BIS

After reading this memo from the Central Bank of Cyprus sent to bank CEOs on February 11, arguably to put them at ease, all we can say is "Oooops"...

When Cyprus put its banks into lockdown last weekend until... well indefinitely, now that capital controls are established, the main reason was to halt all capital outflows from the henceforth liquidity starved island whose banks will only exist as long as the ECB provides an ever greater dose of liquidity to account for the collapse in deposit funding. Which is why it is surprising, make that shocking, that as Germany FAZ reports, in the past week there has been a surge in cash outflows from Cyprus, even as its financial system has been supposedly ringfenced from the world, which by the way is the only thing preventing the EUR17 billion bailout from soaring by orders of magnitude because should a liquidity leak be discovered, it is all over for the country's financial system.

There exists a super-Bernanke who proved also a super-Hollande, a gentleman who Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe cannot compete with: his name is Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe. When he took power, he seized the farmlands of one social group to give them to another social group. Afterwards, in part because the new social group did not manage the farms that well, the economy took a turn for the worse. Therefore, the state issued some bonds to finance its spending and asked the central bank to issue some money to buy this government debt. But they printed big time and turned the printing press into something of a cosmic proportion. According to Professor Steve Hanke from John Hopkins, monthly inflation was 80 billion percent, so per year it is a 65 followed by 107 zeros. This is what we call Mugabenomics, the conjunction of (i) state-forced wealth transfer between two social groups along with (ii) the monetisation of the debt. As we shall see below, Mugabenomics, or at least its mild version implemented now in the Western hemisphere, has drastic consequences on the final episode of the global financial crisis.

Pardon this brief tangent from the hypnotic, sclerotic, quixotic, Cypriotic situation which will get no resolution today, or tomorrow, and may at best be resolved on Sunday night following yet another coordinated global bailout, (although our money is on a last, last minute resolution some time on Monday when Cyprus is closed but the European markets are widely open), but as it highlights a key follow up to our article from two days ago, "Dr. Copper's Deja Vu" it is worth being aware of a rather particular problem in Asia right now. A rather well-known problem for those who have tracked the warehousing woes of assorted industrial medals in China as an indication of the true state of the Chinese economy: as of right now, the stocks of copper in Asia (as determined by deliverable LME CLS and Shanghai copper) are at an all time high and up 90% from the previous three year average.

"Markets believe that we will find a solution and that we will provide more money and this might not be the case."

Those wondering why the overnight ramp has not yet materialized despite promises from BOJ's new governor Kuroda to openly-endedly monetize Fukushima radiation if necessary in order to reflate the economy, will have to look at Europe where a raft of horrifying PMIs confirms what most have known: the relapse into a multi-dip European recession is progressing nicely, and the hoped for rebound in the core economies of France and Germany is once again on track to not happen, but at least there will be Cyprus to blame it all on this time. The specific reason this time was French and German Flash Manufacturing and Services PMI for March, all of which came far below expectations: German Mfg PMIs printed at a contracting 48.9 vs Exp. 50.5 (back from 50.3), while Services came at 51.6, down from 54.6 on expectations of a rise to 55.0, while French Mfg PMI stayed stubbornly flat at 43.9, despite hopes of a "bounce" to 44.3, even as the Service number ticked even lower from 43.7 to 41.9, below expectations of 44.3 and the lowest since February 2009. End result: Eurozone March Services PMI down from 47.9 to 46.5, vs Exp. of 48.2, while Manufacturing slid from 47.9 to 46.6 on hopes and prayers of a bounce to 48.2. Which then takes us back to Cyprus, where things are not fixed yet, where the parliament is not expected to vote for a revised Bailout proposal yet, and where we got a cornucopia of brilliant one liners, such as these from the new Eurogroup head, who is filling in the shoes of his predecessor Juncker in style, and proving quite well that "things are serious."

Stocks bounced off yesterday's lows on the "no" vote from Cyprus led by a miraculously visible hand smashing EURUSD (and implicitly EURJPY) higher instantaneously (BIS or banks repatriating in a hurry). That faded after S&P 500 futures touched VWAP and major volume was dumped but stocks, after an ebullient morning reaching into the green from Friday, fell back once more, only to exhibit the low-volume liftathon on ECB 'no news' to green into the close (for the Dow). Treasuries practically ignored the hyped up pump in the last hour and ended at their lows yields of the week (down 10-13bps) - 3-week lows. VIX surged on the day but drifted back a little into the ramp ending at 14.5% +1vol. FX markets reverted like stocks in the afternoon but the main theme is EUR weakness and JPY strength (carry-off) and despite the USD strength, gold pushed higher to $1612. The S&P and Nasdaq ended the day red (at VWAP) while the magic of the Dow closed it green - once again hedging dominated actual selling for now.

Despite around $135 million in bailouts, the UK government's Insolvency Service disputes its own insolvency. The FT reports that one British MP summed it up - "it is fair to say that if this was a company it would be in deep trouble." The group, which polices bankrupt companies, liquidates failed businesses and disqualifies unfit directors, would be bankrupt were it not for the government's cash injection. Dependent on fees and recoveries from bankrupt companies, the agency over-estimated its ability to recover assets from collapsed businesses. It dismisses the insolvency claims against itself however, noting the service is "living within its means" and expects to be deficit-free by 2015 (though it is unclear how unless they expect recoveries to rise dramatically or bankruptcies to increase significantly) as it is forced to provide services even when there is no prospect of recovering fees from bankrupt people or companies. Their rate of prosecution has dropped from 40% to 21% and even the creditor community has lost faith arguing that the agency's model was "unreliable in the current economic climate" and required urgent reform.

