Italy

Even though Europe is closed, and the requisite ES ramp appeared on cue just as expected, Reuters has released some news which will put the Risk Off trade solidly back on the books, after it announced that "Italy will shortly cut its growth forecasts for this year and 2012 to bring them more into line with those of independent bodies, but the prospects for public finances have improved due to an increase in value added tax, government sources told Reuters on Monday." It continues: "A government forecasting document to be published in the next few days following the austerity plan approved by parliament last week will cut the 2011 growth forecast to 0.7 percent from 1.1 percent and lower the 2012 forecast to "1 percent or below" from 1.3 percent, the sources said." Someone who will certainly be very unhappy with this news is Moody's which is already delaying cutting Italy (and said last week it will have to do something within the month), but this will make any additional delays impossible, as well as push the rating agency to trim the country's credit rating by more than just one notch.

"In light of the increasingly challenging economic and financial environment and fluid political developments in the euro area, Moody's is continuing to evaluate Italy's local and foreign currency bond ratings in the context of the risks identified. Moody's will strive to conclude the review within the next month."

The first Italian austerity package has not even properly failed yet (despite labor union protests to the contrary which for some odd reason believe that it has some chance of passing), and already Italy is preparing for a new round of "austerity" to appease those naive fools from the ECB so they buy Italy's otherwise bidless bonds for a few more weeks. From Bloomberg: "Italy may need a new budget- adjustment plan next month because a 54 billion-euro ($76 billion) austerity package to be voted on today won’t convince the European Central Bank to continue buying the nation’s bonds, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee said. “How long can the ECB continue to buy Italian Treasury bonds?” Mario Baldassarri said in an interview in Rome today. “We may need another adjustment in three, four weeks which will be the real answer to the European Commission and to markets.” Because this time, unlike a month ago, it will be different. Berlusconi promises. As a reminder, Italy will vote on the current massively watered-down plan which is anything but austere later today, in a vote largely expected to pass. Said passage, however will do nothing to please Trichet, who will continue to remind Italy just who calls the shots now (oddly enough the ECB thinks that would be them... which explains the loving relationship between the Central Bank and a electorally challenged Angela Merkel). None of this changes the underlying dynamic which has become all too clear: the PIIGS have called Europe's bluff, and Europe blinked. Going forward expect much barking from the ECB and Luxembourg, warning the periphery to get its house in order... and absolutely no bite. Because everyone by now realizes that the balance of power is entirely on the insolvent countries' side. Europe can threaten to kick out a country, but as UBS demonstrated on Monday, the consequences of such a move, which would end the euro, would be up to and including that Keynesian wet dream: war.

After Berlusconi was scolded by everyone, but most importantly by backstop solvency provider ECB, for his bull in a China shop maneuver of the first, now defunct, Italian Austerity plan, here are the details from the next, soon to be gutted "Austerity", which readers may be forgiven, if they take it with just a grain of salt. According to Bloomberg, the details are as follows:

• Plan to to include higher retirement age for women from 2014
• To add 3% tax on income over 500k euros
• Italy to approve constitutional law for budget balance Sept
• To increase VAT from 20% to 21%.

Will anyone take this latest attempt to appease the ECB seriously? Of course not.In the meantime, Italy, as predicted - remember Piazza Navona strikecam and all that, and especially its workers, are not happy as protests proceed to engulf the country:

It is only a matter of time before France announces to little fanfare that its GDP is about to be slashed, and that as a result the rating agencies put it on downgrade review, and blowing up the entire EFSF mechanism. But before that one needs to shake out the weaker hands, like Italy. For better or worse, that just happened. From Reuters: "Italian economic growth is likely to fall short of the government's official forecast of 1.1 percent in 2011 and 1.3 percent in 2012, probably coming in under 1 percent, a senior government source said on Monday. "It will be very difficult for Italy to reach 1.1 percent growth this year and next," the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters." So if the raters needed any excuse to go ahead and downgrade Italy even more, this is it. As for France: we give them a few months before they also have to tell the truth, and face the music, although with French CDS once again trading at all time wides, the market is not waiting.

