Investment Grade

Witness in real time the fundamental collapse of a REIT lauded as a buy by the Sell Side of Wall Street. Come on, admit it! Blogs/alternative media are a better source of analysis than the bank that you just parked your life savings at!!!

The global economy is an entangled affair, make no mistake in your calculation here, and the numbers from around the globe are telling and will affect both the U.S. bond and equity markets. Much of the financing for the Emerging Markets was provided by the European banks and as they pull back and reorganize based not just on Basel III but based upon problems of the sovereign where they are domiciled the situation exacerbates. Two of the world’s financial axises are slowing and troubled and to not think that this will not affect America will lead you to conclusions causing you to play the Great Game badly. What did the meeting of the European Finance Ministers accomplish; not much. They nodded to the Spanish banks and agreed to inject $30 billion by the way of the sovereign, increasing the debt of Spain, with veiled promises of a new ESM fund which would lend money directly to the banks at some point in the future and this point is highly subjective depending upon to whom you listen. The Spanish claim within days or weeks while the Germans indicate it may be sometime next year. There is now a “maybe-maybe” timeline in Europe for almost anything as the weaker nations prod the stronger nations for more money.

Financial magazine Euromoney, which in addition to being a subscription-based publication appears to also rely on bank advertising, has just held its 2012 Awards for Excellence dinner event. And in the "you can't make this up" category we have Barclays winning the Best Global Debt House, Best Investment Bank, And Best Global Flow House Of The Year Awards. Specifically we learn that "the bank’s commitment to the US is exemplified by the addition of another global senior manager to the country – Tom Kalaris is now going to be splitting his time between New York and London as executive chairman of the Americas as well as overseeing wealth management. Jerry del Missier, who has overseen the corporate and investment bank through its Lehman integration and was recently appointed COO of the Barclays group, says the bank is well positioned. "We came out of the crisis in a stronger strategic position and that has allowed us to continue to win market share and build our franchise. Keep in mind that the US is the largest investment banking, wealth management, credit card and investment management market in the world, and in terms of fee share will remain the most dynamic economy in the world for many years. As a strong global, universal bank operating in a competitive environment that is undergoing significant retrenchment, we like our position." That said, with the Chairman, CEO and COO all now fired, just who was it who accepted the various award: the firm's LIBOR setting team? And if so, were they drinking Bollinger at the dinner?

There is a saying that it is better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. Today, the San Fran Fed's John Williams, and by proxy the Federal Reserve in general, spoke out, and once again removed all doubt that they have no idea how modern money and inflation interact. In a speech titled, appropriately enough, "Monetary Policy, Money, and Inflation", essentially made the case that this time is different and that no matter how much printing the Fed engages in, there will be no inflation. To wit: "In a world where the Fed pays interest on bank reserves, traditional theories that tell of a mechanical link between reserves, money supply, and, ultimately, inflation are no longer valid. Over the past four years, the Federal Reserve has more than tripled the monetary base, a key determinant of money supply. Some commentators have sounded an alarm that this massive expansion of the monetary base will inexorably lead to high inflation, à la Friedman.Despite these dire predictions, inflation in the United States has been the dog that didn’t bark." He then proceeds to add some pretty (if completely irrelevant) charts of the money multipliers which as we all know have plummeted and concludes by saying "Recent developments make a compelling case that traditional textbook views of the connections between monetary policy, money, and inflation are outdated and need to be revised." And actually, he is correct: the way most people approach monetary policy is 100% wrong. The problem is that the Fed is the biggest culprit, and while others merely conceive of gibberish in the form of three letter economic theories, which usually has the words Modern, or Revised (and why note Super or Turbo), to make them sound more credible, they ultimately harm nobody. The Fed's power to impair, however, is endless, and as such it bears analyzing just how and why the Fed is absolutely wrong.

