Reuters

Mind versus technicals. 

Gold has followed the now familiar trading pattern of gains in Asia followed by weakness in Europe. While gold has fallen and is weaker in most currencies gold remains higher in euro terms due to euro weakness on the concern of a Greek default. Spot gold bounced back in Asian trading Monday as investors snatched up bargains after a 2% dip the previous session.  The Greek debt debacle is still supporting the price as a deal remains elusive. There continue to be concerns of a “Lehman moment” but markets remain fairly sanguine of a positive outcome despite the continual risk of a Greek default.  Gold remains an essential diversification as central banks keep money loose with record low interest rates and Asian powerhouses China and India still drive demand.  Silver has also fallen this morning. Barclays Capital, who have been quite bearish on silver in recent years, say that they are “expecting prices to rise in the next few sessions, along with gold, pegging silver's next resistance level at $35.70/oz and support near $33/oz.”

The Greek endgame appears to be approaching... or not. After a "marathon" (in Greek terms) session between the Greek coalition cabinet members ended with no definitive agreement, and in fact LAOS president said that more austerity would "contribute to a recession that the country can not afford, and a revolution of misery which will then burn down Europe", while New Democracy's Samaras stated he would "not permit any more austerity", even as Papademos on the other line apparently said that the leaders have agreed on 2012 spending cuts of 1.5% of GDP, the Troika seems to have had enough of being Greek'd around, and demands an answer by 11 am tomorrow. Supposedly, "or else" no more cash. Then again, we have heard all of this before. In fact, the Troika talks are continuing right now as European representatives entered the Greek PM office, following a late night meeting with the IIF. That said, the market is once again quite nonchalant about all of this, with the EURUSD trading down a modest 50 pips to 1.3107 having touched just under 1.3080 earlier. Bottom line: it is likely that nothing will happen tonight.

Following up on our report from this morning that according to former Greek defense minister, German submarine chief procurer, and not to mention Jenny Twenty repeat offender, Evangelos "Xanax" Venizelos, we learn that the god of Deus Ex Machinae is about to abandon Greece, after an announcement by that most magic unicorn-infatuated of bureaucrats, Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker made it clear that Greece is all but finished. As Reuters reports, "The possibility of a sovereign default by Greece cannot be ruled out, Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the Eurogroup of finance ministers from the single currency zone, said in a German magazine on Saturday." Translation: A Greek default on that €14.5 billion bond maturity D-day of March 20, is now inevitable. In an advance copy of comments to news weekly Der Spiegel, Jean-Claude Juncker was quoted as saying Greece could no longer expect solidarity from other euro zone members if it cannot implement reforms it has agreed. "If we were to establish that everything has gone wrong in Greece, there would be no new programme, and that would mean that in March they have to declare bankruptcy," he said. So after years of delaying the inevitable sovereign Lehman weekend, it is finally here. As a reminder, when Lehman filed, everyone, at least those in charge, thought the fall out could be contained. It couldn't, and the Fed had to step in with roughly $30 trillion in backstops, guarantees, and asset purchases. The same will happen this time.

Daily news.

• Greece's Hazardous Road to Restructuring (WSJ)
• Spain Coaxes Banks to Merge to Purge Losses (Bloomberg)
• Brussels Discovers New €15bn Black Hole in Greece's Finances (Guardian)
• UK Recession Predicted to Return (FT)
• Senate OKs insider trading curbs on lawmakers (Reuters)
• China Limits Mortgages for Foreigners (Bloomberg)
• Villagers scramble for fuel in Europe's big chill (Reuters)
• SNB Head Warns of Political Fallout After Crisis (FT)
• Portugal Bond Rout Overstates Greek Likeness (Bloomberg)
• Bernanke Says He Won’t Trade 2% Inflation-Rate Target for More Job Growth (Businessweek)

A few days after Germany proposed the stripping of Greek fiscal authority from the insolvent country, in exchange for providing funding for what German FinMin Schauble called today a "bottomless pit" (and Brüderle chimed in saying that "a default of the Greek government would be bitter but manageable), Sarkozy decided to demonstrate his "muscle" if not so much stature, and openly denied Germany, saying "There can be no question of putting any country under tutelage." Sure enough, it was now Germany's turn to reciprocate the favor. According to Bloomberg, "Finance ministers from the four euro- area countries with AAA ratings -- Germany, Finland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands -- will meet in Berlin tomorrow afternoon, a German Finance Ministry spokesman said." And as is well known, FrAAnce no longer a member of this, however meaningless, club. "The gathering is part of a a series of meetings convened by officials from the highest-rated euro states, the spokesman said, speaking on the customary condition of anonymity. Ministers will discuss current issues without briefing reporters after the meeting." And so the gauntlet of public humiliation is now once again back in Sarkozy's court. The good news: if the de minimis Frenchman does not get his act in order, and overturn the massive lead that his challenger in the April presidential elections has garnered, he will need to endure the humiliation for at most 3 more months. In other news, it appears that when it comes to saving political face, the rating agencies are actually quite useful.

