Monetization

The world's largest hedge fund is not as sanguine about the hope that remains in the markets today. The firm's founder, Ray Dalio, who has written extensively on the good, bad, and ugly of deleveragings, sounds a rather concerned note in his latest quarterly letter to investors as the "developed world remains mired in the deleveraging phase of the long-term debt cycle" and has spread to the emerging world "through diminished capital flows which have weakened their growth rates and undermined asset prices". Between China, Europe, and the US, which he discusses in detail, he sees the lack of global private sector credit creation leaving the world's economies highly reliant on government support through monetary and fiscal stimulation. The breadth of this slowdown creates a dangerous dynamic because, given the inter-connectedness of economies and capital flows, one country's decline tends to reinforce another's, making a self-reinforcing global decline more likely and a reversal more difficult to produce. After discounting a relatively imminent return to normalcy in early 2011, markets are now pricing in a meaningful deleveraging for an extended period of time, including negative real earnings growth, negative real yields, high defaults and sustained lower levels of commodity prices. Lastly he believes the common-wisdom - that the Germans and the ECB will save the day - is misplaced.

From UBS: "We think that a creditor nation is less at risk of hyperinflation than a debtor nation, as a debtor nation relies not only on the confidence of domestic creditors, but also of foreign creditors. We therefore think that the hyperinflation risk to global investors is largest in the US and the UK. The more the fiscal situation deteriorates and the more central banks debase their currencies, the higher the risk of a loss of confidence in the future purchasing power of money. Indicators to watch in order to determine the risk of hyperinflation therefore pertain to the fiscal situation and monetary policy stance in high-deficit countries. Note that current government deficits and the current size of central bank balance sheets are not sufficient to indicate the sustainability of the fiscal or monetary policy stance and thus, the risk of hyperinflation. The fiscal situation can worsen without affecting the current fiscal deficit, for example when governments assume contingent liabilities of the banking system or when the economic outlook worsens unexpectedly. Similarly, the monetary policy stance can expand without affecting the size of the central bank balance sheet. This happens for example when central banks lower collateral requirements or monetary policy rates, in particular the interest rate paid on reserves deposited with the central bank. A significant deterioration of the fiscal situation or a significant expansion of the monetary policy stance in the large-deficit countries could lead us to increase the probability we assign to the risk of hyperinflation."

Just under two years ago, when we mocked then Morgan Stanley's analyst Jim Caron's call for a surge in long-dated yields on the back of an improvement in the economy (not something more realistic like the Fed losing all control of the TSY curve), we penned "Visualizing The Past Of The Treasury Yield Curve, And Deconstructing The Great Confusion Surrounding Its Future" in which we said that contrary to pervasive expectations of a bull steepener, the treasury curve would continue flattening more and more, until the whole thing would become one big pancake. Today, we have decided to revisit that post: in short - Jim Caron was fired by Morgan Stanley as head of rates following 3 consecutive years of bad calls starting in 2009 (only to be rehired in June as a Portfolio Manager... oops), while our view that sooner or later the 2s30s will be 0 bps is over one third complete.

Can a declining economy offset the impact on inflation of debt creation and its monetization, with the result that inflation falls to zero, thus making the low interest rates on government bonds positive? According to his public statements, zero inflation is not the goal of the Federal Reserve chairman. He believes that some inflation is a spur to economic growth, and he has said that his target is 2% inflation. At current bond prices, that means a continuation of negative interest rates. The latest news completes the picture of banks and central banks manipulating interest rates in order to prop up the prices of bonds and other debt instruments. We have learned that the Fed has been aware of Libor manipulation (and thus apparently supportive of it) since 2008. Thus, the circle of complicity is closed. The motives of the Fed, Bank of England, US and UK banks are aligned, their policies mutually reinforcing and beneficial. The Libor fixing is another indication of this collusion. Unless bond prices can continue to rise as new debt is issued, the era of rigged bond prices might be drawing to an end. It would seem to be only a matter of time before the bond bubble bursts.

