Bank Run

As Merkel, via Schaeuble, continues unwaveringly in Germany's pursuit of their consistent call for controls if the rest of Europe gets their money, chatter on desks is that maybe its not Zee Germans that are the problem at the Summit but Les French with Hollande's insistence that "there can be no transfer of sovereignty if there is no improvement in solidarity." Strategic Alpha's Maurice Pomery is "not convinced that Germany should be deemed the stubborn aggressor in all of this" and as we have been vociferously stating "Merkel is NOT going to be bullied into any wealth transfer; forget it" and "Hollande cannot make sweeping socialist changes and expect Germany to pay for it." Critically, given the levels of financial repression, and Newedge's comment that "the counter-intuitive moves Hollande has made by cutting some pension ages and rising the minimum wage have scared the market" and taken together with his comments about growth, the markets perceive Hollande as lacking a strong commitment to austerity. Until he demonstrates otherwise, France is vulnerable to a repatriation spiral (going the same way as Spain then Italy - where the markets have increasingly repatriated themselves into domestic enclaves) and the inevitable endgame where domestic demand for bonds becomes unsustainable.

Now that all know bank collapse is guaranteed, what assinine steps will be taken next?

Over the past week, various entities controlled by bailed out UK-bank RBS, focusing primarily on NatWest, have seen clients unable to access virtually any of their funds, perform any financial transactions, or even get an accurate reading of their assets. The official reason: "system outage"... yet as the outage drags on inexplicably for the 5th consecutive day, the anger grows, as does speculation that there may be more sinister reasons involved for the cash hold up than a mere computer bug. 

Two days ago we noted with muted disgust that Europe has legislated to scrap the use of rating agencies, who were everyone's best friend during the up-phase in the global ponzi, but now that deleveraging is accelerating and ratings downgrades are coming, are like the drunk guest who refuses to leave the insolvent party at 4 am. Sure enough, the time has come to enact rules to kick them out. But wait, there is much more. Moments ago Reuters reported that the European Central Bank is discussing a medium-term plan (as in indefinite) to scrap rating rules on euro zone sovereign bonds and instead set their value when used as collateral in lending operations on its own internal assessment, central bank sources said. You read that right: the ECB itself will decide what the collateral value is of pieces of paper it accepts, in exchange for other pieces of paper with the faces of famous dead people on one side (even if technically the whole operation takes place electronically). And to think that for some odd reason allowing drug addicts to write their own prescriptions is illegal. Apparently all is fair in love and breaking all rules of sinking monetary systems.

What the MSM is missing is that Spain's failings make this real. Spain is big enough to bring down the whole shebang, right now, and its banks cannot be salvaged with just a hundred billion or so.

That Italy is now at most days away from technical insolvency is not news: after all we reported on just this a week ago, citing not some fringe lunatics but Bloomberg economist David Powell who said that "Italy would probably be forced into receiving a bailout if it were to face another two weeks like the last seven days." This was a week ago... so one more week left, and things have not only not gotten better, they have gotten much worse. Which is why we were not very surprised to read the following just released news from Reuters: "Italy will push this week at a meeting of euro zone finance ministers for a semi-automatic mechanism involving the European Central Bank or the permanent bailout fund ESM to reduce spreads of euro zone bonds over Germany, Italy's European Affairs Minister Enzo Moavero said on Monday." Having done this for a while, we can tell Italy what the bond market, having perused the above sentence, just read: "semi-bailout." Because if Italy is implicitly demanding assistance from the ECB, and the Spanish bailout vehicle, the ESM, then things are about to hit the country with the €1.25 trillion in debt. It is all downhill from there. Oh, and here is what the bond market reads when they see ESM: "not so semi-subordination." Because if in Europe the idiotic plan to avoid a bank run is to announce preparations for one, followed by furious back pedaling, it is only logical (and we use the term loosely) that an attempt to avert a bailout will be pursued by requesting a semi version. Instead, that action always and only leads to one thing: waving the sellers right in.

One European think tank which has been spot on in its skepticism over the past two years, is OpenEurope. Below they share their views on the next steps for Greece.

Remember, both as my research and the past 5 yrs have made clear, counterparty induced banks runs are the most damaging and Spains banks are hit from both RE and Sovereign debt crises. Who wouldn't run from this?

As Predicted Last Year, The French and the Greeks Are In A Race For The Biggest Bank Run! Each stock showcased has led the drop as well...

Yesterday, we did an update of the Greek bank jog, when noting that between €100-€500 million per day was being withdrawn from Greek banks based on Kathimerini reports. 24 hours later the jog has become a trot with the most recent estimate from Reuters now estimated at nearly double: "Combined daily deposit outflows from the major Greek banks have reached 500-800 million euros over the past few days, with the pace picking up as the election draws closer and rising noticeably on Tuesday, two bankers said." This is roughly $1 billion a day in the upper case, and a number that is approaching 0.5% of the entire documented €170 billion (now likely much less) deposit base.

Halfway into the year, my warnings on the FIRE sector are starting to come into there own. The first look, banks and bank stock analysts!

News & headlines from the day

...and after all of those fancy acronoyms (ECB, EFSF, EU, ESM, ASS, BS, etc.), Italy is essentially just one big Greece. No, I'm not oversimplifying, just look at the bank bailout bailing out the insolvent country circular arguments!

Five days ahead of the Greek parliamentary re-vote, the media propaganda machine has gone mute due to the moratorium on the RAND() known as popular polling: forgotten are the days when Syriza' popularity rating would swing from -100 to +100 in the span of hours, Diebold notwithstanding. Which leaves the media machine just one tactic: updates on the economic collapse as a tacit suggestion of what may happen if situation is not fixed. And while at this point it is nearly impossible to distinguish propaganda from fact, the latest numbers out of Kathimerini are just stunning. As Bloomberg's Marcus Bensasson reports, citing Kathimerini, the Greek banking system has continued to hemorrhage deposits this month, amid uncertainty over the outcome of elections on June 17. "Many people are putting money in shares of mutual funds denominated in dollars because of the bureaucratic difficulty of taking money out of Greece, or are keeping cash at home, the newspaper said." How much? "Deposits are leaving the banking system at a rate of 100 million to 500 million euros ($125 million to $625 million) a day, Kathimerini said, without specifying over how long a period that rate of outflow has continued."

Here we go:

• EU SOURCES HAVE DISCUSSED IMPOSING CAPITAL CONTROLS AS WORST CASE SCENARIO IF GREECE LEAVES EUROZONE - RTRS
• IMPOSING BORDER CHECKS, LIMITING ATM WITHDRAWALS ALSO PART OF WORST-CASE SCENARIO PLANNING - EU SOURCES - RTRS
• SUSPENSION OF SCHENGEN ALSO DISCUSSED

In other words, that money you thought you had... You don't really have it. We can only hope this message was not meant to restore confidence and prevent future bank runs. Because if Europe wanted a continental bank run, it may have just gotten one.

This is getting scary very fast.