Sovereigns

"With EUR now at 1.2773 versus 1.2816 just before the announcement there is probably more downside till the kneejerk reaction is out of the way. But on the whole it seems likely that this more reflects an already existing reality than new information for the market so the downside should be relatively limited, and nothing that could not be cured by an aggressive Fed indication on balance sheet expansion."

After hours shots fired, with Moody's hitting the long overdue one notch gong on France:

• MOODY'S DOWNGRADES FRANCE'S GOVT BOND RATING TO Aa1 FROM Aaa
  
• FRANCE MAINTAINS NEGATIVE OUTLOOK BY MOODY'S

Euro tumbling. In other news, UK: AAA/Aaa; France: AA+/Aa1... Let the flame wars begin

After 40 years of boozing on easy money and feasting on fantastical asset price inflations, the global monetary system is approaching catharsis, its arteries clogged and instant cardiac arrest a persistent threat. ‘Muddling through’ is the name of the game today but in the end authorities will have two choices: stop printing money and allow the market to cleanse the system of its dislocations. This would involve defaults (including those of sovereigns) and some pretty nasty asset price corrections. Or, keep printing money and risk complete currency collapse. We think they should go for option one but we fear they will go for option two. In this environment, how can people protect themselves and their property? Our three favourite assets are, in no particular order, gold, gold and gold. After that, there may be silver. We are, in our assessment, in the endgame of this, mankind’s latest and so far most ambitious, experiment with unconstrained fiat money. The present crisis is a paper money crisis. Whenever paper money dies, eternal money – gold and silver – stage a comeback. Remember, paper money is always a political tool, gold is market money and apolitical.

Together, the market and democracy are what we like to call "the system." The system has driven and enticed bankers and politicians to get the world into trouble. One of the side effects of the crisis is that all ideological shells have been incinerated. Truths about the rationality of markets and the symbiosis of market and democracy have gone up in flames. Is it possible that we are not experiencing a crisis, but rather a transformation of our economic system that feels like an unending crisis, and that waiting for it to end is hopeless? Is it possible that we are waiting for the world to conform to our worldview once again, but that it would be smarter to adjust our worldview to conform to the world? At first glance the world is stuck in a debt crisis; but, in fact, it is in the midst of a massive transformation process, a deep-seated change to our critical and debt-ridden system, which is suited to making us poor and destroying our prosperity, social security and democracy, and in the midst of an upheaval taking place behind the backs of those in charge. A great bet is underway, a poker game with stakes in the trillions, between those who are buying time with central bank money and believe that they can continue as before, and the others, who are afraid of the biggest credit bubble in history and are searching for ways out of capitalism based on borrowed money.

Earlier today, the BIS, which has been doing everything in its power today to defend the 1.27 support in the EURUSD since the market open this morning, released its H1 OTC derivatives presentation update. There was little of material note: total OTC derivatives were virtually unchanged at $639 trillion gross, representing $25 trillion in net outstanding (market value), and $3.7 trillion in gross credit exposure. Here the PhD theorists will say gross is irrelevant because Finance 101 said so, while the market practitioners will point to Lehman, counterparty risk, and less than infinite collateral to fund sudden implosions of weakest links in counterparty chains, and say that it is gross (which until a recent revision of BIS data had been documented at over $1 quadrillion) that mattered, gross which matters, and gross which will always matter until finally everything inevitably collapses in a house of missing deliverable cards. Because not even the most generous sovereigns and central banks can halt the Tsunami once there is a failure of a major OTC Interest Rate swap counterparty. And whereas Basel III had some hopes it would be able to bring down the total notional in derivative notionals slowly over the next few years with a gradual deleveraging across all financial firms, the bankers fought, and the bankers won, because the last thing the current batch of TBTFs can afford it admit there is any hope they can ever slim down. The will... but never voluntarily.

"Pinball Wizard" (Bunds 1,38% -5; Spain 5,68% +4; Stoxx 2486 -1,8%; EUR 1,276)

Europe is, supposedly, fixed: between the upcoming one year anniversary of the 3 year LTRO, which has flooded the continent in excess €1 trillion of liquidity, and the OMP, which has supposedly backstopped sovereigns in perpetuity (even though the market has fully frontrun what now appears to be a massively unpopular political decision, as Spain has been demonstrating for the past 2 months), European bank liquidity needs are supposed to be fully taken care of. Yet something went bump on Halloween. As the ECB reports, borrowing on the prohibitive, and largely "last resort" ECB "Marginal Lending Facility" (whose rate is an usurious 1.50%), one or more banks saw their need for EUR explode in the last day of the month, sending overall usage on this credit line to €7.8 billion, the most since mid-March, and a surge of over €7 billion overnight. What spooked European banks so much (whose liquidity needs are not month or quarter-end window dressing driven) that the ECB had to step in on top of everything else it has already done? We will surely find out soon.

