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Despite the release of better than expected German IFO survey, stocks in Europe remained on the back foot after the EU Commission slashed forecasts for 2012 Eurozone GDP to -0.3% vs. 0.5% previously, while EU's Rehn added that the Euroarea has entered a mild recession. As a result Bunds advanced back towards 139.00, whereas the spread between the Italian/German 10-year bond yields widened marginally on the back of touted selling by both domestic and foreign accounts ahead of the upcoming supply on Friday. Looking elsewhere, EUR/USD erased barriers at 1.3300 and 1.3325, while today’s strength in GBP/USD can be attributed to a weaker USD, as well as touted EUR/GBP selling by a UK clearer.

There is a very clear relationship between economic growth and sufficient quantities of high quality energy. A crude measure of energy quality is its price. The lower the price for a unit of energy, the higher its quality (or net energy), but this is a very crude measure that can and often is heavily distorted by subsidies, market pressures, and other factors. As we squint at the world price for oil and note that Brent today is trading at $120 per barrel, it is clear that this high price is signaling that energy is now more expensive than it used to be. By adopting the belief that Peak Oil has been debunked, one runs the risk of missing the larger story that our current economic model is unsustainable. And that stocks and bonds and other traditional investments that derive a large portion of their current value from expectations of future growth simply may not perform anything like they have in the past. And worse, that recent and continuing efforts to revive the old economy by printing money risk the destruction of the money system itself. Given this all-too-human tendency to attempt to preserve the status quo, in this case by printing money, I must reiterate my advice to be sure that gold forms a significant portion of your core portfolio. 

The softer PMI reports have weighed on risk markets, which as a result saw equities trade lower throughout the session. In addition to that, market participants continued to fret over the latest Greek debt swap proposals, which according to the Greek CAC bill will give bond holders at least 10 days to decide on new bond terms following the public invitation, and the majority required to change bond terms is set at 2/3 of represented bond holders. Looking elsewhere, EUR/USD spot is flat, while GBP/USD is trading sharply lower after the latest BoE minutes revealed that BoE's Posen and Miles voted for GBP 75bln increase in APF. Going forward, the second half of the session sees the release of the latest Housing data from the US, as well as the USD 35bln 5y note auction by the US Treasury.

Heading into the North American open, equities are trading lower with the benchmark EU volatility index up 1.6%, with financials underperforming on concerns that the latest Greek bailout deal will need to be revised yet again. Officials said that the deal will require Greece’s private creditors to take a deeper write-down on the face value of their EUR 200bln in holdings than first agreed. The haircut on the face value of privately held Greek debt will now be over 53%. As a result of the measures adopted, the creditors now assume that Greece’s gross debt will fall to just over 120% of GDP by 2020, from around 164% currently, according to the officials. However as noted by analysts at the Troika in their latest debt sustainability report - “…there are notable risks. Given the high prospective level and share of senior debt, the prospects for Greece to be able to return to the market in the years following the end of the new program are uncertain and require more analysis”. Still, Bunds are down and a touch steeper in 2/10s under moderately light volume, while bond yield spreads around Europe are tighter.

You read headlines that Greece is saved (in a carbon copy release from July 21). Now read the truth behind the lies - presenting the 9 page (so it's brief enough) Greek sustainability (or lack thereof) analysis.

Mainstream media is desperately scrambling to fill copy with stories of collaboration, rescue, heroism, sacrifice, and altruism among the European leaders. The dismal reality facing real people and real participants is quite different and as Peter Tchir points out "How many 'untruths' have become so accepted that they are now treated as facts or axioms". In an effort to get to the facts and reality, we disentangle Bloomberg's 'Greek Rescue' story and note the increasingly Orwellian nature of the events unfolding across the pond. But anyways, the machine is grinding along towards headlines of "rescue" where Greece will have been "saved" and "default will have been avoided" and it will be "great that banks and politicians worked to save Greece" in spite of the "lingering doubts that Greece will fulfill its obligations".

As forecasts for peripheral macro data continue to deteriorate and core to strengthen modestly, there is little real comfort available from the European situation aside from the 800lb gorilla that all headlines are focused on today. Credit Suisse describes it as "a case of the outlook being less bad than expected, rather that it being better" and notes that post the Greek situation, despite the ongoing rally in the ever-thinning sovereign bond market, that risk premia (that were dangerously forgotten for the first decade of the Euro) will remain at elevated levels. CS sees three scenarios beyond Greece with even the best-case leaving questions of sustainability, trust, and continued negotiations yet the market's willingness to follow along the path of inevitably ruinous policies seems writ large with today's credit, equity, and FX strength.

It appears that while we were busy over the past month spreading the Greek pre- and post-bankruptcy balance sheet, and otherwise torturing Excel (something we urge other financial journalists to try once in a while - go ahead, it doesn't bite. In fact, it is almost as friendly as your favorite Powerpoint) our peer at such reputable financial publications as Forbes, and many others, were laying of carbon-based reporters and replacing them with... robots. As Mediabistro reports, "Forbes has joined a group of 30 publishers using Narrative Science software to write computer-generated stories. Here’s more about the program, used in one corner of Forbes‘ website: "“Narrative Science has developed a technology solution that creates rich narrative content from data. Narratives are seamlessly created from structured data sources and can be fully customized to fit a customer’s voice, style and tone. Stories are created in multiple formats, including long form stories, headlines, Tweets and industry reports with graphical visualizations.”" In other words, with well over 70% of stock trading now done by robots, we have gotten to a point where robots write headlines and stories read, reacted to and traded by robots. Surely, what can possibly go wrong. And here we were this morning, wondering why the market is not only broken but plain dumb.

