China

Yesterday, Barclays' Ben Powell of macro sales sent out the following note to clients, which referenced a as of then unconfirmed report in the China Securities Journal: "China putting 1Tr RMB into its banks?? Very positive no? The attached bloomberg story suggests that China may inject >Tr1 Yuan into its banks deposits before the end of the year. This is a meaningful number vs the Tr7.5 RMB that the banks are expected to lend in 2011 as a whole. So what? 2 things. Most obviously this is cheap liquidity to Chinese banks that should see SHIBOR continue to fall and banks shares to rise. And secondly more broadly this would seem to suggest (again) that the rumours of easing are true. This will add fuel to the soft landing argument that I have been pushing. Remain long Chinese banks on very simple easing + bearishness = up thesis." Granted the Barclays spin was to go long China (incidentally just in time for the biggest drop in the Chinese market since October 20), but the real take home here is that China is now actively pumping money to bail out its own banks once again! And not just token money - €158.2 bilion. So how much money will be left to fund the European bailout which is oh so contingent on Chinese generosity? The short answer? Pretty much nothing, as confirmed by the fact that today's €3 billion EFSF deal was underbid and the underwriters were left holding about €500 million of the total issue. As usual, good luck Europe with your multifunctional Swiss EFSF Army knife.

Remember how virtually all "experts" speculated that the drop in the price of gold would set off a liquidation cascade in China, where everyone was "loaded to the gills" and at the first hint of deflation would dump all holdings (not to mention that economic Ph.D. proclaimed the gold "bubble" popped two months and $200 lower)? It seems that as so often happens when all experts agree on something, it is precisely the opposite that happens. The FT reports that "Chinese gold imports from Hong Kong, a proxy for the country’s overall overseas buying, leapt to a record high in September, when monthly purchases matched almost half that for the whole of 2010....After hitting a nominal all-time high of $1,920.30 a troy ounce in early September, the yellow metal fell to a three-month low of $1,534 an ounce later in the month. Chinese investors snapped up the metal as prices fell." Fair enough: this means the natural bid under gold will pretty much always be there, especially since the SHCOMP plunged at the same time, and if there was truly cross asset liquidation, imports would hardly rise. Which begs the question: if not China, then who sold? Was the move purely a function of fears that Paulson was liquidating? Or were rumors that various central banks are liquidating gold, actually true? We will likely find out when the next WGC report is filed. WE will also know that the Chinese number for total gold holdings is grossly underreported.

As China 'threatens/promises' liquidity injections to its banks, Greek politicians argue over premium parking spaces, US brokers/exchanges squabble over the MF capital leftovers, and global liquidity goes from bad to worse - perhaps it is time to take a step back and focus on what really hasn't seemed to matter - the economy. Ray Dalio published his Template For Understanding back in October of 2008 and has recently updated it (as of October 2011). For your Sunday evening reading pleasure - "How the Economic Machine Works and How It Is Reflected Now". Critically, the hedge fund manager provides a framework for considering what he believes are the critical Three Big Forces: trend line productivity growth, the long-term debt cycle, and the business/market cycle.

Once again the desperation level is high as seemingly the core driver of overnight strength was a rumor that China would inject €700 billion in the EFSF, coupled with the even more desperate expectation that in a few short hours Ben will launch the LSAP version of QE: something that is virtually impossibly unless stocks drop to triple digits, and a fact that the market with its constant attempts at Fed frontrunning makes practically impossible. Yet this was good enough to tighten the all critical Italy-Bund spread to 422bps overnight (recall it hit the catastrophic 455 bps yesterday). However some news since then have put a major damper on sentiment, notably another recessionary data point from Europe, where the October Manufacturing PMI printed at 47.1 on expectations of 47.3, and German unemployment posting a rare disappointing miss printing +10K on consensus of -10k. Yet the nail in the coffin for today's European action was that the EFSF, which as we noted already reduced its €5 billion Irish bailout package to €3 billion on subpar market demand, pulled the entire issue citing the trusty old fallback "market conditions" confirming that not only is the latest China bailout rumor a complete fabrication yet again (as explained both here and here). What is more troubling is that the EFSF has set off on its path to raise €1 trillion+ with an epic failure and an inability to raise even €3 billion. That realization has finally spread to the market and not only is the Italy-Bund spread back to morning wides at 438, but, just as disturbing, the French-Bund spread is back to all time wides of 123 bps! That the European interbank liquidity market just collapsed again with ECB deposit facility usage hitting a three week high of €229 billion, coupled with Euribor-OIS spread jumping +6 bps in a week to 0.86% and just off the 3 year highs of 0.89%, is certainly not helping things. Look for more mayhem out of Europe as the G-20 meeting slowly unwinds over the next day, and the complete lack of organization in Europe is exposed for all to see all over again.

