ratings

• Dublin in final push for EU treaty Yes vote (FT)
• Spain cries for help: is Berlin listening? (Reuters)
• Crisis draws squatters to Spain's empty buildings (Reuters)
• EU World Bank Chief Urges Euro Bonds (WSJ)
• but... EU: Current Plan Is Not To Let ESM Directly Recapitalize Banks (WSJ)
• Graff pulls Hong Kong IPO, latest victim of weak markets (Reuters) - was MS underwriter?
• EU Weighs Direct Aid to Banks as Antidote to Crisis (Bloomberg)
• Dewey's bankruptcy: Let the rumble begin (Dewey)
• More are cutting off Greek trade: Trade credit insurers balk at Greek risk (FT)
• Rosengren wants more Fed easing; Dudley, Fisher don't (Reuters)
• EU throws Spain two potential lifelines (Reuters)
• Fed's Bullard says more quantitative easing unlikely for now, warns on Europe (Reuters)

Last time we looked at Denmark it it was in the context of Luxor Capital which had some very ugly things to say about the Scandinavian country in "Rotten Contagion To Make Landfall In Denmark: CDS Set To Soar As Hedge Funds Target Country." Now, 6 months later, Moody's has finally gotten the memo: "Moody's Investors Service has today downgraded the ratings for nine Danish financial institutions and for one foreign subsidiary of a Danish group by one to three notches. The short-term ratings declined by one notch for six of these institutions. The rating outlooks for five banks affected by today's rating actions are stable, whereas the rating outlooks for two banks and for all three specialised lenders affected by today's rating actions are negative  The magnitude of some of today's downgrades reflects a range of concerns, including the risk that some institutions' concentrated loan books deteriorate amidst difficult domestic and European conditions, with adverse consequences on their ability to refinance maturing debt. The latter concern is exacerbated by structural changes in the terms of Danish covered bonds and the mix of underlying assets that lead to increased refinancing risk. While Moody's central scenario remains that financial institutions show some resilience to what will likely be a prolonged difficult environment - and the revised rating levels for most Danish financial institutions continue to reflect low risks to creditors - today's rating actions reflect the view that these risks have increased."

Three weeks ago, when the hit campaign on Chesapeake was in full swing, we made a simple prediction: hate the company for whatever reasons but not because of the balance sheet. We explained that "under ZIRP, when every basis point of debt return over 0% is praised, and an epic scramble ensues among hedge for any yielding paper no matter how worthless, the balance sheets of companies just do not matter. In other words, for companies that have massive leverage, high interest rates, negative cash flow, which all were corporate death knells as recently as 2008, the capitalization structure is completely irrelevant." Alternatively, some other, far bigger, company with a pristine balance sheet and lower quality assets could swoop in and do a full management purge, removing the Mclendon overhang, firing the disgraced Board and commingling liabilities while boosting the quality of its assets. Think the TBTF putches from September 2008. Because at the end of the day, it is all about the quality of the assets. And the reality is that CHK has some quality assets, which, however, are burdened by many legacy issues. There is of course the issue of near all time record gas prices. But there in lies the rub: the prices are already at near all time lows. They could continue sliding, or in a world in which hard assets (and even gaseous) are becoming more and more precious by the day, they could go up. In which case CHK would be a very interesting bet. Needless to say, two weeks after our preliminary CHK assessment, Carl Icahn put his money, or rather $775 million of it to be precise, to essentially confirm what we had said previously. Which brings us to the next question: is CHK really worth more? Well, in keeping with the tradition of keeping it simple, we have decided to present one delightfully simple chart from Bloomberg, which shows where the biggest downside in the stock comes from - it's well-known leverage - as well as where the upside is hiding - its asset base - which has the lowest valuation of its peers.

All you need to read and some more.

All you need to read.

We present the following postcard we just got from Sweden. We can only hope this is a very isolated incident of people enjoying to wait in line for a few pieces of paper, completely devoid of any contextual reference. That, or they are all suddenly applying for a mortgage, or in the best case, merely enjoying the wonderful weather, just incidentally next to a branch of one of Sweden's largest banks.

If according to S&P recently nationalized Bankia is junk, what does that imply about Spain?

Forget "austerity"and political theater--the only way to truly comprehend the Eurozone is to understand the Neocolonial-Financialization Model, as that's the key dynamic of the Eurozone. In the old model of Colonialism, the colonizing power conquered or co-opted the Power Elites of the region, and proceeded to exploit the new colony's resources and labor to enrich the "center," i.e. the home empire. In Neocolonialism, the forces of financialization (debt and leverage controlled by State-approved banking cartels) are used to indenture the local Elites and populace to the banking center: the peripheral "colonials" borrow money to buy the finished goods sold by the "core," doubly enriching the center with 1) interest and the transactional "skim" of financializing assets such as real estate, and 2) the profits made selling goods to the debtors.

