CDS

With Bank of America investors finally realizing it is game over for the company as a going concern, at this point there are just two options for Brian Moynihan: the spin off of CFC as a bad bank, backstopped by the Fed, or, well, Chapter 11, which for a bank is essentially liquidation (and with CDS trading up 50 bps to 260 a bankruptcy seems increasingly inevitable). It also means that another TARP is on the way. And once America realizes that another several trillion have to be put into its insolvent banking sector, it will get quite violent. The biggest irony: it is AIG which takes down the financial system for the second time after its lawsuit against BAC filed last night kills Bank of America.

After a brief intermission in which even the robots apparently took some long overdue shut-visual sensor, things are back in motion, with both French and Italian CDS pushing out to record wides, France hitting 150, 7 bps wider, while Italy rising 15 bps to over 405 bps at last check. And what is more disturbing for all those who keep pounding the table that Spain should blow up first dammit so stop looking at Italy, Italian 10 Year yields just surpassed those of Spain, for the first time since April 2010. Elsewhere, as Bloomberg reports, the Yen has resumed its rally as the BOJ, has ceased its intervention after spending over Y4 trillion according to some accounts, only to realize what we said from the beginning: the yentervention will fail. "Both BOJ and SNB have made clear they oppose further currency appreciation but absence of other safe-haven alternatives means the yen and swiss franc will remain in demand", Lutz Karpowitz, strategist at Comerzbank, writes in note. And some more observations courtesy of Bloomberg: "Confidence is waning over EU policymakers’ ability to contain debt crisis, Derek Halpenny, strategist at BOTM-UFJ writes in note. These will make it all the more difficult for BOJ to find intervention success in yen. Without further BOJ intervention, intensifying risk aversion will result in further yen gains, Halpenny adds." What is ironic is that the Italian stock market is rebounding rapidly from overnight lows of -3.and 5%, is now green courtesy primarily due to alleged additional ECB bond purchases of Italian bonds, which rumor has in turn stabilized Italian financial stocks which are, as expected, soaring. We are confident this response will be as transitory as all other central bank interventions.

When we last looked at the Bank of America joke of a "non-settlement" settlement for a paltry $8.5 billion when $424 billion in total misrepresented (530 in total) Countrywide mortgage trusts were at stake, we said, "we are confident that the legal process will prevail and that the presiding judge on this case, and if not him then certainly the New York District Attorney, will step up and demand a thorough reevaluation of the settlement process." We were, oddly enough, correct. According to a just released filing from the New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Bank of America (and Bank of New York Mellon, one of the tri-party repo banks mind you), violated New York state law and "misled investors." In a knock out punch to Bank of America (and Brian Lin who was profiled here previously), the  bank allegedly violated the New York’s Martin Act and misled investors about its conduct tied to mortgage securitization as Bloomberg summarizes. Schneiderman said he has "potential claims" against Bank of America Corp. and its Countrywide Financial unit. As Zero Hedge alleged all along, "The proposed cash payment is far less than the massive losses investors have faced and will continue to face." What does that mean? Well, as the countersuit by the FHLB indicated (which we are certain will be the basis for the NY AG claims), the likely final settlement is probably going to be about $22 to $27.5 billion. Which also means that the bank's Tier 1  capital is about to be discounted by about 25% lower. Which, lastly, means that the stock is about to plunge due to a massive litigation reserve shortfall which will have to be plugged with, surprise, a new equity capital raise. Which brings us to our original question: got CDS (which closed around 200 bps today, roughly 25 bps wider - it is going much wider tomorrow, especially if the expected Sarkozy-Merkel-Zapatero meeting achieves absolutely nothing)? Cause this baby is going down...and it is probably about to be broken up into good BAC and bad bank, consisting almost entirely of all legacy Countrywide operations. Said otherwise, it could well be time for a CFC-BAC CDS pair trade.

Despite Congress passing the debt ceiling hike, the market's reaction has been swift, brutal and vicious as ever more attention is being paid to Italy and the unforgiving European crisis. As both Spanish and Italian spreads hit new all time records, while CDS are at all time wides for the two countries plus France, the vigilantes are once again preparing to attack and test the ECB's resolve to keep the Euro alive: at this point it is obviously a losing game although expanding the EFSFS to $2 trillion is inevitable (at which point the reaction to German spreads will be swift). In the meantime the scramble for safety is at 2011 highs, with gold on the verge of another record, while the 10 Year US Treasury touching a low of 2.685%, and UK Gilts touching record lows: remember - this is all to make QE3 more palatable when it does begin. Lastly, Bloomberg's TJ Marta summarizes all the market indicators of a day in which sentiment has truly crumbled and in which we expect Italian bank stocks to be halted at least 3 times before market close.

