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Last year Austria's largest bank, Erste Bank, sent shudders of Credit Anstalt through the European Banking System. This year it is Austria's 3rd largest bank that is scaring investors senseless. On the heels of the Swiss National Bank's decision to un-peg from the Euro, Raiffeisen Bank's Swiss-Franc-Denominated mortgage worries have resurfaced (along with Russian/Ukraine writedowns) and nowhere is that more evident than the total collapse of the bank's bonds (from over 95c to 65c today). Even after the ECB Q€ (and some apparent intervention to weaken the Swissy) bonds kept free-falling. Perhaps, The Freedom Party's demands for a bailout will grow louder as the contagion concerns across Europe's banking system explode...

This morning both the SNB stunner from two weeks ago, and the less than stunning ECB QE announcement from last Thursday are long forgotten, and the only topic on markets' minds is the startling surge of Syriza and its formation of a coalition government with another anti-bailout party - a development that many in Europe never expected could happen, and which has pushed Europe to the bring of the unexpected yet again. And while there is much speculation that this time Europe is much better positioned to "handle a Grexit", the reality is that European bank balance sheets are as bad if not worse than in 2014, 2013, 2012 or any other year for that matter, because none of ther €1+ trillion in NPLs have been addressed and the only thing that has happened is funding bank capital deficiencies with newly printed money. You know what they say about solvency and liquidity.

"No one believes the suicide hypothesis," one of Nisman's investigative team told Reuters, adding that, "he was very convinced of his ideas and prepared to see them through. He had received threats all his life and it never intimidated him." With the news of no gunpowder residue sinking in, and protests rising, even Argentina's President is now uncomfortably admitting it, saying on Thursday that she was "convinced" Nisman's death was not a suicide, explaining that people had led him astray in his investigation in order to smear her name and then "needed him dead." However, instead of vowing to shed light on the matter, Fernandez and her government have been on the defensive, trying to refute Nisman's claims against her. Neighboring Uruguay said it felt sorry for Argentina and that its justice system needs to clear up the case to maintain "the minimal confidence our societies need." Questions abound...

There is no reason to assume that this time will be different. These boom-bust sequences will continue until the economy is structurally undermined to such an extent that monetary intervention cannot even create the illusory prosperity of a capital-consuming boom anymore. The bankers applauding Draghi’s actions today will come to rue them tomorrow.

With the leads in at least six polls (of between 4% and 10%), Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras has come out swining for the anti-EU vote this morning:

• *TSIPRAS SAYS ONLY SYRIZA CAN END GREECE'S CATASTROPHIC COURSE
  
• *TSIPRAS SAYS WON'T HONOR COMMITMENTS MADE BY PREVIOUS GOVT
• *TSIPRAS SAYS WILL NEGOTIATE WITH EUROPEAN PEERS NOT WITH MERKEL

For now Greek assets remain bid on the glorious awesomeness of Draghi but we suspect - though The ECB gave themn room to negotiate and Djisselblom mentioned the possibility of 'working' with Greece - that if things go as the polls suggest Monday could see more bloodletting in EURUSD (and bank runs in Greece).

• Saudi Arabia’s New King Probably Will Not Change Current Oil Policy (BBG)
• Saudi King’s Death Clouds Already Tense Relationship With U.S. (WSJ)
• Oil Pares Gains as New Saudi King Says Policies Stable (BBG)
• Kuroda Says BOJ to Mull Fresh Options in Case of More Easing (BBG)
• U.S. pulls more staff from Yemen embassy amid deepening crisis (Reuters)
• Putin Said to Shrink Inner Circle as Hawks Beat Billionaires (BBG)
• A Few Savvy Investors Had Swiss Central Bank Figured Out (WSJ)

The timidness with which mainstream media in the U.S. approaches news has been well documented. In fact, the inability of traditional media to do a reasonable job of holding powerful interests accountable has been one of the primary drivers behind the ascendency of alternative news. Despite this reality, one thing we know less about is specifically how the power structure goes about suppressing news it doesn’t want reaching the plebs. Until now...