While Greece and Europe continue sinking ever deeper into the colonial quicksand of Pax Goldmania, Iceland, which blew up, pushed its banks into bankruptcy, and arrested its corrupt bankers, is well on its way to being the world's only normal country.

• ICELAND RATINGS RAISED TO INVESTMENT GRADE BY FITCH
• FITCH UPGRADES ICELAND TO 'BBB-'; STABLE OUTLOOK
• FITCH DOES NOT EXPECT ICELAND TO SLIP BACK INTO RECESSION
• FITCH SAYS ICELAND GOVERNMENT DEBT PEAKED AT 100% OF GDP IN '11

Too bad the Goldman colony of Greece (and soon everyone else - thank you first lien "bailout" debt) will not see headlines such as these written about it any time in the next century.

And just a little bit more on yesterday's story of the day, which a few recent journalist grads took as positive having absolutely no clue about the very basics of a simple restructuring process, and in turn fed it to the 18 year old math Ph.Ds who program FX trading algos that ran away with it in the form of a 150 pip gain, when in reality it was all negative. As the WSJ reports, the only sane person in Europe, did get it: Bundesbank's Jens Weidmann "voted against the proposal, according to a person familiar with the matter." As we expected. Why? Go back to our story on subordination and what it means as the ECB creates an ever more junior class of bond holders. For those who hate long sentences, the WSJ gets it right this time: "The move could rankle investors and turn them away from the peripheral euro zone bond market, blunting the impact of a possible approval of a Greek aid deal and plentiful cash from the ECB." Of course, those who don't react to idiot headlines, and every upticks courtesy of algobots, knew that long ago. But in this stupid market, it takes hours, if not days, for the progressively dumber investor base to comprehend what is going on.

Bailout somehow seems too nice of a word.  It implies working together, giving a helping hand, making a real effort to help someone out.  As we read the headlines coming out of Greece for the past 2 weeks, all we can think of is, how do you say “squeal like a pig” in German. The market is happy because it looks like PSI will go through and that in theory will be enough to convince the Troika to send money to Greece, so long as they live by the latest austerity package.  That all seems fine, we guess, but looking beneath the headlines, it seems far worse than that.

In spite of the fact that the Greek story has been out there for almost 2 years now, it still drives the market. Virtually all of the big moves this week came on the back of Greek headlines so it is impossible to argue that it is “priced in”. My best guess is that a resolution (which the market believes is most likely) sparks a 2%-4% rally. A default (which I think is most likely) sparks a 5%-10% decline. So at these levels I will be short as I think the most likely move is lower, and the move lower is likely to be bigger. With the market being choppy, being nimble remains a key....The market has a tendency to do well after the credit guys leave on holiday shortened trading days. So with the desire to believe that Europe will not let Greece default (in spite of evidence to the contrary) the markets may remain in rally mode for the day because no one wants to miss the imminent resolution of the crisis. I am far more convinced that we will get some very disappointing headlines because the situation really doesn’t work, and the tone of Europe has switched from “No Default” to “No Disorderly Default”.

Market participants continued to react positively to yesterday’s reports that Euro-zone central banks, via the ECB, are to exchange the Greek bonds they hold for new bonds, without CAC’s, to help the Greek debt deal. As a result, stock futures traded higher throughout the session, led by the financials sector, while the health-care sector which is characterised by defensive-investment properties underperformed. Looking elsewhere, EUR/GBP traded briefly below the 0.8300 level, while GBP/USD continued to consolidate above the 1.5800 level following the release of better than expected retail sales. Hopes that a Greek deal is in the pipeline also lifted EUR/USD, which trades in close proximity to an intraday option expiry at 1.3110.

Yesterday, when the rumor (because it has not been confirmed by the ECB, and most certainly not by the Bundesbank) that the ECB would distribute its "gains" (i.e., personally fund the difference between cost basis and par on Greek bonds - incidentally, a development which BUBA president Jens Weidmann has said would only happen over his dead body) we urged readers  "to ignore the constant barrage of meaningless noise and flashing red headlines" as apparently nobody who trades the EURUSD has any clue what subordination means or has ever participated in any debt for equity transaction. Specifically, with regard to the idiotic EURUSD reaction we said: "Today [yesterday] is a great case in point of a tangential detour which does nothing to change the reality that Germany no longer wants Greece in the Eurozone (remember, oh, yesterday), and that the ECB is merely playing possum with PSI creditors who will block the deal with even greater vigor than before (anyone recall the FT story about the PSI deal being on the verge of collapse not due to the ECB but due to private creditors?) as the ECB's even bigger subordination will simply make the amount of hold outs even greater." We concluded by assuming that "algos will take the required 12-48 hours to figure out what just happened today." Well, the algos are still lost in idiot vacuum tube world, but at least the banks are starting to comprehend what the 'deal' really means and that the Nash Equilibrium is even worse than before. From Bloomberg: "A plan being considered by the European Central Bank to shield its Greek bond holdings from a restructuring may hurt the euro because it implies senior status for the ECB over other investors, UBS AG said. “There are at least two euro-negative dimensions, which will likely lead to euro weakness” as a result of the plan, Chris Walker, a foreign-exchange strategist at UBS in London, wrote in a research report today." Once again, we urge all FX traders to read our primer on subordination, and why and how it will define trading this year, as reactions such as the one yesterday confirm that the market is not only broken but also very stupid. Which is just as those in charge like it.