Netherlands, that one of four remaining AAA-rated Eurozone countries (by the big 3 rating agencies at least), was just downgraded by Egan Jones. And for good measure, EJ also cut Austria, both to A, outlook negative.

In an extended interview with Bloomberg TV, Nouriel Roubini lives up to his doom-saying reputation and goes where few have as he opines on Lieborgate that: "bankers are greedy and have been for 1000 years" and "nothing is going to change" unless there are criminal sanctions; to which he follows up - briefly silencing the interviewer, "If some people end up in jail, maybe that will teach a lesson to somebody - or somebody will hang in the streets". The professor goes on to note that the EU "summit was a failure" since markets were expecting much more and warns that without full debt mutualization, debt monetization by the ECB, or a quadrupling of the EFSF/ESM 'bazooka'; Italian and Spanish spreads will continue to blow out day after day - leading to a crisis "not in six months but in two weeks". The only entity capable of stopping this is the ECB which needs to do outright unsterilized monetization in unlimited amounts which is 'politically incorrect' to talk about and claimed to be constitutionally illegal. 2013 will be a very difficult year to find shelter as policy-makers ability to kick-the-can runs out of steam as he sees the possibility of a 'Global Perfect Storm' of a euro-zone collapse, a US double-dip, a China & EM hard-landing, and a war in the Middle East. Dr. Doom is back.

"It's impossible to have a political solution to a balance sheet problem" says Paul Brodsky, bond market expert and co-founder of QB Asset Management. The world has simply gotten itself into too much debt. There are creditors that expect to be paid, and debtors that are having an increasingly difficult time making their coupon payments. No amount of political or policy intervention is going to change that reality. (Unless a global "debt jubilee" transpires, which Paul thinks is unlikely). Looking at the global monetary base, Paul sees it dwarfed by the staggering amount of debts that need to be repaid or serviced. The reckless use of leverage has resulted in a chasm between total credit and the money that can service it. So how will this debt overhang be resolved?

Central bank money printing -- and lots of it -- thinks Paul.

Everyone knows that Italy's unelected PM, Mario Monti, is a former Goldman Sachs International 'advisor.' As such, it is only natural that being part of the banking cartel he would do everything in his power to promote an inflationary agenda, one that seeks ECB bond monetization intervention, (another central bank headed by a former Goldmanite of course), perpetuates the status quo, and one that naturally contravenes everything that German citizens have been pushing for in their desire to avoid the risk of another hyperinflationary episode. Especially if, as is well-known, resolving Europe's problems, however briefly, facilitates an Obama re-election campaign because as conventional wisdom is also catching on, should Europe implode before November, Obama's reelection chances plunge accordingly. And yet, even as Goldman's tentacles had spread all over Europe (as seen here), conventional wisdom was that Goldman's influence in Germany was relatively muted.

Wrong.

Europe faces three systemic risks: Sovereign (GRExit vs. GERxit), Liquidity (unsustainable refinance rates and foreign capital outflows), and Banking (insolvency and under-capitalization). All of these can fundamentally be traced back to an era of excessive over-indebtedness, which as Pictet notes, leads to required deflationary policy responses that are incompatible with developed market government targets (of re-election, Keynesian pro-growth fiscal policy, and satisfying financial market's expectations). While LTRO did indeed address liquidity risk in the very short-term, it is now painfully clear (just look at European bank stock prices) that financials are driven by sovereign risk (not so much liquidity risk) at the margin. The following three charts provide a roadmap to Nirvana or Samsara (hell). With the Summit underway, Pictet's path to catastrophe roadmap (tactical and strategic) is critical to comprehend.

