Saudi Arabia

All you can read.

• J.P. Morgan Knew of Risks: Warning Flags Raised Two Years Ago About CIO (WSJ)
• Cyprus Poised to Seek Bailout within Days (FT)
• U.S. Exempts India, South Korea From Iran Oil Sanctions (Bloomberg) - so those countries who need Iran crude?
• Barroso Pushes EU Banking Union (FT)
• Hollande Set for Poll Victory (FT)
• Fed Says U.S. Wealth Fell 38.8% in 2007-2010 on Housing (Bloomberg)
• Fed Officials Amplify Concerns over Europe (Reuters)
• Fed's Lockhart Says Lower Yields Bolster Case for No New Action (Bloomberg)

European equities in both the futures and the cash markets are making significant gains after a mornings’ trade, with financials, particularly in the periphery, leading the way higher following the weekend reports of the Eurogroup confirming aid for the Spanish banking sector. With data remaining light throughout the day, its likely investors will remain focused on the macro-picture, seeing some relief as the Spanish financials look to be recapitalized. At the open, risk sentiment was clear, with EUR/USD opening in the mid-1.2600’s, and peripheral government bond yield spreads against the German bund significantly tighter. In the past few hours, these positions have unwound somewhat, with EUR/USD breaking comfortably back below 1.2600 and the Spanish 10-yr yield spread moving through unchanged and on a widening trend across the last hour or so against its German counterpart, and the yield failing to break below the 6% mark.

You can’t watch the mainstream media propaganda channels for more than ten minutes without a talking head breathlessly announcing that gas prices have dropped for the 24th day in a row and are now back to $3.55 a gallon. Wall Street oil analysts, who are paid hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to tell us why prices rose or fell after the fact, are paraded on CNBC to proclaim the huge consumer windfall from the drop in price. This is just another episode of a never ending reality show, designed to keep the average American sedated so they’ll continue to spend money they don’t have buying crap they don’t need. The brainless twits that pass for journalists in the corporate mainstream media never give the viewer or reader any historical context to judge the true impact of the price increase or decrease. The government agencies promoting the storyline of those in power extrapolate the current trend and ignore the basic facts of supply, demand, price and peak oil. The EIA is now predicting further drops in prices. Two months ago they predicted steadily rising prices through the summer. What would we do without these government drones guiding us?

We know the U.S. is a big and liquid (though not really very transparent) market. We know that the rest of the world — led by Europe’s myriad issues, and China’s bursting housing bubble — is teetering on the edge of a precipice, and without a miracle will fall (perhaps sooner, rather than later). But we also know that America is inextricably interconnected to this mess. If Europe (or China or both) disintegrates, triggering (another) global default cascade, America will be stung by its European banking exposures, its exposures to global energy markets and global trade flows. Simply, there cannot be financial decoupling, not in this hyper-connected, hyper-leveraged world.

All of this suggests a global crash or proto-crash will be followed by a huge global money printing operation, probably spearheaded by the Fed. Don’t let the Europeans fool anyone, either — Germany will not let the Euro crumble for fear of money printing. When push comes to shove they will print and fiscally consolidate to save their pet project (though perhaps demanding gold as collateral, and perhaps kicking out some delinquents). China will spew trillions of stimulus money into more and deeper malinvestment (why have ten ghost cities when you can have fifty? Good news for aggregate demand!).

All you need to read

In twenty or thrity years, I expect future monetary historians looking back on this period of history to frequently misquote Ernest Hemingway:

How did the dollar die? First it died slowly — then all at once.

The slow death began with the dollar’s birth as a global reserve currency. America was creditor and manufacturer to the world, and the capitalist superpower. People around the globe transacted overwhelmingly in dollars. Above all else, people needed dollars to conduct trade, and they were willing to pay richly for them, and for dollar-denominated debt

All yu need to read.

There’s been a lot of excitement in the past year over the rise of North American oil production and the promise of increased oil production across the whole of the Americas in the years to come. National security experts and other geo-political observers have waxed poetic at the thought of this emerging, hemispheric strength in energy supply. What’s less discussed, however, is the negligible effect this supply swing is having on lowering the price of oil, due to the fact that, combined with OPEC production, aggregate global production remains mostly flat.  But there’s another component to this new belief in the changing global landscape for oil: the dawning awareness that OPEC’s power has finally gone into decline. You can read the celebration of OPEC’s waning in power in practically every publication from Foreign Policy to various political blogs and op-eds.

