Carry Trade

If you are looking to fill 20 minutes on this low volume pre-holiday 'trading' day with some sanity (away from the low correlation markets), look no further than the following interview between CMC Market's Michael Hewson and Roubini Global Economics' Megan Greene. From the evolution of the European sovereign debt crisis to a financial and political firestorm, the growing divergence between Merkel's demands and the rest of Europe's needs, to the band-aid plugs to practically unsolvable fiscal differences, she does an excellent job summarizing not just the problems, but the solutions' efficacy so far, and the troublesome future ahead. Furthermore, her perspective on the 3Y LTRO 'carry-trade' that it exacerbates the crisis and is a terrifying prospect fits with our view that while the prospect of this silver bullet is timely for year-end thin markets, the reality is far different (as we see in ITA and ESP bonds today). She notes that this effort will just strengthen the negative feedback loop between sovereign and banking systems. Expecting multiple Euro exits, she sees more can-kicking with jolts from mini-crisis to mini-crisis as the political will is just not there for Germany - ever. Monetary union is really a political choice, and with as many countries dropping out as she expects (as austerity fatigue increases), there will simply not be the political will to keep the Euro project going any longer.

Following yesterday's €489 billion LTRO there are few things we know with certainty, primary among them is that the net proceeds from the 3 year refi operation are really €210 billion, due to the rolling of various other duration facilities which are already in use into the LTRO as discussed yesterday. What we do not know, is whether the net proceeds of €210 billion have been used by banks to purchase sovereign debt or as Peter Tchir suggested, are actually used in a reflexive ponzi whereby banks use the explicit ECB guarantee to buy their own debt. Perhaps the best evidence that the LTRO was an epic failure when it comes to subsidizing the peripheral bond market is the fact that hours after its completion the ECB was forced to jump into the secondary market and buy up billions in Italian and Spanish bonds: an action that was supposed to be conducted by the banks themselves. But let's assume that the entire €210 billion form the first LTRO (and there certainly will be more) is used to fund carry trades: what then? Well, luckily UBS has performed a mathematical analysis which looks at how much paper profit banks can extract from said trade and juxtaposes it with the most recent €115 billion capital shortfall calculated by the EBA in its most recent stress test (not to be confused with the second to last stress test which saw Dexia pass with the highest marks possible). The result: woefully insufficient . In other words, anyone who believes that the LTRO will be used by banks as a source of carry "profits" is massively deluded. If anything banks will find creative loophole to prop up their balance sheets and issue more of their own debt instead of chasing pennies in front of the bond vigilante rollercoaster by loading up on more sovereigns. Because the last thing Italian banks can afford is another late Novemeber blow out in yields which brought the system to within hours of imminent collapse.

Congratulations Ben: you succeeded in getting the 30s to a near record low level (and by far the lowest for 2011) , which also means that the entire curve will soon be flat as a pancake, killing Net Interest Margin, aka curve carry for the banks, momentarily. Good bye Bank of America. Have fun riding that bear market rally with no financial leadership for the next several years.

Zero Hedge was the first to observe the curious phenomenon of the collapse in the General Collateral-IOER carry trade following the implementation of the FDIC assessment rate back in early April (discussed in depth here) which continues to force repo rates far below where they would ordinarily be (and is generating an undue amount of stress on short end rates, impacting money markets, repo, and other shadow economy components, and also substantially complicating an unwind by the Fed if and when one occurs). But that's not all. As Barclays' Joseph Abate points out, another consequence, which is rapidly becoming appreciate by repo market players, is that up to a third of all Treasury repo volume now trades at sub zero rates, making life for money markets a living hell, which perhaps that was the goal all along... And while the fails rates for the time being has not picked up substantially (liquidity is still ample although if the Fed continues to pummel the market with its foolhardy sale of Maiden Lane II securities this may change, more on this later), it does present a complication for the Fed, should Bernanke decided to halt securities reinvestment. Granted it appears this will not be a major worry at a time when some believe QE3 is a given, and others believe QE2 Lite will be precisely the ineffectual, yet critical reinvestment of maturity securities.

By now everybody knows that only a last ditch intervention by the G7 prevented the financial system from imploding three weeks ago, when the Yen carry trades blew up in the face of all those who had been short yen, long high yielding currencies. The result would have been a pervasive trading desk annihilation, possibly on par with that experienced after the Lehman collapse had the world's central banks not stepped in to sell Yen in droves. Yet what fewer know is that when it comes to funding cheap carry-type trades, the FX carry trade is merely one. A possibly far bigger one has been the one established courtesy of the Fed's generous Interest on Overnight Reserves (IOER) rate which being far higher than General Collateral (GC) Repo, presents banks with Fed deposit access, what was a sure way to earn guaranteed money on an interest rate arbitrage spread. For nearly two years banks collected the proverbial pennies in front of the rollercoaster... until last Friday, when the FDIC decided to spoil the party. What happened as a result of the FDIC's decision to establish an assessment rate which spoiled the arb, was a blow out for most institutions playing the IOER-GC carry trade leading to a major disruption in this funding market, possibly far more serious than the FX carry trade unwind, and a plunge in overnight GC repo rates on Monday (see chart) by over 75%! Does this mean banks have lost one key carry funding source? So it would appear. And it only means that the FX carry trade will be that much more a critical source of "risk-free" income for banks... At least until the next major earthquake above the ring of fire. In the meantime, as the Fed scrambles to restore normality to the repo market, will the Fed be forced to do Reverse Repos, which while fixing the carry trade, will withdraw far more liquidity form the market. Which as we all know is grounds for immediate incarceration in a Centrally Planned kleptocracy such as the USSA.

