CDS

Venezuela CDS is surging once again this morning, even as oil prices stabilize on the day, to its highest since January 2009 as traders increase hedges or speculation that the nation will be forced to default on its bonds. Current prices imply around an 85% chance of default (likely not helped by President Maduro's insistence that all is well and that he will try to destrout the black market for dollars that implies a massive devaluation is afoot for the Bolivar)

Following yesterday's dead-cat-bounce, oil prices resumed their downward push today, closing just shy of the flush lows on Friday back to a $66 handle for WTI. Gold also slipped modestly with copper and silver flat as the USD surged higher (+0.75% on the day). Stocks just melted up all day long (supported by USDJPY pushing to new cycle highs over 119), stop-hunting the whole way (with the S&P breaking back above its 5-day moving-average and back into the green on the week briefly). Yesterday's losers (Trannies and Small Caps) were today's BTFD winners. Treasury yields rose notably once again (up 11-13bps on the week) as we suspect oil-producers are selling to help support their collapsing currencies. VIX closed below 13 - slammed into the close to scrape the S&P back above its 5DMA.

A few days of near-record crude volatility (which the CME is scrambling to reduce following 2 crude margin hikes in the past week) is giving way to the New Normal default thinking: that central banks will soon take care of everything. And sure enough, just an hour earlier, US equity futures had jumped 8 points on virtually zero volume, wiping out all of yesterday's losses, driven higher by that new "old favorite", the USDJPY, which has once again resumed its climb higher, briefly rising above 119.00 once again and sending the Nikkei and the Topix to fresh 7 year highs, perfectly oblivious to both yesterday's Moody's downgrade and now open warnings from both Eisuke Sakakibara and Goldman Sachs that further declines in the Yen will accelerate the collapse of the Japanese economy. And, since there is also zero liquidity in the market, that entire gain was also just as promptly wiped out with futures now practically unchanged from yesterday's close.

It is no wonder Venezuela is suffering... Venezuelan bond prices have collapsed around 51 - the lowest close in at least 5 years as yields surge to around 21% yield. The market is pricing in extremely high probability of default (around 63% over 2Y, and 80% based on 5Y CDS) which, as Bloomberg reports, is surging as "every $1 drop in oil is around $770 million of lost revenue, so their ability to pay has taken a big hit."

Who Are the Worst Looters?

Another day, another case of central banks, not one but two this time, dictating "price" action.

Stability is a myth yet it’s what we humans strive for...

They may be able to engineer a stock market rally to further enrich themselves, but they can not propel the real economy of 318 million people. Our consumer society is dying – asphyxiated by debt – shorter of breath and one day closer to death. I’d love to offer some sage advice on how to fix this problem, but it’s too late. Too many people missed the starting gun.

Four years ago, bankers, politicians, and traders were patting themselves on the back after Petroleo Brasiliero (Petrobras) raised a stunning $70 billion in the world's largest share sale, as Bloomberg reported at the time, investors bet on its plans to double output within a decade by tapping offshore fields. Things haven't worked out so well...

JPMorgan Cazenove's global equity strategy group has decided enough is enough - the underperformance of the Eurozone is getting stretched (they note), and are upgrading Euro equity allocations to Overweight at the expense of an Underweight in US stocks. Here are the fives reasons why they made the shift...

Moments ago, Bloomberg released a stunning update that Europe's largest bank is exiting the single-name, both IG and HY, CDS product line, which for years was one of its biggest revenue generators and a product in which DB was for a long time one of the best and deepest CDS trade axes. As Bloomberg reports, Deutsche Bank AG will stop trading investment-grade and high-yield credit default swaps on single credits and will instead focus on trading corporate bonds, according to a spokeswoman.

As Europe gets hungrier and hungrier for a feel-good story, as Brussels longs more and more for a poster child for its 'crisis management' efforts of 2008-2013, as Dublin politicians get closer and closer to facing the crisis-hit electorate, the sunshine being lavished by politicians and the media onto Ireland's economy is likely to get only brighter. It might not feel much warmer, though, on the ground. Nor will it stave off the onset of winter.

The relentless regurgitation of the only two rumors that have moved markets this week, namely the Japanese sales tax delay and the "surprise" cabinet snap elections, was once again all over the newswires last night in yet another iteration, and as a result the headline scanning algos took the Nikkei another 1.1% higher to nearly 17,400 which means at this rate the Nikkei will surpass the Dow Jones by the end of the week helped by further reports that Japan will reveal more stimulus measures on November 19, although with US equity futures rising another 7 points overnight and now just shy of 2050 which happens to be Goldman's revised year-end target, the US will hardly complain. And speaking of stimulus, the reason European equities are drifting higher following the latest ECB professional forecast release which saw the panel slash their GDP and inflation forecasts for the entire period from 2014 to 2016. In other words bad news most certainly continues to be good news for stocks, which in the US are about to hit another record high (with the bulk of the upside action once again concentrated between 11:00 and 11:30am).

Putting Things In Context ...

Though, if history is anything to go by, it offers a potential for outsized returns