All eyes were on Italy early this morning when the country auctioned off €2.99 billion of 4.25% BTPs due July 2014 and €3.75 billion in 5% bonds due 2022, because the ECB, unlike in the secondary market, is not allowed to buy bonds at primary issuance. While it would have been unrealistic to expect a bond failure, the bond levels were watched very closely for signs of deterioration despite over €40 billion of SMP purchases by the ESB in the past 3 weeks. And judging by the reaction (+11 bps in the Italian Bund spread), the market was not very happy with the yields of 3.87% (4.8% previously) and 5.22% (5.77% previously) or the Bids to Cover of 1.32 and 1.27 on the 3 and 10 years, as both slipped following the auction in a market that was very disappointed to see a 5 handle yield on the 10 year. This has set a negative  tone to early European trading, with pronounced weakness across markets, and the EURUSD, which has dropped to under 1.44 overnight after trading in the 1.45's late last night. The concern is that even with the ECB buying debt in the secondary market (effectively monetizing), the tail is unable to wag the dog strongly enough, and if the EFSF is not activated soon enough, and expanded significantly, we expect to see the market test the ECB once again, and SMP purchases to soar very soon.

Italy's brief flirt with Austerity, disclosed on August 12, lasted all of 2 weeks. As Reuters reports, following a 7 hour meeting between FinMin Tremonti who has been portrayed by the media as the primary reason why Italy has recently become the target of bond vigilantes, and which in turn was forced to establish some token measures of austerity, and PM Berlusconi, the most provocative measure of the "austerity" packet have been dropped, namely the solidarity tax, which would see new taxes on high earners, as well as austerity imposed on local budgets, and instead will be replaced with new 'tax evasion' avoidance schemes. Surely this massive watering down of Italian austerity will work: just ask Greece how effective the whole crack down on tax avoidance was. At least the Piazza Navona strike cam can be dropped for now... or at least until bond vigilantes strike in Rome again, and the country does the whole austerity charade again.

Kiss the free market goodbye. Spain's and France's regulator have both just announced that the short selling ban, which was supposed to expire tomorrow, has now been extended until the end of September 30, and November 11, respectively. Add to this Belgium and Greece whose regulators announced they will lift its own short selling ban "when conditions allow", or some time in October, in and we can pretty much be confident that the European market rout seen earlier is due to someone leaking the news that price discovery in Europe is now officially over.

They can strike... Or they can create post-modernist art. They appear to have taken the latter approach for now. Once they realize that artistically beheading fictitious clowns (whose burgers cost over $17 in Zurich, thank you stable dollar policy) does not pay the entitlement benefits, the former is next in the queue.

Remember when on Friday, following the summary of the proposed Italian austerity measures, we said that "within a few weeks we expect the strike (and riot)-cam to be planted firmly in the Piazza Navona and across the streets ot the Trastevere in capturing the latest round of European indignation" and some assumed this was yet more sarcasm? Nope. As the AP reports, "the leader of Italy's largest union is threatening a general strike against an austerity package that Premier Silvio Berlusconi's government hastily pushed through to balance the budget by 2013 and avoid financial collapse. The threat came amid mounting criticism Sunday of the euro45.5 billion ($64.8 billion) package passed Friday in response to demands by the European Central Bank." Incidentally, $64.8 billion in cuts... out of $1.8 trillion in debt....that makes even the farcical $2.1 trillion deficit cut plan passed by the muppets in DC appear gargantuan in context. What happens when S&P tells Italy it has to increase the cuts fivefold to avoid more downgrades? At that point the strikes in Italy will be 24/7/365. And what happens when S&P wakes up and realizes that the same is applicable for France, and that any realistic cuts will force French GDP, which on Friday came at a very disappointing 0.0%, to turn wildly negative, as strikes next shift from Rome to Paris... Just how stable will that vaunted AAA rating of France be at that point? But of course, nobody will have been able to see it coming.

Stop the presses. Barely did we have time to report that European regulators failed to impose a coordinated short selling ban, that Bloomberg reports that the countries most impact by the market plunge are about to impose standalone short-selling bans. These are Belgium, Italy, Spain and France. In other words, it really is on and the 2008 Lehman PTSD flashbacks may now resume. Until we get a headline that says it isn't. The rescue of the Borsa Italian is now more schizophrenic than that of Greece. As a reminder, in the previous post the FT quoted Abraham Lioui, a professor at the Edhec business school in France, who said “It is the worst thing to do right now. This would signal to the market there may be something fundamentally bad that is happening."  He is correct. Something is fundamentally very wrong and about to break.

Remember when we said yesteday that the FTSE MIB won't have a good day today? It isn't...

Below is a a chart of Italian bank equity performance. Countrywide bank run next? Whether the reason for the sell off is due to a typoed GOFO 12M SocGen print or there is a fundamental reason, remains to be seen, but US equities are not taking the risk. US stocks have wiped out all of yesterday's last minute gains.

This aggression of a red close in the FTSE MIB will not stand man. Which is why Trichet just went ahead and sent the cavalry to buy another X billion worth of Irish 10 years to send a powerful message that European taxpayer capital will be used to purchase worthless paper that is cash flow bad, until morale improves.