While everyone is staring in disbelief at the USDJPY, the real carry action is in the high yielding-YEN pairs, i.e., the development, high growing countries. And it's a massacre: ZARJPY, NZDJPY, AUDJPY - all are plunging far more than the USD. This is nothing short of a complete carry trade unwind. The implications: the cheapest recurring source of funding for risk assets - the Yen carry trade, is over. Those who managed to sell early on are lucky. The rest will get such an onslaught of margin calls tomorrow they may need to access the discount window (if Primary Dealers and the luckier banks). Many will be forced to sell assets to satisfy collateral requirements as ongoing sales of carry pairs push the Yen ever higher, and force ever more liquidity out of the market. And if the Yen carry trade is done, the question is when will the USD, which has also been a carry currency for some time, follow suit. And, once again, the most troubling observation is that the BOJ has not intervened. Our sinking feeling is that after pumping 50 trillion or so in money markets, the petty cash may be running quite low. In any case, ES opens in 2 minutes. Grab the popcorn now.

After it became fashionable to say one was short the dollar at cocktail parties, the net result was a surge in CFTC-reported spec USD gross short positions and a plunge in net USD exposure. And since options traders are nothing but momentum chasing lemmings the theater is now fully on fire. Granted, while some of the recent spike in short interest has been covered, there are still just over a whopping 7.5k contract shorts that need to be covered before a reversion to the recent trendline. This is why we are currently seeing a massive unwind in the dollar short carry trade, and why once again rumors that macro funds are slowly and quietly receiving billions in margin calls behind the scenes.

Given that the worlds central banks answer to global speculators and their money center bank/investment bank sponsors, the people of each country must stand up for a public policy that benefits them. Central bankers have many complex tools in which to exercise their “stability” agenda. While things like currency swap facilities sound harmless when explained as short term in nature, the ability of a central bank to reinstate them at will is a perpetual back stop to global risk asset speculators. When we are asked to fund the IMF in the name of global economic stability, we are really just allowing the sovereign risk hot potato to be passed up the credit ladder in a hidden backstop of foreign folly. The unwinding of the global risk asset carry trade is the ultimate end game for decades of Keynesian lunacy. A credit bubble cannot be cured by more credit. We must recognize the widely accepted fallacies we have lived by, and devise an exit strategy that is fair to all.

The cable is plunging: after flirting with 1.50 as recently as yesterday, GBPUSD is taking major stops out and just dropped below 1.47. Next stop 1.44 as the physical gold and silver shortage is sure to take the UK by storm. The GBP heatmap shows just how profound the morale improving beating in the pound looks like. This is not at all surprising, as the pound has just realized it needs to hit parity with the euro asap if Cameron's deficit reduction plan is to be even remotely viable... and the dollar as soon thereafter as possible. Of course, if the market was even remotely normal and fund flows still mattered, futures right now would be a good percent down following the massive carry trade unwind. Instead, as there is no more real money determining equities, look for futures to explode to the upside, as bonds, gold, oil and stocks are all bought in the latest example of what bubble "diversification" for the Bernanke generation truly is.

The latest COT report by the CFTC is out: no surprises - the JPY shorts came in at near record levels after four weeks of increasing net spec short exposure. If you need to know what the funding mechanism has been for everyone who does not have access to the Fed's discount window to buy stocks at negative carry, here you go. Everyone and their grandmother is now shorting yen and using the proceeds to buy, buy, buy all risky assets. And not just yen: all the major currency pairs had net a spec short balance the week ended April 20: EUR non-commercial shorts jumped by 15,960 to -71,424, also close to record levels, while the GBP and CHF were also being shorted as the stock buying rampage was in full nitrous mode. From a massive dollar carry trade late last year, we have no moved to an even massiver non-dollar carry trade as every non-developing central bank is rushing to keep ZIRP in perpetuity.

As if the steep curve (aka free money) curve trade was not enough, today the global FX carry trade is on in full force. The yen is plunging against everything, the dollar is plunging against the euro, and commodity currencies are skyrocketing. It is the summer of 2007 all over again. The Yen is today's whipping boy, weaker against every currency in the world.

Do these observations imply upcoming curve flattening?

If you were wondering what is driving all the action in the stock market again, and, as long discussed on Zero Hedge, over the past 6 months, wonder no more. Presenting today's intraday JPY-EUR pair, better known as the carry, and best known as the S&P 500. With no fundamentals driving the market to speak of, or at least all fundamentals rolling over into double dip territory, the only safe correlation is once again the carry trade.

Following the NFP report, the AUDJPY surges by 1.42 to 81.54, after almost breaking 80 yesterday. The carry trade is back with a vengeance. The status quo is happy to continue as nobody has read Seth Klarman's lessons.

Last week in the FT the deputy governor of the PBOC was quoted as saying that his biggest fear for markets in 2010 was the risks to the $ carry trade, which China estimated was worth $1.5 trillion, dwarfing the yen carry trade at its height. Indeed, he's right to be worried, especially, as I believe, the lynchpin of the carry trade is now the Fed's balance sheet, which they are actively discussing shrinking.