European stocks popped at the open and then generally trod water for the rest of the day. The initial liquid-driven surge had no follow through and in fact European sovereigns bled wider most of the day - with Greek govvies now down almost 10% (in price) in the last week.  Credit markets re-racked along with stocks - with XOver outperforming and Main (investment grade) underperforming (along with financials). The story of the day was yet another 100pip-or-so rampapalooza in EURUSD - the 3rd in 5 days - as we noted earlier, when everything else is shut, EUR is simplest lever to drive markets higher given the correlations (and no Treasury police to keep things under control). Despite today's push, Spain's IBEX remains -0.5% on the week (as its peers are all up around 0.5%) and Italy and Spain bond spreads are up around 15bps on the week. So with EUR up around 0.22% vs USD on the week and fulcrum securities from Spain down, take your pick on where risk is being flushed.

Fed 'credibility' has boosted stocks from the start of its actions; the ECB, however, only since OMT. But as SocGen's cross-asset class research group notes, poor performance of the S&P 500 since QE3 announcement (-1.6%) may well be an initial sign of a loss of impact from the Fed’s policy, and US equity volatility is rising - catching up to Europe's.

S&P recently acted to markedly downgrade Spain, and Moody’s has ended its recent ratings review, leaving Spain at Baa3; and while ratings could remain largely stable in the short-term (supported by OMT's promise and the possible delay of GRExit), there are a few exceptions such as France and and the UK that Citi's Rates group expect to see downgrades on in the short-term. The following table provides the full breakdown of Moody's and S&P's ratings for the advanced economies along with Citi's model views - which imply weak outlooks for most of Europe in the medium-term as Greek reality hits home.

Thanks to some early ebulience in the US session, European stocks and bonds managed to crawl back to unchanged on the day capping the worst week in a month for most risk assets amid ever-decreasing macro data. Spanish and Italian equities are down 4 to 4.5% over the last 6 days and 2Y Spanish bonds had their worst week in 6 weeks (though remain relatively range-bound). 10Y Spanish spreads ended back above 400bps (up 28bps on the week) as Portugal saw the most weakness - wider by almost 60bps. EURUSD round-tripped to unch today amid Schaeuble's comments this morning - but ended the week down around 80 pips or 0.7%. The post-Draghi up-trend is over - range-bound is no the norm, but it seems Europe has reconnected with US-beta...

Europe is closing on a decidedly negative tone led by weakness in Spain specifically. EURUSD in 80 pips off its earlier highs (under 1.2950) as Spain's 10Y spreads rises once again (now up 33bps in thelast few days) and its stock index (IBEX) is down 4.25% since last Thursday (as is Italy's FTSEMIB). The front-end of the Spanish yield curve is also leaking higher in yield rather quickly as fast money exits. Credit markets tracked stocks but were less volatile on the day. Europe's VIX dropped modestly which combined with credit and equity weakness suggests perhaps hedges being lifted and real-money unwinds. The Draghi-rally trend is now over - as S&P futures test the Dream lows (with European stocks still outperforming US post-Draghi).

There were moments yesterday when it felt we stood at the edge of the abyss preparing to take a giant leap forwards. Apparently Draghi did a great job meeting German legislators yesterday; Greece is being touted as a crisis averted - if you believe all the guff; and more of the same from Spain. However, it does feel the crisis is developing in some new directions. Until recently it’s been about sovereigns and banks – but now we’re seeing corporates struggle. There is a general consensus France had no choice but the bailout Peugeot’s finance arm PSA. So why are the problems of the French car industry so important for the Euro? If French industrial policy is founded on preserving the country’s manufacturing base is that really something German/Finish/Dutch taxpayers could have been bailing out through a single European banking union. Perhaps not! These are national choices that illustrate sovereign self interest not European hegemony. We simply ask the question how is Europe supposed to move towards closer Union when national interest remains paramount?

With all the hope slooshing around the world, it is likely no surprise that some risk-reward connections have 'broken' or become misaligned. In an effort to simplify the view of asset class risk and return, we present Morgan Stanley's Yield vs Volatility chart. It seems relatively plain to see that the Russell 2000 (and European stocks SX5E) are dramatically over-priced (under-'yielded') relative to their risk, while Asian and European High Yield credit (and to a lesser extent Asian and European Investment Grade Credit) are trading notably cheap relative to their volatility. So for all those performance chasing asset-allocators who remain fundamental bulls, buying European High Yield credit seems the best bang for your buck - instead of piling into more Russell 2000 beta...interestingly the S&P 500 appears 'fair' compared to risky sovereigns, global stocks, and global credits from a risk-reward perspective.

Fear the truth, it shall set fundamental market forces free!