Sovereign Debt

All you need to read.

Two days ago, when noting that Italy is on collision course with technical insolvency should its bonds remain at current levels for even one more week, we wrote that "As Italy Hints Of Subordination, Did Rome Just Request A "Semi" Bailout?" Of course, yesterday's big market moving rumor was just this - namely that "supposedly" Germany had agreed to provide the underfunded EFSF and non-existent ESM as ECB SMP replacement vehicles, and implicitly to launch the bailout of not only Spain but also Italy. This turned out to be patently untrue, as we expected, despite speculation having been accepted as fact by various UK newspaper and having taken Europe by a storm of false hope, leading peripheral spreads modestly tighter (and Germany naturally wider). Of course, even if Merkel were to allow the ESM/EFSF to effectively replace the ECB secondary market bond buying, which is what this is all about, nothing will be fixed, and in fact it would lead to even more subordination and more bond selling off of positions which are not held by the ECB or ESM. But that is for the market to digest in 4-6 weeks as it appears nobody still understands how the mechanics of the flawed European rescue mechanism works. In the meantime, now that Italy has tipped its hand, it has only one option: to push full bore demanding that someone, anyone out there buy its bonds. Sadly, Germany just said nein. Again.

The rating agencies have lots of problems, but they are not to blame for the financial crisis.  The regulators and investors are the ones who deserve the blame.  The agencies have too much influence, but it’s been given to them by the regulators. Clearly Europe is trying to get rid of rating agencies to be aggressive, but the situation has to change.  For too long, laziness has driven regulatory policy.  Too much emphasis has been put on ratings, and the safety at the high end has been dramatically exaggerated.  One thing virtually every banking crisis has in common, is when a previously “safe” or AAA asset, that carried minimal capital charges deteriorates.  The sub-prime mortgage market and European Sovereign debt are just two of the most recent examples. We need a realistic regulatory framework like the one we discuss in regulatory-capital-size-and-how-you-use-it-both-matter. What the EU is doing is probably even worse than the existing framework, but the idea of diminishing the role of rating agencies is a good one.

Imagine a ship with 100 passengers and crew drifting down a river that eventually cascades over a 1,000 foot waterfall. It's easy to plot the ship's course and the waterfall ahead. You might think 100% of those onboard would agree that something drastic must be done to either reverse course or abandon ship, but before we jump to any conclusion we must first identify what each of the 100 people perceive as serving their self-interest. If life onboard is good for 55 of the 100, they may well rationalize away the waterfall dead ahead. Indeed, they might vote to maintain the current course, thus dooming the 45 others who can hear the thundering cascade ahead but who are powerless to change course in a democracy. This is the "tyranny of the majority" feared by some of the American Founding Fathers. I cannot locate reliable statistics on what percentage of the Greek population is dependent on the State for a paycheck, entitlement, retirement, disability, unemployment, etc., but I suspect the number exceeds the full-time private payroll of that nation. It seems likely that the number of voters in Greece who draw a check or benefit from the State exceeds the number of privately employed voters whose perception of self-interest is radically at odds with continuing State borrowing to fund the Status Quo. If 55% of the voting public is dependent on government spending, then they will vote to continue that spending regardless of its unsustainability.

We have long been concerned at the implicit and explicit subordination of both financial and sovereign bondholders in Europe by the actions of their overlords political elite in pursuit of short-term liquidity fixes to insolvency issues. As talk of the ESM coming to life in the short-term and a 'Redemption Pact' in the intermediate term - which as Goldman describes involves mutualizing a portion of each country's debt (resulting in a partial upgrade of the existing pool of Eurozone sovereign bonds) in a European Redemption Fund (ERF) and, in the process, extending debt maturities (kicking that can) onto the public sector's balance sheet. As with all these mutualization schemes, the ERF ineluctably raises the twin problems of  'moral hazard' and 'subordination', which need to be mitigated. Goldman discusses these two sides of the same coin as it notes subordination is explicit when the ESM intervenes (and also with the ECB's SMP) but a little less obvious in the ERF (though still as painful) which is, we note, perhaps more appealing to keep the masses unaware.

Europe also allows for sovereign debt to be counted as risk-free assets and not marked-to-market. Many nations, Spain is one example, allow for Real Estate loans, mortgages and even commercial loans to be carried at face value as a matter of financial engineering. I think it is a bad joke but the bite has come. This occurs when the loans no longer pay and the revenues are no longer present no matter how you carry them on your books. Then, if the banks try to off-load the properties they have assumed they take losses which are real losses and have to be accounted for on the books or they are securitized and placed as collateral at the ECB which then hides the problem for a while but not indefinitely and the “indefinite” has run out of time which is why any number of banks are calling “Uncle” and why the sovereign nation nations are crying “Uncle” and trying to deflect their problems first back to the ECB and then to find some new scheme so that the country does not fall victim to the Men in Black. All fine, all dandy, but, once again, the central issues are not dealt with and all of the schemes like all of the King’s men and horses cannot put Humpty back together again.