When one things of Europe's default contagion, one traditionally thinks of the Club Ded countries along the Mediterranean. It may be time to change that after Denmark's CDS has surged by nearly 20% overnight, from 74 to 88, and by over a third since June 7, making it the worst performing government in the past month. The reason for this is that the country, which unlike other European nations, has allowed its insolvent banks to actually fail without masking their poor state. This in turn prompted S&P to come out with a report yesterday that as many as 15 more banks could default. In its report, S&P said that "In our base-case assumption, we estimate the gross loss due to additional bank failures to be Danish krona (DKK) 6 billion-DKK12 billion over a given three-year period. If the losses are larger than we expect, we would have to reassess our ratings on individual Danish banks, based on the impact of the fallout on each. Eleven banks have failed in Denmark since 2008. Although the banks were small by international standards, it is nevertheless an unusually high number for a developed market where bank defaults are generally rare events and extraordinary government support mostly averts losses to senior creditors. While the Danish regulatory authorities accept the concept of systemically important institutions, they have so far given no formal indication of which institutions fall under this definition. In our opinion, the banks we rate would be considered systemically important and therefore may receive extraordinary government support, beyond that defined in the country's established bank resolution scheme." So according to the rating agency any country that dares to avoid the Paulson-Summers TBTF doctrine is in prompt need of annihilation if we read this right. Either way, this latest black swan means that the crisis is creeping ever closer to German, which now has to fund two insolvency fronts: a southern and a north one. And when S&P finally puts France on downgrade review, the time to panic will have come and gone.

ISDA is getting nervous, or rather the same contingent of clueless "asset managers" who listen to ISDA as religiously as they listen to the rating agencies, is getting nervous. The boilerplate: "The following are responses to the most frequently-asked questions that ISDA has received in connection with a potential CDS Credit Event on US sovereign debt. The following does not constitute legal advice, and is subject in all respects to any determination that the ISDA Americas Credit Derivatives Determinations Committee may make in relation to CDS referencing the United States.  ISDA makes no comment on the likelihood of the events described in this Q&A." True - for the likelihood of any event happening, your best bet is to ask Turbo Tax Tim, and then multiply the answer by -1.

Gold is trading at USD 1,620.40, EUR 1,120.50 and GBP 989.08 and CHF 1,298.50 per ounce. Both the dollar and the euro are under pressure again today and gold has reached another new record nominal high of $1,625.70/oz in early European trading. Economists in the U.S. believe that the U.S. will lose its vanguard AAA credit rating according to a recent poll conducted by Reuters. A survey of 53 economists showed 30 believed that one of the three leading credit rating agencies will downgrade US debt. The economists do not believe that the U.S. will default. A downgrading of the U.S. is inevitable given its very poor fiscal position – the question is by how much the U.S. is downgraded and AA looks possible in the coming months. The widening in U.S. CDS has so far been modest but the bond vigilantes may be awakening from their slumber as net notional CDS on US debt has risen above that of Greece and Italy. They either believe that the U.S. government will default on its debt or are taking out insurance against of this happening. Investors internationally -- including everyone from individual consumers in their pension funds, to hedge funds, to the Chinese government -- currently hold $9.3 trillion (with a T!) in Treasury bonds, and they're counting on Uncle Sam paying up when those contracts mature. The U.S. government will have a three-business-day grace period to make good on any default before credit default swaps are triggered, the International Swaps and Derivatives Association said Tuesday.

ISDA is rapidly deteriorating to rating agency status when it comes to credibility. After it made it all too clear in the past few weeks that no matter what happens it would never "determine" Greece (or any other European insolvent country) to have breached a CDS trigger (as that would apparently destroy the world), the same trade association (logically enough comprised of the same firms that make up the heart of the status quo) has joined the rating agencies, and as of last night the CME, in making it all too clear that a debt ceiling plan (preferably Reid's because it achieves absolutely nothing) has to pass, or else, after it earlier announced that the US has precisely 3 days to cure any missed debt payment before US CDS are triggered. Obviously this can not be allowed to happen, so expect this latest development to be used by the president in his nighlty scaremongering session.

Yesterday was a big day in the market for EFSF and Sovereign CDS. The announcements were big enough that some junior associates must be scrambling to update their pitchbooks. Here are my thoughts on what changes need to be done to the pitchbooks and the trading ideas that come as a result.

