Update: as expected, "IMF Says Spain Discussions Internal, No Talks With Spain"
Wondering what prompted the most recent "month end mark up" ramp in stocks? Look no further than the IMF, which one month after failing miserably to procure a much needed targeted amount of European bailout funds as part of Lagarde's whirlwind panhandling tour, hopes that markets are truly made up of idiots who have no idea how to use google and look up events that happened 4 weeks ago. So here it is: the Spanish bail out courtesy of the IMF. Well, not really. Because according to other headlines the IMF claims no plans are being drafted for a bailout. Why? Simple - if the IMF admits it is even considering a bailout, it will launch a bank run that will make the Bankia one seem like child's play, as the cat will truly be out of the bag. So instead it has no choice, but to wink wink at markets telling them even though it has been locked out from additional funding by the US, UK, Canada and even China, it still has access to funding from... Spain.
From the WSJ:
The European department of the International Monetary Fund has started initial discussions on a contingency plan for a rescue loan to Spain in case the country fails to find the funds needed to bail out its third-largest bank by assets, Bankia, people involved in the handling of the Spanish crisis said.
Both the European Union and IMF want to avoid having to bail out Spain at all costs, the people said, but early planning is under way given that the country is struggling to raise a €10 billion ($12.4 billion) shortfall in funds to bail out Bankia.
The stakes are extremely high because a three-year rescue loan for Spain could be as much as €300 billion, one person said, although any bailout could involve smaller, shorter-term loans.
That's ok IMF: let's play your game. You are bailing out Spain's banks? Fine. Here, as posted yesterday [10], is the list of banks that now officially, per Goldman, need a bailout:
Spain: Bankia Down, Who Is Next?
Bankia is done: at this point the only questions left are i) what will be the final bailout cost ii) who will pay for these costs, and iii) whether the bank has enough beach towels [11]to satisfy the onslaught of manic Spaniards desperate to hand over their €300 euros to the insolvent bank in exchange for some Spiderman-embossed linen. Oh, there is one more question: who is next.
Now, as we showed earlier today, in the aggregate the answer is simple: everyone. Because as JPM said [12]"if a Spanish EU/IMF bailout package covered the government’s gross funding needs through the end of 2014, and included €75bn for bank recapitalisation, then it would amount to around €350bn." At roughly a third of its GDP, this is, needless to say, more money than Spain can procure. But, in a very Stalinesque sense, where everyone is merely a statistic, that is essentially the same as saying no one. It is also certainly not helpful to any Spanish readers who may be worried about their deposits (and investments) which in a world of total disinformation, will first be lost before the government advises caution and safety. So instead we go to Goldman Sachs which has conveniently constructed the following analysis, which replicated the loss provision calculation of Bankia, and applies it to the other listed banks. The result: in addition to the €19 billion in bail out costs for Bankia, Spain will need to spend at least another €25 in bailout funding for six other listed banks which include CaixaBank SA, Banco Santander, Banco Popular Espanol, BBVA, Banco Espanol de Credito SA, Bankinter SA.
So now we are not dealing with mere "statistics."
The capital need breakdown is as follows: "Pro-forma capital gap assuming 9.5% CT1 hurdle rate, loss estimates comparable
to those outlined by BKIA and front-loaded in 1H12"
[13]
And in the grand scheme of things:
[14]