Perhaps one of the best advance indicators of the market respite that took place in August was the slowdown in Bundesbank TARGET2 claims, which until then had been rising at an exponential pace, only to see its first monthly sequential decline since 2011, dropping €1.4 billion. Now that August is gone, and the vacation that brought Europe to a merciful halt is over, the time to resume sucking Germany dry in order to fund current account (and other) deficits is back, and sure enough the just reported Bundesbank August [5]update of TARGET2 claims shows that the increase is back. At a record €751.4 billion (or just shy of $1 trillion at today's exchange rate), Germany funded the periphery, mostly Spain with record €415Bn in liabilities, Italy with a record €280Bn, Greece at €105Bn, via the transfer of public risk to private sector benefit (sunk "public" Buba costs are a concurrent benefit to the German export sector) to the tune of over €1 billion each work day, with a total monthly increase of €24 billion in August. Look for this number to resume its astronomic rise as the periphery realizes its inventories needs restocking and that it needs to import German stuff using Bundesbank liabilities that will never be satisfied.
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