Just as we noted yesterday, the ludicrous late-day ramp in European equity markets relative to the absolute nonchalance of credit (corporate, financial, and sovereign) markets, has now reverted totally as broadly speaking Europe ends the day in the red. Spain and Italy stock indices bounced a modest 0.5% on the day as the UK's FTSE and Germany's DAX suffered the most (down 1-1.5%) on Banking Lie-Bor drama and unemployment respectively. Corporate credit leaked a little wider on the day with the investment grade credits underperforming (dragged by weakness in financials). Financials were notably weak with Subordinated credit significantly underperforming Senior credit (bail-in anyone?). Sovereigns were weak overall (not just Spain, Italy, and Portugal this time) as Spain's 2s10s has now flattened to year's lows. Swiss 2Y rates dropped further - to record closing lows at -35.2bps (after being -39bps at their best/worst of the day - suggesting all is not well, and Bunds largely tracked Treasuries as the SCOTUS decision came on and pushed derisking across assets. EURUSD tested towards 1.2400 early on but is holding -35pips or so for now at 1.2430.

Proposals from BIS, OCC and FDIC Would Reclassify Gold as a Tier 1 Asset

We have discussed the use of correlation (cross-asset-class and intra-asset-class) a number of times in the last few years, most recently here, as a better way to track 'fear' or greed than the traditional (and much misunderstood) VIX. As Nic Colas writes this evening, a review of asset price correlations shows that the convergence typical of 'risk-off' periods in the market is solidly underway. While we prefer to monitor the 'finer' average pairwise realized correlations for the S&P 100 - which have been rising significantly recently, Nic points out that the more coarse S&P 500 industry correlations relative to the index as a whole are up to 88% from a low of 75% back in February. In terms of assessing market health, a decline in correlation is a positive for markets since it shows investors are focused on individual sector and stock fundamentals instead of a macro “Do or die” concerns.  By that measure, we’re moving in the wrong direction, and not just because of recent decline in risk assets.  Moreover, other asset classes such as U.S. High Yield corporate bonds, foreign stocks (both emerging market and develop economies), and even some currencies are increasingly moving in lock step.  Lastly, we would highlight that average sector correlations have done a better job in 2012 of warning investors about upcoming turbulence than the closely-watched CBOE VIX Index.  Those investors looking for reliable “Buy at a bottom” indicators should add these metrics to their investment toolbox as a better 'mousetrap' than the now ubiquitous VIX.

Equity, credit, and sovereigns all ugly. Merkel's unequivocal comment on her nation's unwillingness to 'share' burdens and slap the proverbial cheek of Monsieur Hollande, Italy's banking union looking for more 'aid', Spain actually asking for their bailout, Greece 'avoiding' reality, and Cyprus pulling the 'China rescue plan' last ditch retort to market angst; but apart from that, things are dismal in Europe. Italy down over 4% and Spain almost as bad on the day as every major equity index is well into the red. Italian banks monkey-hammered down 6/7.5% and halted a number of times. Investment grade credit outperformed (though was notably wider) as financials (subs and seniors), XOver, and stocks are plummeted to 11-day lows. After breaking below the pre-Spanish bailout levels on Friday, Spain and Italy 10Y are now 20-40bps wider with Italy and Spain 5Y CDS notably wider and well over 500bps. Notably the short-end of the Italian and Spanish curves underperformed significantly (curves flattened): 2Y BTPs +57bps vs 10Y +21bps; 2Y SPG +37bps vs 10Y +17bps. Europe's VIX snapped back above 27% (and we note that our EU-US Vol compression trade is moving well in our favor). EURUSD has been smacked lower by over 80pips ending under 1.25 once again.

Nearly two weeks ago we penned "These Three Spanish Banks Will Be Downgraded Tomorrow" which showed which banks had a rating higher than the sovereign following Moody's long overdue Spanish downgrade, and thus were about to be downgraded by many notches. Today, after a ridiculously long delay whose only purpose was to buy time, Moody's is about to junk virtually the entire Spanish banking sector, as was widely expected.The downgrade is expected to happen within hours.

Back on May 10, when JPMorgan announced its massive CIO trading loss (which may or may not have been unwound courtesy of a risk offboarding to another hedge fund which may or may not be backstopped by the Fed as the massive IG9 position was not novated but merely transferred) JPM also disclosed something else which may have bigger implications for the broader, and just downgraded, banking sector. As a reminder, in the 10-Q filing, the bank reported a VaR of $170 million for the three months ending March 31, 2012. This compared to a tiny $88 million for the previous year. According to the company, “the increase in average VaR was primarily driven by an increase in CIO VaR and a decrease in diversification benefit across the Firm.” What JPM really meant is that after being exposed in the media for having a monster derivative-based prop bet on its books, it had no choice, as it was no longer possible to use manipulated and meaningless risk "models" according to which the $2 billion loss, roughly 23 sigma based on the old VaR number, was impossible (ignoring that VaR is an absolutely meaningless and irrelevant statistical contraption). Turns out it is very much possible. Which brings us to the latest quarterly Office of the Comptroller of the Currency report, and particularly the chart on page 7. More than anything it shows what happens when a big bank is caught red-handed lying about its risk exposure. We urge readers to spot the odd one out.