Earlier today, Fitch announced it would be the first rating agency to declare Greece has defaulted, albeit on an interim basis. According to Reuters, Fitch Ratings will declare Greece in restricted default on its debt due to the steps taken in a new euro zone rescue package but will likely assign new ratings of a low speculative grade once a bond exchange is completed, the agency said on Friday. The agency said that the reduction in interest rates Greece is paying on its debts and extension of maturities gave it a chance of regaining solvency and would support its rating. "Fitch will assign new post-default ratings to Greece and to the new debt instruments once the default event is cured with the issue of new securities to participating bondholders," the agency said. "The new ratings will likely be low speculative-grade." Elsewhere, confirming that now that Greece is an explicit ward of the EFSF, read Germany and France its rating do not matter, Greek CDS tumbled the most ever, tightening by 500 bps to 1,500 in hours. However, since Greece now exists in a state of limbo when it comes to capital markets and since without the explicit support of the EFSF the country would be insolvent, there is little sense to look at its "risk" through the lens of fixed income any more. Lastly, as the following selection of analyst commentary indicates, there is nothing about this "solution" that is actually beneficial in the long run.

While the CDS market for various insolvent European names whose credit default swaps are trading 10 or more points upfront has become more or less nothing but noise, and the only true way to hedge risk exposure, courtesy of ISDA's advance warning that no matter what a CDS will never be triggered, is to sell cash bonds, the market for default risk is quite active for those names which still trade in a reasonable range: such as between 50 bps and 200 bps. And while the Bloomberg chart below demonstrates on an absolute basis the US is due for a two notch downgrade by S&P based on the recently observed spike in US default risk, it is DTCC data that is more troubling. As most revel in the latest nonsensical Group of 6 plan, the bond vigilantes are already quietly setting the trap.

Many associate exploding CDS as a feature of backward third world countries, or, as they are better known these days, PIIGS. It may thus come as a surprise to most that the default risk of not only the US, which we reported had recently hid a multi year high, but especially Germany and the UK have surged by well over 50% in the past month. In fact, Germany, by most objective evaluations, an economy that is far more resilient and productive than America's, has in the past 3 days seen its CDS surge to a level 10 basis points wide of the US. And if not the actual economy, what then? Why such monstrosities as Deutsche Bank and Commerzbank, which as reported previously have caused many to doubt are as viable as the stress tests represents, and whose combined asset bases are well over the total GDP of Germany. As the for the UK, after trading at around 55 bps for months, the spread has jumped to nearly 80 bps. So as Sigma X indicated earlier that it may now be time to shift attention to the UK, have the vigilantes already succeeded in penetrating all the way to the very core of the Eurozone? Or, courtesy of ISDA's criminal abdication of its responsibilities by pre-determining that no development in the future of Greece would be an event of default, perhaps the only natural response now is to buy protection on those names which have not blown out to ridiculous (read 600 bps or wider) spreads. Which, however, is very bad news for the Eurozone core, as going forward investors will simply hedge peripheral cash risk with core synthetic: a process which will result in the eventual wipe out of both instruments. But that's precisely what happens when the CDS administrator and "regulator" decides to play ball with the central planners instead of the siding with market participants: unintended escalating consequences galore.

Much hollow rhetoric has been uttered about the vast existential threat presented by Greek CDS. As we have reported, Greek CDS is the least of Europe's problems. When it comes to the stability of the European dominoes, it is and has always been about Italy, which is not only the second worst country in Europe after Greece on a debt/GDP basis, and also the country with the largest amount of nominal debt, but more importantly has the largest amount of net CDS outstanding. All this is summarized on the Bloomberg chart below.

Three days ago, and 30 basis point tighter, we said Assecurazioni Generali "one of Italy's largest insurers, is a highly levered windsock for Italian and other PIIGS stress, and better yet, can be played in either equity or CDS" concluding that "anyone who wishes to play the developing contagion and awakening bond vigilantism via either equity or CDS, this is without doubt the best proxy." When we wrote that the CDS was at 177 bps. Thre days later it is at 205 bps, virtually at its all time wide, which is about to trigger the buy to cover stops, and surge to a 3-handle any second, a move which will only be catalyzed if and when Tremonti bails.

... I would tend to believe that from here, things are more double sided than before, and risk-reward much less interesting than it used to be, because there are now external factors like government intervention which can kick the can, and screw valuations for a long time.