting the live Reuters polling tracker we said, "just as the most actively watched live update on June 17 will be the Greek parliament seat map as voting is tallied, so each and every day from now until then, everyone's attention will be glued to daily update from Greek election polls." Well, as of end of day Friday, a moratorium to publish polls come into effect which means that for the next 2 weeks Europe will be officially in the dark, clueless as to how the political winds in Greece are blowing.

What would the weekend be without at least one rumor that Europe is on the verge of fixing everything, or failing that, planning for a master fix, OR failing that, planning for a master plan to fix everything. Sure enough, we just got the latter, which considering nobody really believes anything out of Europe anymore, especially not something that has not been signed, stamped and approved by Merkel herself, is rather ballsy. Nonetheless, one can't blame them for trying: "The chiefs of four European institutions are in the process of creating a master plan for the euro zone, the daily Die Welt reports Saturday, in an advance release of an article to be published Sunday. Suggestions targeting a fiscal, banking, and political union, as well as structural reforms, are being worked out..." Less than credible sources report that Spiderman towels (which are now trading at negative repo rates) and cross-rehypothecated kitchen sinks are also key components of all future "master plans" which sadly are absolutely meaningless since the signature of Europe's paymaster - the Bundesrepublik - is as usual lacking. Which is why, "the plan may well mean that the euro zone adopts measures not immediately accepted by the whole of the European Union, the article adds." So... European sub-union? Hardly strange is that just as this latest desperate attempt at distraction from the complete chaos in Europe (which will only find a resolution once XO crosses 1000 as we and Citi suggested two weeks ago and when the world is truly on the verge of the abyss), none other than George Soros has just started a 3-month countdown to European the European D(oom)-Day.

Risk-averse sentiment dominated the session yet again as market participants continued to focus on Spain and speculated whether the country will soon be forced to seek some sort of monetary assistance. As a result, credit markets continued to deteriorate, with the EURUSD cross-currency basis-swaps under pressure, while the spread between Spanish and German benchmark bonds widened to a fresh Euro-era wide level. Less than impressive demand for the latest Italian debt issuance where 2017 was underbid by EUR 0.20, while the 2022 issue was underbid by EUR 0.30 also resulted in aggressive bond yield spread widening. However, as we head into the North American open, reports that the EU is willing to envisage direct ESM bank recapitalizations saw Bunds spike lower by around 33ticks and EUR/USD by 44pips to the upside. EU stocks made an impressive recovery, but remain in negative territory. Going forward, the second half of the session will see the release of latest housing data (pending home sales), as well as the weekly API report.

All you need to read

The Swiss National Bank may have pegged the EURCHF (and as noted earlier, is progressively accumulating losses defending the barrier - even as EURCHF options are leaning further and further towards the peg breaking), but what about its bonds? At the current rate, Swiss debt, which is quite negative, with 2 year bonds now trading at record NEGATIVE rates, will repay itself quietly in a few short decades: ahhh the benefits of compounding. And for an example of how this is done, hours ago, the government issued debt at a rate of 0.62%. Oh sorry, we forgot the negative sign.

It is becoming clearer and clearer that some new policy option is required in Europe - but as JPMorgan's Michael Cembalest excellent cartoon description of the never-ending circular arguments among European leaders would put it - you would have to be a wide-eyed optimist to believe it will be a decisive one. Comparing the progress of the European Monetary Union with structural changes in the US around the end of the 19th century, it is arguable that more time is needed before judgment is passed but they may not get the chance. The resolution of a staggering EUR10 trillion in peripheral sovereign, household, and corporate debt may not wait. Durable unions are signaled by signs of wage convergence and unilateral transfers of wealth to smooth regional income difference - while a lender of last resort appears to be most people's solution, it likely will not be enough given the competitive divergences.

