CDS

Following Friday's disastrous payrolls report, which confirmed all the pre-recessionary economic data and signaled that instead of approaching "lift-off" and decoupling from the rest of the world, the US economy is following the emerging markets into a slowdown in what may be the first global, synchronized recession since 2008, the market saw its biggest intraday surge since 2011 and the sharpest short covering squeeze in history, we are happy to announce that the "market" is now solidly back in "bad news is good news" mode.

Never have markets carried so much risk. And never have markets been as vulnerable to an abrupt change in perceptions with regard to central banker competence, effectiveness and capabilities. At the minimum, global markets will function poorly, but risk is now high for a disorderly – Party Crashing - "run" on financial markets, as faith in central banking begins to wane.

Late last week, after looking at Valeant soaring default risk as measured by the price of its blowing out CDS, soaring to over 30% even as its stock prices was surging, we wondered - does someone know something? It appears someone may have known that this weekend, the same Andrew Pollack whose NYT article exposing Turing's 5000% price increase resulted in Hillary Clinton promising to cap specialty biotech prices if elected, has come back for round two and after taking aim at Shkreli and Turing, much to the chagrin of Bill Ackman, Pollack is now taking aim at the biggest culprit: Valeant Pharmaceutcals.

US financials' stocks are tumbling as 'investor' hopes for a rate-hike (and some dream about better earning potential for banks) drag XLF (Financials ETF) back to Oct 2014 lows. However, as have noted before, it is the message of the credit markets that has been correct all along (and stocks continue to catch down) as today's jobs data (and Glencore asset sales) poke Financials credit spreads to their highest since Oct 2013.

As Bloomberg reports, "JPMorgan Chase & Co. is set to pay almost a third of a $1.86 billion settlement to resolve accusations that a dozen big banks conspired to limit competition in the credit-default swaps market, according to people briefed on terms of the deal."

The signs of deflation are now flashing all over the globe and the possibility of an associated financial crisis is now dangerously high over the next few months. Our preferred model for how things are going to unfold follows the Ka-Poom! Theory, which states that this epic debt bubble will ultimately burst first by deflation (the "Ka!") before then exploding (the "Poom!") in hyperinflation due to additional massive money printing efforts by frightened global central bankers acting in unison. First an inwards collapse, then an outwards explosion.

While the company's stock price may have rebounded strong today after tumbling by 25% in the past few days, hoping the worst is behind it the company's Credit Default Swaps sing a different tune, and as of moments ago, with the CDS spread blowing out to 440 bps, suggested Valeant default risk is now a whopping 33%.

convincing equity that company is viable is one thing (and the company and its sellside cheerleaders sure are trying).  Convincing the far more skeptical bond market, which is desperately trying to figure out the counterparty risk, will be far more difficult...

It was a tale of two markets overnight: Asia first - where all commodity hell broke loose - and then Europe (and the US), where central banks did everything they could to stabilize the already terrible sentiment.

Following on from a weak Europe and US session (despite late-day heroics in China last night), Fed confusion and commodity-complex counterparty-risk-concerns have sparked further turmoil across AsiaPac in the early going. Noble Group (asia's Glencore) is crashing, down 6.7% at the open. FX markets are seeing outflows send CNH below CNY for the first time since July and crush Thai Baht to its weakest since Jan 2007. Equity markets are in trouble with Aussie stocks hammered (driven by a plunge in Miners) and Nikkei 225 down 1000 points from Friday's highs. Asia credit markets have spiked to 2-year wides. China injected another CNY40bn and strengthened the fix (by the most since 9/2) for 2nd day in a row.

Update: And there it is: GLENCORE DEBT INSURANCE COSTS SURGE TO RECORD HIGH; 5-YR CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS RISE 207BASIS POINTS FROM FRIDAY'S CLOSE TO 757 BASIS POINTS

Those who listened to our reco to buy Glencore CDS at 170 bps in March 2014 can take the rest of the year off. As of this moment, GLEN Credit Default Swap were pushing on 600 bps, 4 times wider, and on pace to take out the 2011 liquidity crunch highs. After that, it's smooth sailing to all time wides and the start of a self-fulfilling prophecy which leads to the Companys's IG downgrade and the collapse of trillions in derivative notionals as what may be the trading desk of the biggest commodity counterparty quietly goes out of business.

Glencore is in total free-fall across all markets today. Most worrying for systemic risk concerns is the rush into credit protection that has occurred, as counterparties attempt to hedge their exposures. Forthe first time since 2009, Glencore CDS are being quoted with upfront pricing (something that happens as firms become seriously distressed). Based on the latest data, it costs 875bps per year (or 14% upfront) to buy protection against a Glencore default (which implies - given standard recoveries - a 54% chance of default).

Despite a relatively unchanged US Dollar, commodities across the board are under significant (and seemingly coordinated) pressure this morning. It appears that the key selling began as Europe opened and the carnage in massive commodity group Glencore began to materialize. Glencore CDS is now above 700bps (up 154bps today) and stocks down almost 30% today...