China Manufacturing PMI prints at 50.4, down from 51.2, when consensus was expecting an increase to 51.8. This is the lowest print in 32 months, and the lowest since February 2009. But wait, before concluding that this is very bad news, uh, ahem... well, sorry, we haven't taken the CNBC spin school yet. It's bad news and the hard landing is coming. We leave the spin to the professionals. Oh wait, yes, China will go ahead and ease immediately if not sooner. Because the PBoC has surely completely forgotten how much fun it was to see pork prices rise by triple digits year over year, and because it knows all too well that no matter what it does the Fed will never, ever print, and thus export metric tons of inflation straight across the Pacific. How's that for spin?

With tonight's multi-year record CNY fixing and trillions being flushed at maintaining an arbitrary JPY line in the sand, it seems appropriate to re-consider how to hedge a China hard landing and what probabilities various asset classes are assigning to it occurring. While many are pointing to what seems an entirely capricious level of 79.20 JPY to the USD as the 'new normal' being defended, we were curious at the strange coincidence that the CNYJPY cross implied by tonight's CNY fixing and the 79.2 JPY was exactly the average CNYJPY level during the QE2 period. It seems the Japanese are hedging their tail-risk against the Chinese and a recent note by Morgan Stanley points to how various asset class traders might consider hedging their own version of a hard-landing scenario and notably they agree with us that China sovereign CDS remains among the 'best' hedge.

A few days ago China telegraphed it refuses to continue to be seen as the world's rescuer and the dumbest money in the room. Many assumed China was only kidding: after all how would China let its biggest export partner flounder? And furthermore, all China does is provide vendor financing, right? Well, as it turns out, wrong, because to China the current state of Europe is far from the terminal crisis Europe is trying to make it appear. This is happening even as a thoroughly desperate and grovelling Europe, kneepads armed and ready, has said via the EFSF's Regling that it will even consider issuing Yuan-denominated bonds. Alas, China is less than impressed. As AFP reports, "China’s state media Sunday warned that the country will not be a “savior” to Europe, as President Hu Jintao left for an official visit to the region including a G20 summit. Hu’s visit has raised hopes that cash-rich China might make a firm commitment to the European bailout fund, but in a commentary, the official Xinhua news agency said Europe must address its own financial woes. “China can neither take up the role as a savior to the Europeans, nor provide a ‘cure’ for the European malaise. “Obviously, it is up to the European countries themselves to tackle their financial problems,” it said, adding that China could only do so “within its capacity to help as a friend." A friend, who at this point is quite sensible, and realizes far better deals are to be had down the line if one merely waits. That said, we are certain China is not the only one out there with an instant notification pending the second Santorini, Ibiza or the Isle of Capri hits E-bay.

Back in September we noted that "Wen Jiabao Says China Willing To Extend Help To Europe... For A Price" the price in question being that, among other things, the EU should recognize China's market economy status, and to split Europe with the US on the topic of Chinese currency manipulation. Naturally, being the biggest import partner for China's goods, the topic of providing vendor financing to Europe has always been a critical one. Well, as was made clear overnight a key part of the European rescue effort is to get China on the same page, and to have it allocate capital to the EFSF. As the FT reports this may have happened, although with more or less the same conditions that China delineated 6 weeks ago. Only this time China has all the leverage. According to the FT: "China is very likely to contribute to the eurozone’s bail-out fund but the scope of its involvement will depend on European leaders satisfying some key conditions, two senior advisers to the Chinese government have told the Financial Times." So what are the conditions: "Any Chinese support would depend on contributions from other countries and Beijing must be given strong guarantees on the safety of its investment, according to Li Daokui, an academic member of China’s central bank monetary policy committee, and Yu Yongding, a former member of that committee." Obviously, Europe will promise the latter. As for the former it could be a tad problematic because as observed previously Brazil has voiced against rescuing Europe in the form of non-IMF participation. But there are more conditions: "It is in China’s long-term and intrinsic interest to help Europe because they are our biggest trading partner but the chief concern of the Chinese government is how to explain this decision to our own people,” said Professor Li. “The last thing China wants is to throw away the country’s wealth and be seen as just a source of dumb money.” Alas, that is precisely how the entire world sees China. As for the final condition: "He added that Beijing might also ask European leaders to refrain from criticising China’s currency policy, a frequent source of tension with trade partners." And this is how you declare political check mate and shut up all voices that threaten to protest against mercantilist policies. And since it is only a matter of time before China will have to rescue the US, we hope Senate enjoys the time remaining in which it can debate whether or not China manipulates the CNY. That time is about to end.