Why hasn't anyone realized that JPM actually had negative revenue growth despite muppet maven analyst proclamations of the contrary?

Believing 'people familiar with the matter', extending rumors of large trades, and extrapolating DTCC (the CDS data repository) data has apparently caused a number of mainstream media reporters to believe that the JPMorgan 'Whale Trade' has been 60-75% unwound. The assertion appears to be based on two things: 1) a rumor from a Credit Suisse desk of heavy volumes in the last few days; and 2) DTCC data showing open trades falling. While we restate that no-one knows what the trade was, we offer three retorts to these assertions: 1) there is nothing in DTCC data that suggests any recent change in trend (or dramatic shift in net or gross notionals); 2) the aggregate nature of DTCC data offers little insight into the actual changes (whether they be unwinds or opposing positions); and 3) today is single-name CDS and index credit option expiration which means the few days leading up to this will ALWAYS have heavy volume - especially at the end of a very dramatic quarter such as the one we have just witnessed. The bottom-line is that the 'price' changes in IG9, HY9, and IG18 do not suggest any 'recent' change in the unwind scale and while we would expect that JPM has been unwinding (at least the hedge of the hedge), no-one knows how much and given the market's awareness of the position, IG9 would dramatically underperform its whale-driven rally move (which it has not yet). Anything else is speculation - though it is clear that IG9 tranche notionals suggest the original tail-risk position remains on the books.

S&P 500 e-mini futures managed to get back above their 50DMA, fill the gap back to the 5/4 ugly-NFP print levels, and retrace 61.8% of the recent swing high-to-low ahead of tomorrow's hope-laden FOMC-print-fest. As we noted here, credit markets do not agree that QE is coming anytime soon and today's Gold deterioration suggests expectations for anything more than a twist extension are overblown (which we suspect would be a huge disappointment to a market only 4% off its highs and a VIX with a 17 handle earlier in the day. As the afternoon wore on and the incredible reporting falsehoods were denied, equity markets (and EUR) reverted lower (led by financials) pulling back to VWAP (and VIX pushed back rapidly to 18.5 - ending the day higher in vol (despite a 10pt jump in the S&P). Low volume and falling average trade size suggests this was far from the start of a new trend in stocks and the push higher (and steeper) in TSY yields to Monday's opening highs seems more like QE hope fading than growth hope. Silver just underperformed Gold on the day (both leaking lower) as Oil and Copper rallied (leaving WTI in the green for the week) as USD weakened and round-tripped to Monday's opening lows (with AUD now 1.3% stronger on the week). Investment grade credit remains a considerable underperformer relative to the high beta equity and high yield markets but 'agrees' with Gold and Treasuries in its view of no LSAP tomorrow- and the surge in implied correlation into the close suggests macro overlays as opposed to a market with any conviction.

All you can read.

Spanish sovereign bonds ended the week at all-time record wide spreads to bunds, pushing back up near 7% yields today before falling back into the close, and +55bps on the week. This is a 50bps underperformance of Italian sovereigns on the week, while Spanish stocks notably outperformed Italian stocks on the week (though faded notably today having been unable to regain Monday's opening highs). German Bunds also deteriorated notably relative to Treasuries on the week (the biggest weekly jump in Bunds-Treasuries in almost 7 months) and while equity and credit markets reconverged into the weekend - with position-squaring evident - as the shifts in Swiss rates suggest all is not well under the surface as repatriation flows drove EURUSD up over 115pips on the week to near its Sunday-night opening highs (amid a 200 pip range). Finally for all the ebullient US investors, we note that Europe's VIX was bid notably higher today (to over 33%) to near a 3 week high relative to US VIX as hedges into the weekend were very prevalent.