At the beginning of the week, European equities are seen modestly higher in the major indices with underperformance noted in the peripheral markets. Markets have sought some solace in the G8 summit over the weekend, with leaders agreeing that the optimal scenario would be Greece remaining within the European Monetary Union, and have furtively agreed that further measures may be necessary to return Europe to growth. The disagreements, however, continue to rollover as leaders fail to commit to a specific growth strategy. The tentative risk sentiment is reflected in the fixed income markets, with the German Bund remaining in negative territory for much of the session and 10yr government bond yield spread between the periphery and the German benchmark tighter on the session. Touted bids by domestic accounts helped support BTPs (Italian paper), especially in the short end of the curve, where the spread between the German equivalent is trading tighter by around 3bps. From Tokyo, comments from Fed’s Lockhart have drawn attention, who commented that with the downside risks emerging from the Eurozone, it would be unwise to take QE3 off the table.

The problem with self-reported economic data by various countries, especially those which are supposed to be at the forefront of economic growth, now that the "developed" world is groaning under consolidated debt/GDP ratios which will soon be the 4 digits, is just that - that they are self-reported: a main reason for the development of such governmental offshoot programs as the "Ministry of Truth." Which means that when the investing public hears of an updated Chinese GDP, or Brazilian inflation, or Russian industrial production, most roll their eyes but go with it, as this is the data that the greater fool down the street will also be using for investment decisions. Luckily, there are secondary indicators which present a much more realistic picture of what is truly happening in this fringe growth markets. A few days ago, we presented the "stock" view of the world's two biggest housing bubbles: China and Saudi Arabia, when demonstrating the epic outlier nature of these two countries in the context of cement consumption relative to GDP per capita: a snapshot which showed just how unsustainable the regional construction bubble in these two countries is. But since this is a snapshot in time, and hence "stock", how about the "flow", or the perspective of the economy from a continuous basis. For that we once again go to Goldman, which has conveniently compiled two alternative yet very critical data sets which go to the core of the BRIC economies: Chinese electricity consumption, as well as Brazilian toll road traffic. The picture(s) is (are) not pretty.

European bourses are trading in modest positive territory ahead of the US open with early trade seeing moves higher across equities as Germany printed an expectation-beating 0.5% growth in their flash Q1 GDP. Elsewhere, Eurozone growth surprised to the upside somewhat, coming in flat against the expected contraction of 0.2%. However, as time passed, Greece garnered the focus of markets once more as they face a EUR 435mln foreign-law bond redemption today. Government source comments have somewhat reassured markets that the payment will be made, but participants await official confirmation. Further assisting the moves off the highs was a lower-than expected ZEW survey from Germany, with economists noting that the French and German elections have knocked confidence in the country over the past month.

All you need to read and some more.

I’m in favour of consenting adults being able to do whatever they like with each other, but the fact that the current push for gay marriage is supported by Lloyd Blankfein and Goldman Sachs makes me very suspicious (does he want to sell securitised gay marriage debt?). It just seems like an easy issue for Obama to posture on, while trampling the Constitution into the dirt. When it comes to civil liberties, Obama has always talked a good game, and then acted more authoritarian than Bush. He talked about an end to the abuses of the Bush years and an open and transparent government, yet extended the Fourth-Amendment-shredding Patriot Act, empowered the TSA to produce naked body scans and engage in humiliatingly sexual pat-downs, signed indefinite detention of American citizens into law, claimed and exercised the power to assassinate American citizens without trial, and aggressively prosecuted whistleblowers. Under his watch the U.S. army even produced a document planning for the reeducation of political activists in internment camps. Reeducation camps? In America? And some on the left are still crowing that talking about being in favour of gay marriage makes him “pro civil liberties”? Is this a joke?

European equities continue the downward trend throughout the morning, despite opening slightly higher. Similarly to yesterday the moves are not data-driven, however the ECB have revised their forecasts for Euroarea growth downwards to -0.2% this year from -0.1% and have revised their inflation outlook upwards to 2.3% from 1.9%. The focus remains on Greece as the PASOK leader Venizelos grabs the baton and now attempts to form a stable coalition. Commentary from Greece so far has not been revelatory; Venizelos has reiterated that he wishes to remain within the Eurozone and affirmed that his party has not changed its policy with respect to the bailout. Flight to quality is observed throughout the markets, with the German Bund already testing yesterday’s highs several times and the major cash equities seen lower throughout the continent.