Yesterday we noted how a CBO analyst may have been terminated for her conflicting views on model assumptions, especially when they veered away from the Wall Street-defined norm. Today, we find that the same approach to dissent may have been the reason why MF Global ended up taking inordinate risk, and ultimately blowing up, leaving over a billion in client money transitioning from liquid to gas phase overnight. According to Reuters, "The former chief risk officer at MF Global who raised red flags about the firm's aggressive trading bets told lawmakers that his warnings contributed to the firm's decision to let him go in early 2011. Michael Roseman, who was ousted in January 2011 from the now-bankrupt futures brokerage, said he rang alarm bells about the firm's exposure to European sovereign debt a year before the firm collapsed in late October of 2011." Roseman's statement on whether his skepticism to Corzine's get rich quick scheme was the reason for his termination? ""My views on risk certainly played a factor in that decision," Roseman told a House Financial Services subcommittee, about why he was asked to leave the firm." And so the status quo continues: any time anyone ever dares to disagree with broad misconceptions, whether it is regarding infinitely rising home prices, broad global compression trades, or the ability of European banks to onboard toxic CDOs in perpetuity is always promptly shown the door. The flipside to this complete lack of checks and balances? Why the bailout culture of course, in which finding one company responsible for gross complacency would mean all are guilty. Which is nobody will ever go to prison as it would set the "worst" possible precedent ever: that one is ultimately responsible for their own stupidity. Said otherwise: the best qualification one can hope to add to one's resume: "distinguished yes man with honors."

Gold has risen to 8 week highs despite positive manufacturing data, higher factory activity in Germany, China and the US and the hope that a Greek debt restructuring solution is imminent. Demand for physical in Europe, Asia and internationally remains robust which is supporting gold. Investors will today watch the US weekly jobless claims data for the week ending January 28th. Adding to the very gold supportive interest rate backdrop, Japan's finance and economic ministers are putting pressure on the Bank of Japan to consider easing monetary policy even further. Negative yields on some bonds (such as TIPS) are very gold positive as is moves to let investors buy short term bills with negative yields. Gold is also being supported by central bank buying. Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves rose to $504 billion in the week to Jan. 27 from $499.7 billion a week earlier.

• Merkel Seeks to Reassure China (FT)
• German-IMF Rift Stalls Greece Deal (WSJ)
• Survey of Banks Shows a Sharp Cut in Lending in Europe (NYT)
• Bernanke to testify on economy and deficit (AP)
• House votes to freeze congressional, federal pay (WaPo)

Did the first (of many) European LTRO buy just one month of marginal improvement? According to a compilation of analyst views by Bloomberg, who looked at today's mixed Spanish auction results when the country sold €4.56 billion of three-, four- and five-year government bonds, the easy money may have been made. Because while average yields fell for all three lines at the auctions, maintaining the trend at Spanish debt sales so far this year, it was the internals that showed weakness and could indicate that the marginal benefit from the first LTRO is now ending, even as the real task - the longer-dated bonds 10 years and great - still have to see much if any carry trade benefit at auction. Lastly, anyone hoping for a full carry flush from the European banks has to give up all hope: ECB announced its deposit facility usage rose to €486.4 billion, up €14 billion overnight. And with that we now know what the LTRO half-life is.

All you need to read.

Anyone who went to bed with the EURUSD about to breach 1.30 to the downside may have been surprised this morning to see it trading nearly 150 pips higher. Checking the headlines for news of a Greek deal however would be futile, as one did not occur. Instead what did, were more promises of a deal being "imminent" even as Greece is doing all it can to appease intransigent creditors, offering GDP upside warrants (something that did not work too well for Argentina), with the IMF stating it demands guarantees that this time Greece will follow through with promises. Oddly enough the German demand for fiscal overrule has gotten lost in the noise but is certainly not forgotten and last we checked Merkel has not withdrawn this polite request. Still futures are up, primarily on a smattering of better than expected PMIs, in China and Europe. Alas, the Chinese PMI beat as discussed last night, was more of a cold water shower as the market had been hoping for much more defined promises of PBoC intervention and instead got a lukewarm Goldilocks economy which could last quite a bit longer without RRR-cuts. As for European PMI numbers being better than expected, we only wonder if these now correlate with the prevailing unemployment rate throughout the Eurozone.

• China’s factories in strong start to 2012 (FT)
• Merkel to court Chinese investors (FT)
• States to decide this week on mortgage deal (Reuters)
• Europe is stuck on life support (FT)
• IMF's Thomsen Says Greece Must Step Up Reform (Reuters)
• Tax cuts expiry to slow US growth (FT)
• Government health spending seen hitting $1.8 trillion (Reuters)
• Romney Win in Florida Primary Shows Strength (Bloomberg)
• EU regulator blocks D.Boerse-NYSE merger (Reuters)
• Greek Bondholders said to get GDP Sweetener in Debt Swap Agreement (Bloomberg)
• S. Korea Plans to Buy China Shares (Bloomberg)

Because the last time the administration got involved in the car space the results were so positive (for the unions if not so much for creditors), it appears we may be approaching another episode where central planning will make the decisions in the US auto space. Only this time instead of creditors, the impaired party will be China. Reuters reports: "Midwestern U.S. lawmakers and union groups on Tuesday urged President Barack Obama to restrict imports of auto parts from China that they said benefited from massive illegal subsidies and threatened hundreds of thousands of American jobs. "We need to stand up to the bully on the block," U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, said, referring to Beijing. "The bully on the block continues to take our lunch money and we need to stop that," she said." Odd - China was not complaining when the Obama administration was providing massive subsidies (whether or not illegal remains to be seen  - surely Holder is all over it) to the solar and other "green" industries. In other words, just like Solyndra and Ener1, who are merely the first of many artificially subsidized entities, provided such great if highly transitory results for US employment, let's recreate the experiment at the wholesale level, by implicit subsidies and while also angering America's biggest creditor. Something tells us this proposal has a definite probability of passing. In the meantime, central planning for everyone.