Stress Test

A day after Credit Suisse killed the Chinese bank sector saying that the equity of virtually the entire space may be worthless if NPLs double, as they expect they will to about 10%, the Swiss bank proceeds to kill European banks next. Based on the latest farce out of Europe in the form of the third stress test, which is supposed to restore some confidence, it appears that what it will do is simply accelerate the flight out of everything bank related, but certainly out of anything RBS, Deutsche Bank, BNP, SocGen and Barclays related. To wit: "In our estimation of what could be the “new EBA stress test” there would be 66 failures, with RBS, Deutsche Bank, and BNP needing the most capital – at €19bn, €14bn and €14bn respectively. Among the banks with the highest capital shortfalls, SocGen and Barclays would need roughly €13bn with Unicredit and Commerzbank respectively at €12bn and €11bn. In the figure below we present the stated results. We note RBS appears to be the most vulnerable although the company has said that the methodology, especially the calculation of trading income, is especially harsh for them, negatively impacting the results by c.80bps." Oops. Perhaps it is not too late for the EBA to back out of this latest process and say they were only kidding. And it gets even worse: "We present in this section an overview of the analysis which we published in our report ‘The lost decade’ – 15-Sep 2011. One of our conclusions was that the overall European banking sector is facing a €400bn capital shortfall which compares to a current market cap of €541bn." Said otherwise, we can now see why the FT reported yesterday that banks will be forced to go ahead and proceed with asset firesales: the mere thought of European banks raising new cash amounting to 75% of the entire industry's market cap, is beyond ridiculous. So good luck with those sales: just remember - he who sells first, sells best.

The futures are soaring on the latest round of promises from Europe that all shall be well, and after all why would anyone ever doubt anything coming out of Europe. Why, here are the safest Europan banks according to the second Euro stress test completed just 3 short months ago. But this time really is different...

To all who can't wait for the next European bailout FT rumor that ramps the market 30 minutes before close (only to be completely refuted by Europe itself 30 minutes after that but by then nobody will care), which last night turned out to be speculation of a third and certainly not final version of the joke that is the stress test, here is your chance to run and execute your very own interactive European stress test and not have to wait for the conflicted European media to tell you the outcome. That said, we could argue that Reuters, which created this test, may have been a little optimistic, for the simple reason that assuming a scenario that sees 100% writedowns on all PIIGS bonds, and assuming a 2% Tier 1 capital target, sees just 46 banks failing the "test" with a €257 billion capital deficiency. So as cool as it is, Reuters failed the simplest sniff test, as somehow the apocalypse scenario of a complete pan-European wipeout sees just a quarter of a trillion in capital needed, when in reality every bank in Europe would be completely insolvent. Still, it is fun to play around with. For a few minutes...

In line with what Merkel hinted at early and appropriately early for the US close, the FT has just put out a headline with regard to a new set of stress tests (yes those ever-so-trustworthy self-inspected exams) to better understand the impact of a larger than expected Greek haircut. This makes sense given the market trading massively below prior stress test or PSI levels but perhaps the craziest thing is what this is supposed to achieve - remember its not so much Greece per se as the message that a restructuring sends to any and all indebted European nation...cue EUR at week's high levels?

And we thought we were harsh on the EBA's second farce of so-called 'stress tests'. Enter SocGen's Hank Calenti and team: "The test does not reflect current reality, in our view; even if GIIPS sovereign are further stressed within this test, a €22bn shortfall and a relatively healthy average 6.2% core Tier 1 appear. The European banking sector is captive to politics at the moment. A political error can trigger a freeze in money markets, and a liquidity crisis could quickly turn into a solvency crisis. Only improved governance would avoid such a nasty scenario." We wonder what Calenti would say about the US in this case...