The markets have begun to wonder whether the Fed (and other central banks) will ever be able to exit from its Quantitative Easing policy. We believe there is only one reasonable exit the Fed can take. Rather than sell its portfolio of bonds or allow them to mature naturally, we believe the Fed’s only practical exit will be to increase the size of all other balance sheets in relation to its own. This “exit” will be part of a larger three-part strategy for resetting the over-leveraged global economy, already underway...

Speculation, derivatives, and the price of food in poor countries

That precious metals are not the best friends of central banks, whose sole provenance is in creating, and lately massively diluting, faith-based fiat currency is no secret, especially not after the recent snafu involving the Bundesbank and its shocking gold repatriation announcement which came in direct refutation of its public statements just 2 months earlier about faith in the NY Fed this, and bashing of a "phantom debate" on the safety of gold reserves that. Yet it was not gold gold, silver or even tungsten that was the object of derision in an amusing paper released by the ECB in early November titled "Virtual Currency Schemes", which we profiled at the time, but rather the decentralized electronic currency BitCoin, which was supposed to highlight what, in the eyes of the Draghi-led Frankfurt institutions, is nothing but a Ponzi scheme. Why the ECB suddenly felt threatened so much by Bitcoin, it felt an imperative to issue a 55 page paper decrying such electronic currencies we will never know. What we do know, however, courtesy of a reminder by Bloomberg's Max Raskin, is that since the publication of said paper, the value of Bitcoin as tracked by the Mtgox exchange, has soared some 40% in just under three months, from a "fiat equivalent value" of $13 to a most recent closing price of $18.50, and has doubled in the past 12 months alone.

While the main topic of conversation overnight was the Apple implosion after earnings (which was mercifully spared inbound calls from repo desk margin clerks who had all gone home by the time the stock hit $460), there was some macro data to muddle up the picture, which, like everything else in this baffle with BS new normal came in "good/bad cop" pairs. In early trading, all eyes were focused on Japan, whose trade and especially exports imploded when the country posted a record trade gap of 6.93 trillion yen ($78.27 billion) in 2012 and the seventh consecutive monthly drop in exports which showed that improved sentiment has yet to translate into hard economic data. Finance ministry data on Thursday showed that exports fell 5.8 percent in the year to December, more than economists' consensus forecast of a 4.2 percent drop. Trade with China was hit particularly hard following the ongoing island fiasco, which means that all the ongoing Yen destruction has largely been for nothing as organic growth markets simply shut off Japan. This ugly news was marginally offset by a tiny beat in the HSBC China manufacturing PMI which came slighly above consensus at 51.9 vs exp. 51.7, the highest print in 24 months, but as with everything else coming out of China one really shouldn't believe this or any other number in a country that will not allow even one corporate default to prevent the credit-driven illusion from popping.

Three weeks ago it became clear that in its fight to curb consumer thirst for gold products, India, whose population is the largest single source of gold consumer demand (at least for now, soon to be replaced with China) is losing said fight, after its finance minister made it very clear that "demand for gold must be moderated" leading to a hike in import taxes to 4%. Needless to say, there is no more certain way to increase demand for a given commodity (or gun, ahem US government) than to hint that the government will make its procurement problematic. Sure enough India blamed its record current account deficit on precisely this: the soaring imports of gold as locals revert to a currency far more appreciated and respected than paper, a topic further explained when we showed the exponential surge in gold-backed loans outstanding in India. Indeed, at least in this country, there is one safe and abundant collateral product which, contrary to the US, is as good as money - gold - whose consumer demand in just India and China is shown in the chart below. Combined India and China consumer amount to some 35% of total gold demand, and 55% for just jewelry. And while we have tracked the relentless gold gross import surge into China, we have not done the same with India, because we assumed these were implied. It is precisely the importing of gold that India is once again doing its best to curb, this time by boosting import duties on gold dore bars by a 150% from 2% to 5%, a day after it once again hiked gold import taxes, this time by 50% from 4% to 6%.

• Obama's Gun Curbs Face a Slog in Congress (BBG)
• Euro Area Seen Stalling as Draghi’s Pessimism Shared (BBG)
• China Begins to Lose Edge as World's Factory Floor (WSJ)
• EU Car Sales Slump (WSJ)
• Fed Concerned About Overheated Markets Amid Record Bond-Buying (BBG)
• Australia Posts Worst Back-to-Back Job Growth Since ’97 (BBG)
• Abe Currency Policy Stokes Gaffe Risk as Amari Roils Yen (BBG)
• Japan Opposition Party Won’t Back BOJ Officials for Governor (BBG)
• Fed Reports Point to Subdued Economic Growth (WSJ)
• China Set to Exit Slowdown by Boosting Infrastructure (BBG)
• Greece not out of woods, must stick to reforms: finance minister (Reuters)
• Russian Rate Debate Flares Up as Cabinet Seeks Growth (BBG)

Previously, in our first two editions of FleeceBook, we focused on "public servants" working for either the Bank of International Settlements, or the Bank of England (doing all they can to generate returns for private shareholders, especially those of financial firms). Today, for a change, we shift to the private sector, and specifically a bank situated at the nexus of public and private finance: JP Morgan, which courtesy of its monopolist position at the apex of the Shadow Banking's critical Tri-Party Repo system (consisting of The New York Fed, The Bank of New York, and JP Morgan, of course) has an unparalleled reach (and domination - much to Lehman Brother's humiliation) into not only traditional bank funding conduits, but "shadow" as well. And of all this bank's employees, by far the most interesting, unassuming and "underappreciated" is neither its CEO Jamie Dimon, nor the head of JPM's global commodities group (and individual responsible for conceiving of the Credit Default Swap product) Blythe Masters, but one Matt Zames.