fixed

Last week, Bernanke's first (of four) lecture at George Washington University was entirely dedicated to attempting to discredit gold and all that sound money stands for. The propaganda machine was so transparent that it hardly merited a response: those away from the MSM know the truth (which, simply said, is the "creation" of over $100 trillion in derivatives in just the first six months of 2011 to a record $707 trillion - how does one spell stability?), while those who rely on mainstream media for the news would never see an alternative perspective - financial firms are not among the top three sources of advertising dollars for legacy media for nothing. Still, for those who feel like the Chairman's word need to be challenged, the following extensive and annotated reply by QBAMCO's Paul Brodsky makes a mockery of the Fed's full on assault on gold, and any attempts by the subservient media to defend it. To wit: "Has anyone asked why so many powerful people are going out of their way to discredit an inert rock? We think it comes down to maintaining power and control over commercial economies. After professionally watching Fed chairmen cajole, threaten, persuade and manage sentiment in the markets since 1982, we argue this latest permutation is understandable, predictable and, for those willing to bet on the Fed’s ultimate success in saving the banking system (as we are), quite exciting.... Gold is no longer being ignored and gold holders are no longer being laughed at. “The Powers That Be” seem to have begun a campaign to discredit gold."

Just this week we had: TVIX, MF Global & “customer money”, CPDO, Greek CDS auction, BATS.... I’m all for some complexity and innovation, but it does seem after a week like this, that the financial markets have become too complex, and some real effort should be made to simplify things and put everyone on an even playing field.

Do the charts look like a soft landing 7% GDP growth scenario to a thinking person?

Somehow the investing public managed to convince itself that a massive liquidity flood designed to 'help' banks (implicitly buy sovereign debt) with their government reacharounds actually 'fixed' the European economic imbalance problem because yields fell and reflexively this means all-is-well. Just ask Eastman Kodak shareholders how good it felt to rally over 100% the week before bankruptcy? Morgan Stanley has the mother-of-all-chartdecks on the European situation but 3 charts standout in our view by summarising the problems Europe faces. The last few days have seen Eurosis return - but away from the momentum and liquidity - did it ever really go away? This time is no different except LTRO 3 is becoming harder and harder as quality unencumbered collateralizable assets are few and far between - and with the recent weakness in Spain, how long before ECB margin calls start to ramp up?

All you need to read and some more.

BarCap said it expects precious metals to be one of the commodity price leaders in the second quarter, citing the "resumption of the kind of currency debasement/inflation concerns that have been the big driver of gold and silver prices over the past 12 months". It recommended that investors take a long position in December 2012 palladium, saying lower Russian exports should push the market into a supply deficit and bring prices "significantly above current levels" by later this year. BarCap put a second-quarter price of $745 per ounce for palladium futures on the London Metal Exchange, versus the past four weeks' average of $701. Spot palladium on the LME hit a session bottom below $645 on Thursday.

European cash equity markets were seen on a slight upward trend in the early hours of the session amid some rumours that the Chinese PBOC were considering a cut to their RRR. However, this failed to materialise and markets have now retreated into negative territory with flows seen moving into fixed income securities. This follows some market talk of selling in Greek PSI bonds due to the absence of CDSs. This sparked some renewed concern regarding the emergence of Greece from their recovery. Elsewhere, we saw the publication of the BoE’s financial stability review recommending that UK banks raise external capital as soon as possible. This saw risk-averse flows into the gilt, with futures now trading up around 40 ticks.

There are relatively few natural buyers of Spanish long dated bonds here. Fast money is likely caught long, and it will take a potentially reluctant ECB and some already overly exposed Spanish institutions to step up and stop the slide. It may happen, but many of the policies that “bailed out” Greece created very bad precedents for bondholders, and some of those are coming home to roost, as is the understanding that LTRO ensures that banks can access liquidity, but does nothing to fix any problem at the sovereign level.

Goldman screams it is a generational buy, Larry Fink goes all in stocks, Notorious BIGGS is 90% long, anchors on comedy-financial fusion channels are channeling the producer in their earpiece and screaming at the teleprompter to "sell bonds and buy stocks", even as stocks are at their highest in nearly 5 years and... what happens? In the latest week, ICI just reported that domestic equity retail funds just saw another $2.9 billion outflow, the 4th consecutive in a row, and the 23 of out 27 outflows during the entire parabolic blow off top phase the market has undergone since October, and instead put another $9 billion in fixed income funds "soaring" yields be damned. What does this mean? Probably that the stock ramp is about to get uber-parabolic for the simple reason that this is the only thing left in the status quo's arsenal - to keep doing the same old same old, hoping for a different outcome, because this time it's different. Only this time the dumb money either doesn't have the cash to burn, or just doesn't want to participate in a rigged, corrupt, centrally-planned market. Whatever the case, the Primary Dealers and the Fed will just have to keep hoping more central banks pull a Bank of Israel and sell the hot grenade axes to them, since Joe Sixpack is done being the "dumb money."