The farce continues: Moody's predicted 26 failures, Eurostat gives us 8. EBA says 5 Spanish, 2 Greek, 1 Austrian Bank fail as of April 30; EBA says 7 Spanish, 2 German, 2 Greek, 2 Portuguese barely pass. EBA says 16 of 90 banks had core capital of 5% to 6% and will have to take action to improve capital buffers. EBA says EU banks average CT1 7.7% in adverse Scenario, as of April 30. Looking forward to next year's Stress Test. As expected, risk is broadly on in the EUR, as the "sell the farce" moment approaches. The reason why the bank rollover is so urgently pushed is because two thirds of all Greek debt is held by Greek banks who then pledge it back to the ECB at par. Specifically, 67% of Greek debt is held by Greek banks, 9% by German banks, and 8% by French banks. Then these same Greek banks that "roll" their Greek sovereign debt receive even more cash handouts from the Greek central Bank, which in turn is funded from the ECB, while at the same time providing collateral to the standalone banks. Biggest Ponzi clusterfuck ever.

This is not what Europe needed to hear with just hours until the official Stress Test release: while everyone expects the 26 reject banks already listed by Moody's previously to fail (and their "passing" will only further discredit the stress test), nobody had dared to utter a peep about the true shaky behemoths at the heart of Europe's banking system, chief among which is Deutsche Bank. Until today. SocGen analyst Hank Calenti just told the firm's clients in a note that not only Deutsche Bank, but also Commerzbank and Banco Popolare may be "near fails" under the adverse (we assume one exists) Stress Test scenario. To wit: "Deutsche Bank may fall into the ‘near-fail’ zone under the adverse scenario, due to the full application of CRD III in the stress test results. As noted by our equity colleagues in their publication of 19 May 2011, Will the upcoming EBA bank stress test trigger further capital raising?, Banco Popolare and Commerzbank may also be ‘near fails’." He continues: "We do not believe that the possibility of Deutsche Bank as a ‘near fail’ is currently priced in the CDS markets." Guess what that means: "We recommend buying subordinated CDS protection on Deutsche Bank and we recommend selling subordinated CDS protection on HSBC as a means to hedge against - and possibly capitalise on - the results of the EU bank stress tests." Well, there is still 100 minutes in which to put the trade on.

It is simply a damn shame that it has come to this. What the political powers that be in Europe have done in their grasp to disseminate obvious mis/disinformation is to sow the seeds for history's first Pan-European bank run! It is more than obvious to the entire world that 18% of the EU is Literally Junk, Carried As Risk Free Assets at Par Using 30x+ Leverage. What is the purpose of attempting to conceal facts hidden in plain site?

Several important economic updates due today, among which CPI, Empire Index, Industrial Production and UMichigan consumer confidence. There is a small QE Lite Pomo today closing at 11 am. The Stress Tests are released at noon. Expect more European headlines to whip the EURUSD, and thus ES, around.

The reason we have not been covering this year's iteration of the European stress test closely (and the reason why we will not even mention next year's, if there is a Europe next year) is because it was guaranteed apriori that it would be just as farcical as its original version, and result in glaringly failing institutions in the 91-bank sample tested as "passing." Sure enough, The Independent has just reported that all Irish banks have passed the test "comfortably" - a list that includes such horrors as Bank of Ireland, Allied Irish Banks and Irish Life and Permanent Plc, which even Moody's suggested would have to fail to avoid last year's farce when AIB passed only to have to be bailed out two months later. And with that we can close the book on this year's stress test before it is even released.

A week earlier, we presented Moody's proposed take on which banks are at risk of failing Europe's Stress Test version 2 (which is nothing but another huge waste of time), the results of which are due to be announced later today. The event will likely be market moving although we expect it will be at most 3 months before a bank that passed the test fails in spectacular fashion, laying the groundwork for next year's Stress Test part 3: the most stringent of all, and so forth. Below is RanSquawk's comprehensive take on what to expect from today's announcement. "Last years stress test results indicated that despite a modest capital shortfall of EUR 3.5bln, overall, the EU banking system was well capitalised and that there was no major risk stemming from sovereign exposure. However, policy makers suffered a massive credibility blow after Ireland was forced to seek monetary assistance after Irish banks lost access to capital markets following revelations of massive financing gaps which in turn endangered the country itself. As such, this year’s stress tests, which have been carried out on 90 banks, have been designed to be more stringent in nature and should provide market participants with some degree of relief."