It has been long in coming but finally the credit market is noticeably refocusing its attention to the two countries that are supposed to carry the burden of bailing out the world on their shoulders: Germany, and, that perpetual placeholder for global rescues, China. As noted yesterday, while following today's anticipated ISDA decision to effectively make price discovery in CDS null and void, and in the process also put the whole premise of sovereign debt insurance into doubt, CDS still provides a very useful metric courtesy of the DTCC, namely open interest, or said otherwise, gross and net notional outstanding in the CDS. And while we will reserve the observation that not only did ISDA kill sovereign CDS, but in the process it also ended bilateral netting effectively pushing up net CDS to the level of gross, we will highlight that as of the last week, net notional in both German and China CDS has hit a record, of $19.6 billion and $9.3 billion, respectively. This is occuring as notionals in the two most active countries to date, France and Italy, have been declining. In essence, what the CDS market is telling us is that while the easy money in French and Italian default risk has been made, it is now finally the turn of China and Germany to defend their credit risk and sovereign spreads. We expect that if China is indeed confirmed to be the backstopper of Europe through funding the EFSF in whole or in part, that while its CDS may or may not surge, net notionals will continue to increase as it means that ever more are laying insurance, as hobbled as it may be, on the country which recently was forced to bail out its own banking system, let alone Europe. Keep a close eye on China, which while the bulk of the market is taking for granted as the global rescuer of last resort with hard money, the smart money is already positioning itself for the next big disappointment.

Stunned. That probably best describes the mood of China's vast pool of property owners. For the last few years, anyone with as much as a taxi driver's salary has been speculating in the real estate market, scooping up off-plan properties at terms that would make a Countrywide mortgage broker blush. And why not? Chinese culture has almost universally adopted the attitude that property prices never go down. Minor fluctuations and corrections over the last several months have been written off as statistical error. Well, reality has now uncomfortably set in. Recent reports from the National Bureau of Statistics show that home prices have fallen up to 50% in many parts of the country in the period from July to September. But who gives a damn about government reports? The real evidence is on the ground. Here in Shanghai, nearly 300 angry customers stormed a sales office of Longfor Properties Co Ltd after finding out that the developer had slashed prices on one of its projects by nearly 25%... practically overnight.

A relatively subdued overnight session which has seen the futures spike only modestly from their lows, on yet another forced squeeze in the EURUSD which hit a high of 1.3960 after hitting a low of 1.3877 around 3am Eastern, has seen a rumor of a Chinese Reserve Ratio cut as one of the main drivers of action, which has also pushed gold to over $1660 and silver to $32. If validated, and if China is indeed welcoming inflation with open arms, counterintuitively following the completely irrelevant PMI beat, look for these two to resume their antigravitational glidepath. As for other key developments watched by the market, here is a succinct overview from Bloomberg.

Two weeks ago, Marc Faber provoked the fury of a broad segment of the population by daring to tell America that it is lazy, needs to work more, and is overly-reliant on a welfare government which is an eager parasite of the welfare system cocoon in which it has wrapped the majority of the population knowing full well it can get away with anything due to threats it can pull the (otherwise insolvent) social safety net at any given moment if the status quo is threatened. Needless to say, European readers were delighted and amused by Faber's statements. We wonder, then, what the US (and correspondingly, European) response will be to the news that last week it was the turn of Jin Liqun, chairman of the China Investment Corporation (CIC), the sovereign wealth fund all too often (by the overeager European media) tasked with bailing out, to channel Faber: "Europe is not really short of money. Europe needs to give a clear picture to the Europeans themselves and to the rest of the world that their problems could be worked out. The root cause of the trouble is the over-burdened welfare system, built up since the Second World War in Europe - the sloth-inducing, indolence-inducing labour laws. People need to work a bit harder, they need to work a bit longer, and they should be more innovative. We (the Chinese) work like crazy." Translation: China is finally announcing that it is unhappy with the work output of its debt slaves. And since China, courtesy of its trade surplus or something, will sooner or later also have to apply the same bailout hypermathematics which indicate that despite having to bail out its own banking system it can bail out the world, expect comparable announcements about its latest shipment of debt slaves situated conveniently between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