Humpty has fallen off the wall.

The key headline in the overnight session was that China was willing to add a token pittance to the IMF "warchest" even as it itself is struggling to find ways to stimulate its economy. Ignore that China had demands of a complete quota overhaul that would see China nearly on par with the US in voting rights, something the US, which incidentally have exactly $0.00 to the bailout effort, would agree to. The amount that warchest has increased to is now $456 billion. It was $430 billion in April just to keep things in perspective. Hardly the Deus Ex the EURUSD is trying hard to make it appear. In the meantime, a gaping hole, as large as $350 billion has opened in Spain. And that excludes the hundreds of billions that will shortly be needed by Italy. Also out of Greece we get rumors that a government may or may not be formed. As to how long said pro-bailout government will last when over half the country voted against he memorandum, that is a different question entirely. Overall, expect a quiet session with everyone praying loudly that Bernanke will launch a new LSAP program tomorrow. If the Chairman does something far less spectacular like merely expanding Twist or raising the maturity of bonds for sale from 1-3 year to 1-4 year, the market will not be happy. Lastly, the G-20 came, ordered lots of shrimp Ceviche at the best restaurants Las Ventanas and One and Only Palmilla has to offer (charge the taxpayers of course), and conquered nothing. But issued a statement that they hope things will fix themselves all over again. In short: nothing but solid reasons for the futures to be up, up, and away.

From Deutsche Bank, below is a list of key events to watch over the next several weeks – events that could have bearing on how the euro sovereign debt crisis evolves. Of particular note: in the next 6 weeks there are 18 or so days on which Spain, Italy or, yes, Greece will be issuing debt. Have that espresso machine ready.

LCH under investigation by Holder under antitrust statutes. And just who was the ultimate counterparty to the Corzine trade?

Just read.

So the Greek elections come and go and someone takes over or there is no government and new elections are called. In the meantime either Europe hands Greece more money or Greece defaults. It is at the point of default where consequences require central bank action and where even the best made plans may careen out of control because so much information has been hidden and not accounted for so that their consequences were not considered. Dealing with incorrect facts leads to incorrect conclusions and this is my greatest fear at present for all of the financial markets; that the pending default, it will most likely come, will not have been assessed in the manner that was needed because Europe did not allow all of the necessary data to be correctly appreciated.

Remember, both as my research and the past 5 yrs have made clear, counterparty induced banks runs are the most damaging and Spains banks are hit from both RE and Sovereign debt crises. Who wouldn't run from this?

All you can read.

If yesterday's global intervention rumor was a feeler of market response to the next latest and greatest intervention then we may have big problems: the EURUSD is now unchanged, Spanish bond yields are now unchanged, stocks are doing their quad witching thing which means all stops will be taken out before the day is done, but most importantly the euphoria such an announcement would have created before is now completely gone (as per The Diminishing Returns Of Central Planning). What is actually worse, and how the G-20 rumor may have backfired, is that as we pointed out, suddenly there has been a significant shift in expectations: if Syriza does not have an outright win on Sunday then there will be no immediate central bank response, which was predicted to be "if needed". Remember: for this market, when all that matters is the next 10 minutes of trading, this is the only relevant metric. Which means that suddenly from a Risk On event, Syriza's loss has become Risk Off! Of course, the reality is that Sunday will almost certainly be a replay of the last election, where the parliament continues to be empty, and Greece continues to be "Belgium" - recall from May 3, "Previewing The First Of Many Greek Elections." In either case, as others have suggested holding on to positions over the weekend may not be the most prudent thing.

For all the news out of Spain: tumbling sovereign bonds, bailed out banking sector, there really is just one driver of everything: the same one many have been warning about for years: the artificially inflated valuation of the Spanish housing sector. Because the only reason why banks are suddenly finding that their assets are worth much less than previously expected, is because it is now impossible for local banks to keep the real-estate "assets" on their books at marks-to-model (read par) as the bulk of them have long since become impaired, delinquent or outright defaulted.... Which is the worst news for holders of Spanish bonds, now that the entire banking sector is effectively pari passu with the sovereign debt courtesy of priming ESM debt: recall that every incremental dollar, or in this case, euro, of bank capital deficiency will be one more priming bailout euro behind. Effectively there is now an inverse relationship between the Spanish housing sector and the country's sovereign bonds. And for those who are still naively are clutching to Spanish bonds, even as they tumble to all time lows (that's the local law, as opposed to the legal arbitrage trade we have been promoting and which today is making even more money), we have some bad news: that perpetual of optimists, S&P, just said that the Spanish housing sector has, wait for it, another 25% to drop!

This means a comparable drop in store for Spanish bonds and all the related securities in Europe, which courtesy of the bailout are all now daisy-chained.