BAC

How many muppets does it take to hold a half off Groupon sale on IPO stock??? Seriously!

Overnight, global July PMI data was released. In a nutshell: the contraction in the world economy is accelerating primarily due to that fulcrum continent, Europe, where 10 out of 11 countries indicated they are now in contraction. And since Europe is the nexus economy for global trade, what happens in Europe happens everywhere. As BAC summarizes: "From June’s levels’ global PMIs were mixed with roughly half (13) of the manufacturing PMIs decreasing over the course of the month. Out of the 23 countries that have reported so far, sixteen of the PMIs indicate that their manufacturing sectors are contracting – indicated by a PMI reading below 50. Europe’s sovereign debt and banking crisis continues to take a toll on the region’s manufacturing sector. Out of the 11 European countries that we reported on today, 10 printed with a PMI below 50. In other words, the majority of the global manufacturing weakness is stemming from Europe."

Oh the exuberance. CRAAPL led the NASDAQ down heavily today as its high-beta ebullience reverted back to 'normal' and the S&P 500 and NASDAQ are closing practically unchanged for the month of July. The Dow Industrials are down 0.4% but the Dow Transports are down 2.65% - near their lows of the month. Financials have been monkey-hammered as today's offer-a-thon dragged them dramatically lower (MS/BAC -13% for the month). A late-day OPEX-inspired activity burst dragged volume up from near year lows and likely inspired the surge lower in VIX into the close (even as stocks went sideways to lower) - but still ended up 0.75vols back above 16%. Treasuries end the week down 2-3bps at the long-end and 4-5bps at the short-end with a decent rally today. The USD is up a modest 0.25% on the week - thanks to notable weakness today in EURUSD (which broke its pattern of reverting today) though dispersion was broad with AUD stronger by 1.5% and EUR weaker by 0.75% on the week. Gold and Silver are practically unchanged on the week, Copper down around 1.5% and WTI up over 5% - but only WTI is up for the month. Cross asset class correlation picked up towards the end of the day as ES caught-down to broad risk asset's less sanguine view of the world. ES ended the week up around 7pts, VIX down around 0.5 vols with financials -2.25% and Energy +3%.

• U.S drought wilts crops as officials pray for rain (Reuters)
• Obama backs aid for drought farmers (FT)
• Greek leaders identify two-thirds of spending cuts (FT)
• Central bankers eyeing whether Libor needs scrapping (Reuters)
• Markets Face a Life Sentence of Hard Libor (WSJ)
• World Bank chief warns no region immune to Europe crisis (Reuters)
• China big four banks' new loans double in early July (Reuters)
• Nokia Loss Widens as Smartphone Sales Slump (WSJ)
• Bundesbank Expected To Buy Australian Dollars In 3Q (WSJ)

There were several numbers one should focus on today's Bank of America earnings release. They were not the Net Income EPS ($0.19 which beat estimates of $0.15), the Income before income taxes of $3.4 billion, nor Revenue net of interest expense ($21.968 which missed expectations of $22.71 billion). Here are the numbers that did matter: Loan Loss Reserve Release $1.9b billion, or 56% of pretax net income, Sales And Trading Revenue exluding DVA plunged by $1.9 billion from Q1 to $3.3 billion (and by $263 million from a year ago), and most importantly, counterparty claims by coutnerparties for Reps and Warranties purposes (remember those? the realization of their size caused the stock to plummet last August) soared from $16.1 billion to $22.7 billion sequentially: the highest it has ever been, even as the company only took a $395 million provision against losses, and the ending Rep and Warranties balance was $16 billion (driven by nearly a doubling in Private repurchase request claims from $4.9 billion to $8.6 billion!), or well below the potential outstanding claims. BAC is now reserve deficient by about $6.7 billion! Considering the company's settlement with Syncora yesterday, and imminent settlement with MBIA this may be a tiny problem.

Last week the S&P erased 6 days of consecutive losses in 30 minutes of trading on the back of news that JPMorgan lost at least 25% of its average annual Net Income in one epic trade, and stands to make far fewer profits in the future, even as the regulators are about to fire a whole lot of traders for mismarking hundreds of billions in CDS. This was somehow considered "good news." This being the "new normal" market, where nothing makes sense, and where EUR repatriation as a result of wholesale asset sales by European banks drives stocks higher, we were not too surprised. Sadly, even in the new normal, things eventually have to get back to normal. And that normal will come as corporate earnings are disclosed over not so much over the next 3 weeks, when 77% of the companies in the S&P report Q2 results, but in the 3rd quarter. Why the third quarter? Simple: as Goldman's David Kostin explains, "consensus now expects year/year EPS growth to accelerate from 0% in 2Q, to 3% in 3Q to 17% in 4Q." Sorry, but this is not going to happen...