It's one thing for China to have a rather embarrassing episode during a boat launch, or even when demonstrating the pride of its airforce. But when a part of the Great Wall Of China itself collapses, literally, you know the proponents of the Chinese Soft-Landing scenario (leaving aside that copper is now down 10% for the week) may want to reassess their thesis. From China Daily, "The damaged portion of the Great Wall is located in a remote area near the county of Laiyuan in Hebei Province, about 200 kilometers southwest of Beijing. The area is home to a dozen small mines, with some operating as close as 100 meters to the centuries-old wall. Villagers and local cultural heritage protection officials told Xinhua that about 700 meters of the wall, which was built during the reign of Emperor Wanli during the Ming Dynasty (1573-1620), had already collapsed, and more walls and even towers are likely to collapse if the mining continues unchecked." And while this is admittedly a symbolic development, we follow up this news with a piece from SocGen's Albert Edwards who has some quite factual observations on why China is now in stall speed and has little hope of a Hollywood ending.

Hong Kong, the world's third-largest gold trading centre, has become the world's first place to offer gold trading in yuan, further positioning the yuan or renminbi as a potential global reserve currency. Hong Kong’s Chinese Gold & Silver Exchange Society, a century old bullion bourse, has introduced gold trading quoted in Chinese yuan, making it more convenient for Chinese people and high net worth individuals (HNWs) holding yuan to invest in the precious metal and opening a new way to hedge. The move comes amid the continuing push by Chinese authorities for a more international role for its currency and as an alternate reserve currency to the embattled dollar and euro. With gold now traded in yuan, it is only a matter of time before oil is traded in yuan thereby positioning the yuan as ‘petro yuan’ and a rival to the petrodollar’s status as the global reserve currency. The move reinforces Hong Kong’s status as an offshore hub for the Chinese currency and as a rival to New York, London and other cities as a global financial capital. The Chinese Gold & Silver Exchange said that the service, dubbed "Renminbi Kilobar Gold," is targeting retail and institutional investors. The product is among the latest offerings designed to tap the fast-growing pool of yuan deposits within Hong Kong banking system. "By attracting both local and international investors, the Renminbi Kilobar Gold is a significant step towards internationalizing the renminbi," said Haywood Cheung, president of CGSE.

We all know that China has the biggest skyscrapers, the fastest growing economy, and the emptiest cities in the world. We also know that there is no such thing as a free lunch. And with every economic success story, no matter how engineered, manipulated, or contrived, comes a human cost. The 2009 documentary by Lixin Fan, "The Last Train Home", is just one such attempt to capture the "human element" behind the glitzy headlines and the 9% GDP growth. The quite synopsis: "Every spring, China's cities are plunged into chaos as 130 million migrant workers travel back to their home villages for the New Year's holiday. This mass exodus is the world's largest human migration, an epic spectacle that exposes a nation tragically caught between its rural past and industrial future. Working over several years in classic cinéma vérité style, director Lixin Fan traveled with one couple who have embarked on this annual trek for almost two decades. Like many of China's rural poor, the Zhangs have left their native village of Huilong in Sichuan province and their newborn daughter to find work in Guangzhou in a garment factory for 16 years and see her only once a year during the Spring Festival. Their daughter Qin, now a restless and rebellious teenager- bitterly resents her parents' absence and longs for her own freedom away from school and her rural hometown, much to the dismay of her parents. She eventually leaves school, against the wishes of her parents, to work in the city. Emotionally charged and starkly beautiful, Last Train Home examines one fractured family to shed light on the human cost of China's ascendance as an economic superpower." We bring the documentary in 6 parts to our readers in hopes of a greater understanding of the dynamics behind the world's biggest economic dynamo.