In essence, the "core" nations of the E.U. colonized the "peripheral" nations via the financializing euro, which enabled a massive expansion of debt and consumption in the periphery.

Bank Regulatory Capital has been in the news a lot recently - between the $1+ trillion Basel 3 shortfall, the Spanish banks with seemingly their own set of capital issues, or JPM's snafu.  There has been a lot of discussion about Too Big To Fail (“TBTF”) in the U.S. with regulators demanding more and banks fighting it.  After JPM's surprise loss this month, the debate over the proper regulatory framework and capital requirements will reach a fever pitch.  That is great, but maybe it is also time to step back and think about what capital is supposed to do, and with that as a guideline, think of rules that make sense. Specifically, regulatory capital, or capital adequacy, or just plain capital needs to address the worst of eventual loss and potential mark to market loss. Hedges are once again front and center.  The only "perfect" hedge is selling an asset. This "hedge" is also a trade.  The risk profile looks very different than having sold the loan and the capital should reflect that.

For the drillers, but....

All you need to read.

All you need to read.

Translating Germany's standard line on joiontly-backed European bonds is simple: "We don't want to pay" - it is as simple as that so you can ignore the rest of the rhetoric. France at the next EU summit is going to push for Eurobonds and Germany will resist in what may be a quite unpleasant stand-off. From Germany’s perspective we can easily understand their feelings about this matter because the consequences of Eurobonds are very negative for them. Eurobonds are quite clearly a “transfer union” where Germany is the primary source of funding then for the rest of Europe. If Eurobonds are ever enacted we would suggest selling any/all of the “AAA” countries and buying the periphery ones as the correct play in the intermediate term. In fact, Eurobonds are the crux where Federalism comes head to head with Nationalism and where the rhetoric gives way to actualization.

• Hilsenrath: Fed Pondering Why Inflation and Deflation Threats Ebbed (WSJ)
• The Naivete: France to push for eurozone bonds (FT)
• The rebuke: Merkel Says She Won’t Shy From Clash With Hollande at EU Summit (Bloomberg)
• The Euro-love: Hollande's euro arguments "nonsense": Austria's Fekter (Reuters)
• Obama Campaign Does Damage Control After Dems Question Anti-Bain Strategy (ABC)
• Greece: four major banks recapitalized by Friday (L'Echo)... and if they aren't?
• China to fast-track infrastructure investments (Reuters)... because China needs more cement
• Jeeps Sell for $189,750 as China Demand Offsets Tariffs (Bloomberg)
• As Facebook’s Stock Struggles, Fingers Start Pointing (NYT)
• Facebook 11% Drop Means Morgan Stanley Gets Blame (Bloomberg)

There was some hope that today's European summit would provide some more clarity for something else than just the local caterer's 2012 tax payment. It wont. Per Reuters: "Germany does not believe that jointly issued euro zone bonds offer a solution to the bloc's debt crisis and will not change its stance despite calls from France and other countries to consider such a step, a senior German official said on Tuesday. "That's a firm conviction which will not change in June," the official said at a German government briefing before an informal summit of EU leaders on Wednesday. A second summit will be held at the end of June. The official, requesting anonymity, also said he saw no need for leaders to discuss a loosening of deficit goals for struggling euro zone countries like Greece or Spain, nor to explore new ways for recapitalise vulnerable banks at Wednesday's meeting." In other words absolutely the same as in August 2011 when Europe came, saw, and did nothing. Yes, yes, deja vu. Bottom line: just as Citi predicted, until the bottom falls out of the market, nothing will change. They were right. As for the summit, just recycle the Einhorn chart from below. Elsewhere, the OECD slashed world growth forecasts and now officially sees Europe contracting, something everyone else has known for months. "In its twice-yearly economic outlook, the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development forecast that global growth would ease to 3.4 percent this year from 3.6 percent in 2011, before accelerating to 4.2 percent in 2013, in line with its last estimates from late November... The OECD forecast that the 17-member euro zone economy would shrink 0.1 percent this year before posting growth of 0.9 percent in 2013, though regional powerhouse Germany would chalk up growth of 1.2 percent in 2012 and 2.0 percent in 2013." Concluding the overnight news was a meaningless auction of €2.5 billion in 3 and 6 month bills (recall, Bill issuance in LTRO Europe is completely meaningless) in which borrowing rates rose, and a very meaningful downgrade of Japan to A+ from AA, outlook negative, by Fitch which lowered Japan's long-term foreign currency rating to A plus from AA, the local currency rating to A plus from AA minus, and to the country ceiling rating to AA+ from AAA. Yes, Kyle Bass is right. Just a matter of time. Just like with subprime.