Anyone expecting fireworks in today's 30 Year bond auction, and hoping a repeat of yesterday's WTF 10 Year bond auction which saw the High Yield 6 bps inside the When Issued, will be disappointed. Yes, the auction priced at a record low yield of 2.58% (that said, only 40.64% was allotted at the high with a 2.436% low yield), and yes, this was again well through the When Issued 2.594%, but that's about as far as it goes: the Bid to Cover was 2.70, in line with the TTM average 2.64, Primary Dealers were stuck with 43.1% of the auction, below the average take down of just over half, while the key Directs took down 20.1% of the issue, which again was high, but nowhere near yesterday's soaring Direct activity, which led many to speculate that there could either be a collateral squeeze, or a rapid reallocation from the ECB's ZIRP cash into US paper (coupled with even more EURUSD repatriation as BAC has also figured out now, only one year after ZH). Bottom line a snooze, and next we look forward to two weeks from today, when the next trio of 2, 5, 7 year auctions is on deck, which just may send total US debt to $16 trillion.

Anyone who has followed the MBIA vs Bank of America saga knows that the only reason why there has been no settlement so far is due to BAC's relentless stonewalling tactics that seek merely to delay the production of discovery which based on preliminary indications is sufficiently damning to let MBIA prevail in the case, and with that to force settlement that based on our and others' former evaluations, could lead to a doubling in the stock (ignoring the massive short-covering squeeze it would immediately create courtesy of the 15.5% Short Interest of the total float, sending the stock even higher than where fundamentals say it should go). Well, based on a just released transcript of Judge Eileen Bransten motion to compel discovery, the end may be in sight, and may come as soon as July 13, or tomorrow. And what is more important, her displeasure with BofA's relentless stonewalling has come to an end. Will Bank of America have no choice but to settle in the very immediate future? Stay tuned to find out.

It's just a matter of time before Bunds become the target of bond vigilantes unless Germany pulls out of the political fundfest that is runnnig nowhere very fast

Early weakness in Treasuries (rising yields) and an acceleration in WTI prices back over $80 provided the 'contextual' support for an almost perfect 38.2% retracement bounce in S&P 500 e-mini futures today. Key support/resistance at the 1330 level was restested on dismal volume with a late-day surge but average trade size and activity picked up rather notably into the bell and ES cracked back almost 7 points to a 'mysterious' VWAP close. HYG outperformed today (as did VXX - and implicitly VIX which closed around 18% dropping 2 vols) but it appeared medium-term that equities were reverting to HYG's less sanguine view of the last month rather than HYG really leading. Financials were strong performers but all of those gains were at the open with XLF (and JPM which was unable to break VWAP in the afternoon) unch from 930ET and MS/GS/BAC/C all down 0.7% to 1.6% from the open (with a late day give back). Gold, Silver, and Copper are pretty much unchanged from the 4pmET close levels of yesterday while WTI is up over 2% closing back above $80. The long-bond underperformed +7bps on the day but outperformed on the week (as the 7Y and 10Y underperformed on the week) and provided the support for equity's levitation but this seemed as much QE-hope unwind as any implicit weakness. FX markets were dead with slight strength in AUD and EUR and weakness in JPY as USD basically trod water +0.8% on the week.

Nobody on the Buy Side wants to sue JPM, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley et al for securities fraud on the more problematic deals of the past decade.

And I thought the Florida Bar said foreclosure lawyers must report fraud to court...

Earlier today we reported of an instance of fiduciary impropriety so gross and abhorrent - namely the director of insolvent and nationalized Bankia preparing to receive €14 million in severance - that the public outcry was furious and instantaneous. The result: less than 12 hours later Expansion reports that according to Bankia president Jose Ignacio Goirigolzarri, the management of the the firm will waive their pension rights, and the infamous Aurelio Izaquierdo will not get his accrued pension when leaving the firm. Now, if only anyone in America had half the guts to do what it took Spain less than a day to turn around...

Something different today. A dip was bought and kept a little momentum - aided and abetted by some late-afternoon desperation EUR buying correlation-help which dragged the Dow back over the magical 12,500 level. Stocks and high-yield credit bounced nicely today - with the latter dragging the former higher from what we could tell (on the back of reversion to fair-value in the ETF and credit market) - as the rest of risk-assets were generally stable. AAPL rotation (making yet another one of its 9-plus % drops-and-pops) helped drag NASDAQ up while FB dragged the entire social media segment down. Financials, while up as a sector, were ugly in the majors with JPM joining Citi and MS in the red YTD now and BAC back to 4 month lows. Gold was unch and silver down as Oil and Copper jumped (with the former testing $93 at the close). Treasuries were practically unchanged from Friday's close but the long-end rallied the most from its opening levels last night and the 2s10s30s curve was a significant risk-on driver. Stocks were on their own though when we look at Treasuries, the USD, and gold as it appears the credit compression arbs were enough to pull stocks up and AUD and EUR strength into the close was interestingly aggressive - short-squeeze or does someone know something? Heavy and large size volume into the close suggests it was another ramp to provide exits - and credit indices needed to shed some 'cheapness' - though we remember that Europe is due to open in 10 hours. VIX tumbled over 3 vols but remains above 22% with the term-structure fo vol still steep.