As reported yesterday, Yemen became the latest foreign policy "success" story of the US after the local minority of Iran-friendly Shi'ite Houthi militiamen stormed, and captured, the presidential palane. At the same the whereabouts of Yemen's US-backed president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi were unknown. Moments ago we learned about his current location: according to AP, "two Yemeni presidential advisers say the Shiite rebels who are on a power grab campaign in the capital, Sanaa, are holding the president "captive" at his home, a day after seizing the presidential palace." 

The old joke is "In America, you correct newspaper, but in Soviet Union, newspaper corrects you.” Switzerland is now experiencing the bond market equivalent.

• Obama to focus on middle class in State of Union address (Reuters) - all 4 of them?
• European Stocks Buoyed by ECB Hopes (WSJ)
• China's 2014 economic growth misses target, hits 24-year low (Reuters)
• Federer on Swiss Franc Shock: "Does It Mean I've Got to Win Now?" (BBG)
• First-time buyers help Christie’s reach record sales (FT)
• So it was the NSA? U.S. Spies Tapped North Korean Computers Prior to Sony Hack (BBG)
• Why Chinese Developer Kaisa's Default Risk Has Money Managers Spooked (BBG)
• Morgan Stanley Misses Estimates on Drop in Bond-Trading Revenue (BBG)

The Argentine prosecutor who accused President Cristina Fernandez of orchestrating a cover-up in the investigation of Iran over the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center has, according to AP, been found dead in his apartment, authorities said on Monday. As The Times of Israel reports, Alberto Nisman, 51, was discovered, by his mother, in a pool of blood in the bathroom on Sunday night with a gunshot wound to the head, hours before he was set to testify before lawmakers on his accusations of the cover-up. Coincidence we are sure, but police are investigating and Argentinian media reported that they had initially ruled the death a likely suicide but we note that The Clarin daily reported just a few days earlier that Nisman had told the newspaper, "I could end up dead because of this," and in a separate TV interview, had also been considering increasing his security detail.

At the hastily arranged press conference on January 15, SNB's president, Jordan, looked like a red-faced school boy caught with the hand in the cookie jar. None of his explanations made any sense. The SNB was clearly caught by surprise itself and didn't have time to make up some better lies. But why this sudden change of heart, throwing in the towel causing book losses of somewhere around CHF 75bn  (>10% GDP)? Some theories...

'After two days of sharp intraday and vicious reversals, the BTFD algos are suspiciously missing overnight, when as reported earlier, a bout of margin calls and stop loss selling meant not crude but copper would crash in today's episode of "guess the crashing commodity", on what Goldman dubbed a Chinese demand collapse which for those confused is different than an OPEC supply glut, and is also the reason why the entire commodity complex is trading at a decade plus low. As a result copper plunged to a five and a half year low, in the process halting the market due to the severity of the plunge. But the big event overnight was the farcical announcement by the European top court, which as everyone expected, rejected the German rejection of the OMT as illegal, stating it was not only legal (with certain conditions) but greenlighting the way for the ECB's QE in one week, a move which sent the EURUSD crashing to a fresh 9 year low!

The Greek general election is just around the corner, and as expectations for a Greek overhaul, if not outright Grexit, rise so does the rhetoric by the man who, barring an act of god or Diebold, will be the next Greek premier: Alexis Tsipras, who some see as the catalyst for a Grexit, while others describe as merely yet another apparatchik of the Troika. Overnight Tsipras wrote an op-ed article in Germany’s Handelsblatt newspaper, summarized by Bloomberg, in which he said the notion that Greece’s economy has stabilized is an “arbitrary distortion of the facts.” He said that while the economy grew 0.7 percent in the third quarter, the recession isn’t over because of 1.8% deflation.

Two days after the dramatic and tragic events from Friday, Amedy Coulibaly, who in coordination with the two brothers who attacked a satirical newspaper and said they were affiliated with al-Qaeda, killed four hostages at a Paris supermarket Friday before he was slain by police appeared in a new posthumous video released on Sunday, on which he pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group and explained the planning and the reasoning behind the attacks that sowed terror across France.