8.5%

The nonfarm payroll number prints at 200K on expectations of 155K. The Unemployment rate comes at 8.5% - lowest since February 2009, and down from an upward revised 8.7%. U-6 15.2% down from 15.6% in November. Average hourly earnings rose at 0.2%, in line with expectations, previous revised to -0.1% from unchanged. Private payrolls +212L vs Expectations of 178K. Manufacturing payrolls rose 23K vs Expectations of 155K. Yet the unemployment rate trickery still continues, with labor force participation (prior revised), now at a 27 year low of 64%, and the labor force itself declined by 50K from 153,937 to 153,887. In fact, persons not in the labor force have increased by 7.5 million since January 2007! Bottom line - dropping out of labor statistics is the new killing it.

• ECB Cash Averts ‘Funding Crisis’ for Italy, Spain (Bloomberg)
• Bailout talks in Greece ‘crucial’, Premier says (WSJ)
• Spain sees €50bn of new bank provisions (FT)
• Fed says expand Fannie, Freddie role to aid housing (Reuters)
• France’s Borrowing Costs Rise at Bond Sale (Bloomberg)
• Europe worries linger after French auction (Reuters)
• PBOC Suspends Bill Sale as Money Rates Rise Before Holiday (Bloomberg)
• Turkey warns against Shi'ite-Sunni Cold War (Reuters)
• New capital rules for banks ‘delayed to 2H’(China Daily)

While Morgan Stanley only recently became a second derivative for everything European-related (thank you financial short selling ban in Europe, and also thank you Mr. Gorman for updating investors on your firm's $39 billion gross derivative exposure to French banks (not France the country). What's that? You didn't provide one? Oh, our bad, just as it is "anonymous bloggers" bad that your CDS blew out this quarter and generated over $3 billion in "income" for your firm - you are truly welcome), Bank of America has, for quite a while, been a proxy for all that is wrong with America's mortgage industry, courtesy of that most value-destroying purchase of the insolvent criminal entity that was Countrywide Financials. For a while the market was content that the proxy would not be in need of a shallow grave, unlike the US housing market (go ahead, ask where PrimeX closed today), after the bank managed to bribe enough "plaintiffs" and proceed with a quick and painless $8.5 billion settlement on all of its mortgage putback claims. A settlement that, however, had a very weak link: "Article 77", a critical provision enabling the deal in its current form. And as we first reported and explained back on August 26, said weakest link was attacked by David Grais of Walnut Place, who "filed a request to transfer the lawsuit from State Court to Federal Court where everything basically begins a new." Well, today Grais won, and Bank of America lost after US District Judge William Pauley ruled that "Bank of America Corp.’s proposed $8.5 billion settlement with Countrywide Financial Corp. mortgage-bond investors must be considered in federal court instead of the New York state court where it was first filed." Not content with making a factual statement, the Judge proceeded to skewer the bank which, on top of evertyhing, recently decided to stuff its depositors with a bill as large as $53 trillion should things turn sour, added "The settlement agreement at issue here implicates core federal interests in the integrity of nationally chartered banks and the vitality of the national securities markets."  Integrity? From a bank which secretly, though with the Fed's blessing, has tried to put its client interests over those of depositors of over $1 trillion, and over the objections of the FDIC? Don't make us laugh.

Wondering why you may not have heard of hacking collective Anonymous for a while? Because, as it appears, the ad hoc organization has been busy assembling Anonymous Analytics, a public equity research entity (and we venture to guess focused mostly on the short side) whose motto is "Acquiring information through unconventional means" and follows up with "You should have expected us." Think of them as Muddy Waters on steroids: no regulation, no supervision, no accountability - just pure content, and credibility-driven merit (or, of course, lack thereof): a model which if validated will totally revolutionize the field of public company research. Well, someone who certainly should have expected AnonAnalytics is Chaoda Modern Agriculture, a HK$ 8.5 billion market cap company, or on par with Sino Forest from its pre-fraud days, which as Anon alleges is one of "Hong Kong Exchange’s largest, and longest running frauds." As the below report demonstrates, Anon has presented a serious case to prove just that stunning allegation, and if ultiamtely validated, the outcome for stock longs will be very unpleasant: "Theoretically, Chaoda may be worth HK$0.60 per share (currently Hk$2.50) derived from a blended NAV and DDM approach. However, based on the evidence in this report, as well as information we have decided not to release, we believe Chaoda may face delisting." If proven correct, this report will have an even greater impact on capital markets than Muddy Waters take down of Sino Forest, as it will finally integrate the two formerly completely disparate worlds of hacking and software analysis, opening up a world of very concerning possibilities for the world's public companies.

