Just when you thought you'd seen the worst, its gets worsterer. While US equities are oscillating in a broad range trying to ignore the Eurocalypse, European asset markets had one of the worst days of the year today across the board. Spanish and Italian bond spreads are 40bps wider this week alone (adding 15-20bps today) and Portugal (sorry Stevie) are 52bps wider this week as our prediction that a compressed basis would remove any technical support for the bonds has come true. With sovereigns deteriorating rapidly, and given the forced contagion of the LTRO program, it is no surprise that financials are imploding. Senior and Subordinated credit spreads are underperforming dramatically with Subs +90bps and Seniors +55bps in May, while high-yield credit is 100bps wider and broad European equities (Bloomberg's BE500 index) are tracking them lower now practically unchanged for the year (and back below its 200DMA). Of course, while Greek bank runs are accelerating (and are likely beginning in Spain) and ASE is at all-time lows, the hope remains that if things get ugly enough, the ECB will save the day and Draghi will magically re-appear. The hope of another LTRO is meaningless, though likely inevitable, as it will only exacerbate the stigma that we have been so accurate on. With collateral in short-supply, especially in Spain, any further encumbrance will crush LTRO-facing bank debt and equity-holders via subordination and so it may make sense to be even more long the 'stigma' divergence between LTRO and non-LTRO.
LTRO Stigma explodes to year's highs leaving the banks that took LTRO loans at 5 month wides and near record crisis wides on average (as non-LTRO banks remain much more sane)...
[6]
It is little wonder that the LTRO banks are down, so tightly coupled with their sovereigns, since govvies are getting crushed...
[7]
but the broadest European equity index (BE500) is now unchanged for the year and has broken below its 200DMA for the first time since January...
[8]
Charts: Bloomberg