Not like it matters much, because any bank that is found to be insolvent following the second consecutive European stress test will merely receive more taxpayer funds concealed as an SPV or a CDO or some other "complex" instrument, but for what it's worth Moody's has released a list of banks that it believes will either fail the farce, pardon, test outright, or will be "candidates for additional support going forward." As a reminder, the European Banking Authority (EBA) is about to publish the results of an EU-wide stress test involving 91 banks from 21 countries. The purpose of this exercise was to assess banks’ resilience to adverse external circumstances and to identify vulnerable banks, defined by EBA as banks whose Core Tier 1 (CT1) ratio falls below 5% under at least one of the scenarios included in the stress test. Moody's splits the sample into 4 Groups as follows: Group 1 : investment grade banks (at or above D+/Baa3 ) : 54 banks, Group 2 : non investment grade banks from peripheral countries (Ireland, Greece, Portugal, Spain) : 17 banks, Group 3 : non investment grade banks from other countries (Germany, Slovenia, Hungary, Austria, Cyprus) : 9 banks, and Group 4 : unrated: 11 banks. It is Groups 2 and 3 that are the focus of the analysis and which will be benchmarked against the test to determine credibility. As for the fact that all European banks are insolvent if just one is, just as all of Europe is bankrupt if Greece were to go under, that's a completely separate point.

Just when one thinks news can't get any more... what's the right word here... here it comes. Per Reuters, Japan has decided to justify the credibility of its nukes, by, get this, performing stress tests. "Japan's trade minister Banri Kaieda said the government would conduct stress tests on all nuclear power reactors in Japan, Jiji news agency reported on Wednesday. The minister also said he would ensure there were no problems with power supplies, Jiji reported." Where does one start here: that the ECB is not the one conducting the tests - after all who has more expertise with stress tests... Or that the tests come after the biggest nuclear catastrophe since Chernobyl: after all what's the downside - one more Fukushima and Japan would convert into the Prypiat level from Call of Duty... Or that the tests will just accidentally forget to test for such 60 sigma events as earthquakes or tsunamis... Or that the announcement comes a day after the Japanese reconstruction minister quit after a week on the job... Or that the ECB will announce it will accept Japan's nukes as collateral until at least 10 major networks show footage of a mushroom cloud.... Or that ISDA will shortly determine that another nuclear explosion is not really a nuclear explosion and that all CDS against nuclear explosions will be null and void as soon as there is an actual explosion... Or that Tim Geithner is currently in Tokyo explaining there is nothing more credible than a stress tested nuke... Or that Basel VIIIXLC will find a NPP safe if its ratio of gamma to alpha radiation is more than 1 megaroentgen, promptly followed by Jamie Dimon bitching to BOJ president Shirakawa that 1 megaroentgen is too much to demand from Fukushima Street.... And it continues. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Remember when the European Stress Test round 2 was supposed to be "credible" and restore "confidence", this time for realz? Well, as Reuters reports, "A second round of data gathering is needed for the European Union's health check of banks because of "errors" and "unrealistic assumptions", the European Banking Authority said on Wednesday. Arising from the peer review and quality assurance process, the EBA is currently assessing and challenging the first round of results from individual banks," the EBA said. "This will mean that another round of data will be required from banks. Errors will have to be rectified and amendments made where there are inconsistencies or unrealistic assumptions."  Data from the second round won't be received until mid to late June -- the time when the EBA had indicated it would publish the results of the test. What else could one expect from a continent which is run by a bureaucrat who has openly admitted he lies to prevent a crash in the EURUSD.  Plus really: who gives a flying fornication? At this point nobody, and we mean nobody, believes that any bank in Europe is even remotely not bankrupt. It is time for the kleptocrats to actually save the taxpayers some money and just pull the whole farce.

Below is the complete list of banks to take, and then pass, the next farcical round of European stress tests. Just as a reminder of the complete useleness of this exercise, the last time Irish banks appeared on this list, they all passed swimmingly. They were all bailed out months later. We can't wait for Portugal, Spain and Italy to all pass without a single failure. Perhaps European taxpayers should inquire what percentage of the near-record gas price is financing this ridiculous waste of funds, whose only real outcome is building confidence in the utter cluelessness of Euro-leaders.