If those in charge are still confused why the general population is not very "appreciative" of the banker social substratum, the following example should provide some color. Following the ever greater public bailout fund black hole that Spain's Bankia has become (first of many zombies), we now learn that one of its financial directors, Aurelio Izquierdo, will be entitled to €14 million in pension and termination benefits. Supposedly in compensation for running the bank straight into the ground after just one year of operation, and lying fabulously about its financial performance, in the process suckering in thousands into investing their hard earned cash so that oligarchs such as Aurelio can promptly retire to a non-extradition locale. And this, dear powers that be, is why the general public continues to scratch its head at how it is remotely possible that incompetent crony capitalists get paid tens of millions for blowing up their firms, while everyone else is stuck footing the soon to be soaring inflation bill (because print they must, and print they will).

All you need to read and some more.

Some thought that German chancellor Angela Merkel would quietly take the abuse heaped on her, and her program of "austerity" (or deleveraging as we call it, but that just does not have quite the negative connotations of a word that has become symbolic for all that is wrong with a massively overlevered world) by the new French president and Germany's increasingly more insolvent "partners", without much of a fuss. That changed over the weekend, following a Spiegel article titled "Merkel prepares to strike back against Hollande." Now, as Bloomberg reports, the German retaliation is picking more speed, following a thinly veiled threat from the former German finance minister, who basically said that French bonds are unlikely to continue seeing the flight to safety bid they have been enjoying recently, once the rating agencies cut France even more from its one vaunted AAA rating, where Moody's and Fitch still have the country (following the S&P downgrade to AA+ in January), but likely not for long now that Germany has spoken.

The US may be closed today but Europe sure is open. And while the general sentiment may be one of modest optimism in light of four highly meaningless Greek polls which fluctuate with a ferocious error rate on a daily basis, now showing New Democracy in the lead (and soon to show something totally different - after all Syriza had a 4 point leads as recently as Friday according to one of the polls), pushing equity futures higher, Spain has so far failed to benefit from either this transitory spike in optimism driven by record number of EUR shorts forced to cover (more below), with its yields touching a fresh record overnight, the 10 year hitting 6.50% and 450 bps in the spread to bunds, while re-re-nationalized Bankia, now with explicit ECB support plunging nearly 30% only to make up some of the losses and trade down 20% at last check. An earlier 2 year bond auction out of Italy did not help: the country raised the maximum €3.5 billion in zero coupon bonds, however the OID was high enough to send the yield soaring to 4.037% average compared to 3.355% just a month ago, while the Bid to Cover dropped from 1.80 to 1.66. In summary: Europe is walking on the edge right now, and the only thing preventing it from imploding this morning is some short covering as well as a furious statement out of Germany, which has to understand that its precious ECB is now directly funding nationalized banks: something Merkel and BUBA's Weidmann have said in the past is dealbreaker.

All you need to read.

As Americans mindlessly celebrate another Memorial Day with cookouts, beer and burgers, the U.S. war machine keeps churning. As we brutally enforce our will on foreign countries, we create more people that hate us. They don’t hate us for our freedom. They hate us because we have invaded and occupied their countries. They hate us because we kill innocent people with predator drones. They hate us for our hypocrisy regarding democracy and freedom. Just when we had the opportunity to make a sensible decision by leaving Iraq and exiting the Middle East quagmire, Obama made the abysmal choice to casually sacrifice more troops in the Afghan shithole. We have thrown over $1.3 trillion down Middle East rat holes over the last 11 years with no discernible benefit to the citizens of the United States. George Bush and Barack Obama did this to prove  they were true statesmen. The Soviet Union killed over 1 million Afghans, while driving another 5 million out of the country and retreated as a bankrupted and defeated shell after ten years. Young Americans continue to die, for whom and for what? Our foreign policy during the last eleven years can be summed up in one military term, SNAFU – Situation Normal All Fucked Up. These endless foreign interventions under the guise of a War on Terror are a smoke screen for what is really going on in this country. When a government has unsolvable domestic problems, they try to distract the willfully ignorant masses by proactively creating foreign conflicts based upon false pretenses.  General Douglas MacArthur understood this danger to our liberty.

“I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.”