It was a momentous week for markets and the ramifications of the German constitutional court decision and the SNB currency intervention have yet to be realized. The German constitutional court decision has effectively ruled out Eurobonds which has massive ramifications for the European monetary union and the euro. While promoters of Eurobonds suggest that Eurobonds may still be possible – most objective analysts believe they are now highly unlikely. The SNB decision to peg the Swiss franc to the beleaguered euro, thereby effectively devaluing the franc, stunned currency and wider financial markets. It is one of the most significant currency interventions in modern history and led to violent volatility the like of which have never been seen in foreign exchange markets. Incredibly and not widely reported the Swiss franc fell more than 7% against the euro, dollar and gold in just 15 minutes (putting gold’s relatively minor recent price fall into context). Such volatility in currency markets was not seen during 911, the Lehman’s collapse or for any other major macroeconomic or geopolitical event in modern history. The collapse of the Swiss franc in minutes greatly surpassed the collapse of sterling seen on “Black Wednesday” in 1992, when the British pound fell by 2.7% against the German mark on one day.

As most know by now, the ridiculously low $8.5 billion putback settlement, which was supposed to have been closed by now, and which was the key driver in preventing Bank of America from trading far, far lower (and requiring much more capital), is the wildcard that would allow the bank to package tens if not hundreds of billions of claims against the bank in a "tidy (and very small) little package." The key factor allowing this settlement to be structured in its existing form, was that the lawsuit was filed in New York State Court, which allows for a little something known as Article 77, or a provision permitting "special proceeding related to express trust." The details are provided below, but in essence boil down to the following: the settlement in its current form can only be enacted if the lawsuit is conducted under New York State law. Well, minutes ago, David Grais, attorney for Walnut Place, which as we have repeatedly observed represents those interests who claim the $8.5 billion settlement is massively insufficient and are engaged in litigation seeking far greater recoveries, filed a request to transfer the lawsuit from State Court to Federal Court where everything basically begins a new. More than anything, this latest development may explain why Bank of America has been scrambling to raise tens of billions in the open market as an adverse court decision, one granting Grais' request, means the bank is suddenly open to unlimited downside capital risk. In the meantime, add major litigation headline risk to everything else that BAC has going for it...

Some very interesting data points were disclosed in Morgan Stanley's just released 10Q. First, we learn that in the last quarter, the company which had "blow out" earnings, at least compared to expectations and Goldman, actually was not much to write home about by typical Wall Street standards, with a whopping 8 days of trading losses in Q2. Considering that most Wall Street firms had quarters in a row with no daily trading losses, this is, sadly, quite disappointing. Next, and more important, is that MS has disclosed it has a rather substantial $5 billion in gross exposure to the PIIGS, as well as another $3.5 billion in funding exposure to Europe. Considering that most European banks had already offloaded their PIIGS exposure, at least we now know who they were offloading risk to. Lastly, from the risk factors we read that a US downgrade will likley not be beneficial to Morgan Stanley or the stock market, to wit: "[a downgrade] could disrupt payment systems, money markets, long-term or short-term fixed income markets, foreign exchange markets, commodities markets and equity markets and adversely affect the cost and availability of funding and certain impacts, such as increased spreads in money market and other short term rates, have been experienced already as the market anticipated the downgrade. In addition, it could adversely affect our credit ratings, as well as those of our clients and/or counterparties and could require us to post additional collateral on loans collateralized by U.S. Treasury securities."

260% profits in 48 hours? Global markets in full meltdown mode? Bank runs imminent? Is this an all out collapse or will the global central financial planning cartel reign it in via the bear market rally from hell. Well, here's a few steps to take either way...