Ever since the beginning of the year we have been saying that in order for the Fed to unleash QE, stocks have to drop by 20-30% to give political cover to the Fed (and/or ECB) to engage in another round of wanton currency destruction. Because while on one hand the temptation to boost stocks is so very high in an election year, the threat to one's presidential re-election chances that soaring gas prices late into the summer does, is simply far too big to be ignored. Yet here we are: stocks are just 4% off their 2012 highs, even as bonds are near all time low yields, and mortgages are at their all time lows. As such, even with the latest batch of economic data coming in simply atrocious, the Fed finds itself in a Catch 22 - it wants to help the stock market hoping that in itself will boost the "economy", yet it knows what more QE here will do to the priced of gold and inflation expectations: something which as Hilsenrath himself said yesterday does not compute, as it runs against everything "Economic textbooks" teach. What is more important, is that the market, like a true addict, is oblivious to any of these considerations, and has priced in a massive bout of Quantitative Easing to be announced tomorrow at 2:15 pm. There is one problem though: has the market, by pricing in QE on every down day - the only buying catalyst in the past month have been hopes of more QE - made QE impossible? Observe the following chart from SocGen which shows 6 month forward equity vol. What is obvious is that due to precisely being priced in, QE is now virtually unfeasible, irrelevant of what Goldman and its "FLOW QE" model tell us. As SocGen simply states: "More stress is needed to trigger ample policy response."

Recently, there has been an intense debate in Europe on the TARGET2 system (Trans-European Automated Real-time Gross Settlement Express Transfer System 2), which is the joint gross clearing system of the eurozone the interpretation of this system and its balances has provoked divergent opinions. Some economists, most prominently Hans-Werner Sinn, have argued that TARGET2 amounts to a bailout system. Others have vehemently denied that. Philipp Bagus adresses the question of whether this 'mysterious' system, that we have been so vociferously discussing, simply amounts to an undercover bailout system for unsustainable living standards in the periphery? Concluding by comparing TARGET2, Eurobonds, and the ESM, he notes that all three 'devices' serve as a bailout system and form a tranfer union but governments prefer to hide the losses on taxpayers as long as possible and prefer the ECB to aliment deficits in the meantime.

While everyone else is focusing on the Greek elections, the REAL issues pertaining to the EU (namely where the funding for Spain’s bailout as well as future bailouts will come from) continues to be ignored. Indeed, no one seems to be asking THE key question regarding the EU: Just WHERE is the money for this bailout going to come from?

Same time, same place, One day later. After yesterday the Treasury engaged in nearly contemporaneous monetization in the 10 Year bond courtesy of the Fed, first buying then selling the paper, at a record low yield of course, so minutes ago the Treasury just sold $13 billion in 30 year paper at another fresh record low yield of 2.72%, down from 3.06% in April. Ignore that the Bid To Cover plunged from 2.73 to 2.40, the lowest since November 2011, and that Indirects were barely interested, taking down just 32.5%, it was all about the Directs, whose 24% take down soared, and as in yesterday's case, was one of the Top 5 highest ever. China? or Pimco? We will find out soon. Dealers were left with the balance, or 43.5% the lowest since October 2011. Something tells us that once the Fed extends Twist, or engages in more outright LSAPs, we will be seeing much more of this same day turnaround service as little by little all interest-rate sensitive instruments slowly grind down to zero.

Two months ago, as we were carefully reading the latest Goldman explanation of how the firm had completely missed something Zero Hedge predicted back in January, namely the record warm winter's impact on skewing seasonal adjustments for payroll data (which has since validated our day 1 of 2012 predication that 2012 will be a carbon-copy replica of 2011, and which has made the comedy value of another Goldman masterpiece, that of Jim O'Neill's idiotic "2012: Not a Repeat of 2010 or 2011" soar through the roof) we stumbled upon something we knew was about to get much, much more airplay: Goldman's quiet and out of place admission that what matters for a country's central bank is the flow of its purchases, not the stock (another massive economic misconception we have been trying to debunk since the beginning). Recall these words: "...we have found some evidence that at the very long end of the yield curve, where Operation Twist is concentrated, it may be not just the stock of securities held by the Fed but also the ongoing flow of purchases that matters for yields..." This is how we summarized this observation two months ago (pardon the all caps): "UNLESS THE FED IS ACTIVELY ENGAGING IN MONETIZATION AT EVERY GIVEN MOMENT, THE IMPACT FROM EASING DIMINISHES PROGRESSIVELY, ULTIMATELY APPROACHING ZERO AND SUBSEQUENTLY BECOMING NEGATIVE!"