While Europe is once again back on the radar, having recently disappeared therefrom following the uneventful Greek CDS auction (which in itself was never an issue - the bigger question is any funding shortfall to fund non variation margined payments, as well as the cash to make whole UK and Swiss law bonds) following Buiter's earlier announcement that Spain is now in greater risk of default than ever, coupled with Geithner and Bernanke discussing how Europe is 'fine' in real time, here are three quick charts which will remind everyone that nothing in Europe has been fixed. In fact, it is now worse than ever. As a reminder, when thinking of Europe, the shorthand rule is: assets. And specifically, the lack thereof. Why is the ECB scrambling to collateralize every imaginable piece of trash that European banks can procure at only some valuation it knows about? Simple - quality, encumbrance and scarcity. When one understands that the heart of Europe's problem is the rapid "vaporization" of all money good assets, everything falls into place: from the ECB's response, to Europe's propensity for infinite rehypothecation, to the rapidly deteriorating financial system. It also explains why America will be increasingly on the hook, either via the Fed indirectly (via FX swaps), or indirectly via the IMF (such as two days ago when US taxpayers for the first time funded the first bailout check to the ECB using Greece as an intermediary).

Going into the US open, most major European bourses are trading in modest positive territory this follows the publication of a Goldman Sachs research note titled “The Long Good Buy” in which the bank outlines its thoughts that equities will embark on an upward trend over the next few years, recommending dropping fixed-income securities. We have also seen the publication of the Bank of England’s minutes from March’s rate-setting meeting in which board members voted unanimously to keep the base rate unchanged at 0.50%; however there was some indecision concerning the total QE, with members Miles and Posen voting for a further increase to GBP 350bln, however the other seven members voted against the increase. Following the release, GBP/USD spiked lower 35 pips but has regained in recent trade and is now in positive territory.  Looking elsewhere in the session, UK Chancellor Osborne will present his budget for this financial year at 1230GMT. We will also be looking out for US existing home sales and the weekly DOE inventories.

There are those who, not illogically, thought that the second interest rates start creeping up, that there would be a rush of mortgage activity to lock in rates as low as possible before 30 year mortgages roll ever higher. Of course, for that plan to work, one Benjamin Shalom Bernanke would need to have broad credibility among the general population, as he would need to be perceived as one who would not rush to purchase bonds in the future, should rates jump far too high, in the process impairing banks and PDs which still hold massive amounts of paper. If, however, that plan were to not work, then the latest recent attempt to force a rotation out of stocks and into bonds would have abysmal consequences on housing, as the entire mortgage issuance machinery would grind to a halt. Alas, it appears the latter has happened. Minutes ago we got the latest MBA Mortgage Application data and it was ugly. The broad Mortgage Application index collapsed by 7.4% in the week ending March 16, when rates experienced the bulk of the move downward, which was the 6th consecutive week of declines, following last week's 2.4% drop. And while refis have been down for 5 weeks in a row, with the index slamming 9.3% lower as higher rates have now obviously killed any interest in mortgages, so have purchase applications. MBA Purchasing index was down 4.4%, breaking a trend of 3 weeks of gains. Some other hard statistics: the Average 30 year fixed rate soared to 4.19% from 4.06% last week, while the refi % of number of loans dropped to 73.4% - the lowest since July 2011.

During the last 31 years of the US Treasury bond rally, the 10Y interest rate has never risen for 10 consecutive days and today's very modest 1.6bps rally ensures that will continue. Yesterday's weakness equaled the previous 9-days-in-row record from 6/26/06. The rise in 10Y rates over this 10 day period equals the Oct 2011 jolt in percentage terms as we hold at those 10/28/11 swing highs in rates. The previous 8 times that 10Y rates have risen for 7 days or more, the next 10 days have seen an average 16bps compression and next 20 days a 31.5bps compression (following the consecutive break). This of course is wreaking havoc with mortgage rates as according to Bloomberg's bankrate.com data, we are back above 4% for the 30Y fixed for the first time this year and this week has seen mortgage rates jump their most in 16 months.

When it comes to predicting consumer spending patterns, especially those of the baby boomers who are traditionally reliant on fixed income (but lately have had to migrate back into the workforce, as retirement prospects diminish, in effect displacing the young 18-24 year old Americans where unemployment is now at a substantial 46%), the following two charts from today's David Rosenberg letter do a great job at explaining the schism between interest and dividend income. The former, as is well-known, has been crippled and is plunging courtesy of Bernanke's ZIRP policy, which makes cash yields on savings and fixed income instruments virtually negligible, and the latter, which while rising, has a long way to rise if it is to catch up to lost annuity potential. It is here that the primary tension for the Fed resides: it has to force investors to switch their mindsets from the capital preservation of fixed income, to the risky behavior of pursuing stock dividends. It is also here that we see the lost purchasing power of the US consumer: interest income is down $450 billion from 2007-2008 levels to roughly $1 trillion, while dividend income has risen to $825 billion, which is where it was at the prior peak. In other words, when all is said and done, Bernanke's ZIRP policy has eliminated $450 billion in purchasing power, even if he has succeeded in reflating the equity bubble. Yet while bonds at least have capital preservation optics, what happens to dividend stocks whose cash flow yields can be eliminated at the bat of an eye, if and when the next flash crash materializes, or the next financial crisis is finally too big for the central planners to control?

One of the central premises of CDS is that the “basis” package should work.  An investor should be able to buy a bond, and buy CDS to the same maturity and expect to get paid close to par – either by the bond being repaid at par and the CDS expiring worthless, or through a Credit Event, where the price of the bonds the investor owns plus the CDS settlement amount add up to close to par. The settlement of the Greek CDS contracts worked well, but that was pure dumb luck. This leaves playing the basis in Portuguese bonds and CDS as a much riskier proposition than before Europe's PSI/ECB decisions - and perhaps explains why at over 300bps, it has not been arbitraged fully away - though today's rally in Portugal bonds suggests a new marginal buyer which given the basis compression suggests they may be getting more comfortable.