When we last looked at the Bank of America joke of a "non-settlement" settlement for a paltry $8.5 billion when $424 billion in total misrepresented (530 in total) Countrywide mortgage trusts were at stake, we said, "we are confident that the legal process will prevail and that the presiding judge on this case, and if not him then certainly the New York District Attorney, will step up and demand a thorough reevaluation of the settlement process." We were, oddly enough, correct. According to a just released filing from the New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Bank of America (and Bank of New York Mellon, one of the tri-party repo banks mind you), violated New York state law and "misled investors." In a knock out punch to Bank of America (and Brian Lin who was profiled here previously), the  bank allegedly violated the New York’s Martin Act and misled investors about its conduct tied to mortgage securitization as Bloomberg summarizes. Schneiderman said he has "potential claims" against Bank of America Corp. and its Countrywide Financial unit. As Zero Hedge alleged all along, "The proposed cash payment is far less than the massive losses investors have faced and will continue to face." What does that mean? Well, as the countersuit by the FHLB indicated (which we are certain will be the basis for the NY AG claims), the likely final settlement is probably going to be about $22 to $27.5 billion. Which also means that the bank's Tier 1  capital is about to be discounted by about 25% lower. Which, lastly, means that the stock is about to plunge due to a massive litigation reserve shortfall which will have to be plugged with, surprise, a new equity capital raise. Which brings us to our original question: got CDS (which closed around 200 bps today, roughly 25 bps wider - it is going much wider tomorrow, especially if the expected Sarkozy-Merkel-Zapatero meeting achieves absolutely nothing)? Cause this baby is going down...and it is probably about to be broken up into good BAC and bad bank, consisting almost entirely of all legacy Countrywide operations. Said otherwise, it could well be time for a CFC-BAC CDS pair trade.

Yesterday, when sharing our latest thoughts and observations on the $8.5 billion Bank of America settlement we said, "One thing is certain: the final BAC settlement, if one even comes to fruition, will not be $8.5 billion." Once again: we may have been correct...

• NEW YORK INVESTIGATING $8.5 BLN BANK OF NEW YORK MORTGAGE DEAL
• NEW YORK ATTORNEY GENERAL SEEKS DATA ON BANK OF AMERICA ACCORD
• NEW YORK PROBE IS PART OF MORTGAGE SECURITIZATION INVESTIGATION
• NEW YORK SENDS LETTER TO GOLDMAN SACHS, BLACKROCK, ING, INVESCO

BAC stock not liking this latest development at all.

We haven't commented extensively on the recently announced Bank of America $8.5 billion RMBS "non-settlement" settlement because frankly, it is a total travesty, ripe with so many conflicts of interest, it has no chance in hell of being final, and will likely see numerous revisions before it is complete, in the process costing BAC many more billions in legal fees and charge offs. We also expected that it was only a matter of time before politicians swarmed like a flock of crows on this rotting carcass of a deal, which will only make the life of BAC worse (we did share our amazement that BofA's stock rose on the news). Sure enough, here comes the first Congressman to contest that the proposed settlement is not an "arm's length transaction." And while our opinion of politicians is well-known, Miller's conclusion is spot on: "it is important that the American people know that their government is acting on their behalf, not on behalf of powerful financial institutions. It is important that the public and Congress be able to assess whether the enterprises settled claims that would limit taxpayer losses on a tough, arm's length basis, rather than providing another indirect subsidy to the banking industry." Alas, nobody even remotely believes that the government represents anything but the interests of the banks. But a bold effort. One thing is certain: the final BAC settlement, if one even comes to fruition, will not be $8.5 billion.

Bank of America may be about to part with more money than it has earned since 2008 in what will soon be the biggest financial settlement in the industry to date According to the WSJ, the Charlotte, NC-based bank is preparing to pay $8.5 billion to settle mortgage (mis)representation claims (aka the Mortgage putback issue) brought on by such high profile figures as BlackRock, Pimco, MetLife and, of course, the Federal Reserve, previously discussed on Zero Hedge. "A deal would end a nine-month fight with a group of 22 investors that hold more than $56 billion in mortgage-backed securities at the center of the dispute, including giant money manager BlackRock Inc., insurer MetLife Inc. and the Federal Reserve Bank of New York." Keep in mind that this is actually not good news for the bank, contrary to what the company's stock is doing after hours, as this still keeps the company exposed to a multitude of other rep and warranty litigation (which will now be largely underreserved), not to mention fraudclosure issues, which are totally unrelated, and which will plague the bank for years and years. Lastly, BAC is largley underreserved (see below) for a settlement of this size which means its Tier 1 capital ratio will likely be impacted due to a major outflow of cash.

• Asia stocks rise on Toyota earnings, US growth optimism; Bond risk drops.
• Job growth remains weak in US private sector with payrolls rising 42,000 last month.
• Trichet may start second run at exit as Euro region recovers from crisis.
• AOL's advt sales fell 27% in Q2, swings to a loss on a $1.41B in write-down.
• Aviva first-half profit rises 21% on sales of pensions and savings products
• Barclays H1 profit advances 29% on lower provisions for bad loans.
• Carl Icahn raises his stake in Motorola to 9.99%.