Morgan Stanley

As gold loses its 200DMA once again (along with Silver weakness) as the USD rallied post FOMC and stocks were starting to limp lower, Jamie saved the day and the stock market had that most embarrassing of affliction - premature exuberation. While it seemed to have come as a shock to some that banks passed the stress test, the market's reaction (given only recently markets were worrying over NIMs, trading revenues, and real estate) was incredulous. The US majors were all up 6-7% (apart from Morgan Stanley which managed a measly 3.8% on the day!). With XLF now up more than 37% from its Oct11 lows, financials remain the major outperformers in this rally and we note that credit markets are missing the fun - the last time JPM stock was here, its CDS was trading 25bps tighter. Credit and equity moved in sync and tore higher on the JPM news. Gold (and Silver) which had been falling managed a decent bounce into the close while the USD closed at its highs post FOMC as did Treasury yields as for the first time since the 2011 bubble popped, the NASDAQ closed above 3000 (thanks in large part to AAPL's 3% rally over $568).

While 'good is good, and bad is better'-market continues to price a higher and higher strike price for Ben, Mario, and Xiaouchuan, the twin (d)evils of energy and food price inflation could be tamping their enthusiasm for their new-found experiment. Critically, for all those 'hoping' for the pump to be primed and a self-sustaining recovery to take hold, we present three charts to rain on that parade. Whether the world's central bankers come back to the table is unclear, given their clear concerns at what they have done recently, but we suspect this is much more a 'when' than 'if' question and given the performance of asset and volatility markets, it seems this is more than priced in.

So Greece has been saved – is that right? Well according to ISDA (the International Swaps and Derivatives Association) a “Restructuring Credit Event has occurred with respect to the Hellenic Republic” which in the vernacular means the Greeks are bust; tell us something we don’t know! The importance of this statement is that credit default swaps (CDS) on Greek debt are now triggered and holders will have their losses made good. There were any number of scurrilous rumours that ISDA would not declare a credit event to preclude their illustrious members from paying out, but when the net downside of $3 billion needs to be shared out amongst the likes of Barclays, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, UBS, BNP Paribas and Societe Generale, then a quick whip round in the bar after close of business and the jobs a good’un.

If there was any confusion as to who calls the shots in the world, the following anecdote should provide some needed clarity. Hint: it is not the US. After last week India announced it would proceed with a Cotton export ban, two days ago China logged "a formal protest against India's ban on cotton exports amid signs that India is rethinking the ban that was implemented a few days ago." As a result hours ago India announced that less than a week after enacting said ban, it is now overturning it. Of course, there is the diplomatic snafu of just why it did, and for India it has to do with "protecting" the interests of its farmers, who "complained that, due to higher production this year, they were already suffering from lower prices than they had expected and needed to export to recover their domestic losses." Of course, the farmers' position was well-known before the ban overturn. What wasn't known is just how vocal China would be, as suddenly it would scramble to find alternative sources as it fills its strategic cotton reserve. Turns out it was quite vocal. And India, unwilling to risk a trade war with the world's biggest economic power, promptly relented. As a result, any and all commodity traders who bought up the widowmaker trade may find themselves staring into a limit down market post open.

Given various talking-heads' comments on today's PSI deal (which as noted actually increased Greece's gross debt load), we thought a 'map' of the current ratings across the European Union was worth resetting some perspective.

Looks like it's time to start looking for somewhere else to peddle those Treasuries -- but then, when hasn't it been?

The biggest sovereign debt restructuring in history is now, well, history. The headlines are finally come in:

• GREECE ISSUES STATEMENT ON DEBT SWAP
• GREECE COMPLETES DEBT SWAP
• GREECE SAYS EU172 BLN OF BONDS TENDERED IN SWAP
• GREECE GETS TENDERS, CONSENTS FROM HOLDERS OF 85.8%
• GREECE SAYS 69% OF NON-GREEK LAW BONDHOLDERS PARTICIPATED

We learn that €152 of the €177 billion in Greek law bonds have tendered, which is 85.8%. This means that €25 billion in Greek law bonds have not - these are the hedge funds that could not be Steven Rattnered into participating, and will now sue Greece for par recoveries.This is also the number that ISDA will look at today to determine if, in conjunction with the CAC, means a credit event has occurred. And yes, the CACs are coming, as is the Credit Event finding:

• GREECE SAYS WILL AMEND TERMS OF GREEK LAW BONDS FOR ALL HOLDERS

Exquisite.

While anyone (as we did) with an abacus and five-minutes of spare time from hitting the buy-button could have figured out that post-PSI 'new' GGBs would trade down hard, it is perhaps worth looking at some sensitivity analysis on both the shape of the Greek curve and the level (as well as the value of GDP warrants) before jumping on any bid from BNP in the grey. Of course, excitement over 80-90% participation rate rumors are somewhat irrelevant as CACs are as inevitable as hearing the phrase 'money-on-the-sidelines' on CNBC every day and whether its 77% or 97% is largely irrelevant - despite our equity market's ebullience. Morgan Stanley provides some color on the new GGBs, which they expect to trade at least 200bps wide of Portugal and with an inverted curve expecting prices to stabilize in the mid-20s (with technicals in the short-term pushing prices below 20). The GDP warrants are estimated at a fair-value around 1c and if the Argentine framework is any evidence, this will be heavily discounted (read ignored) by the market. All-in-all, not exactly positive but still buy stocks because 90% sounds like a good number!

It would appear, given the actions and rhetoric of the last week or so, that global central bank printing presses have been switched to 'pause' mode and allowed to cool as implicit inflation 'energy' rears its economic-growth-dragging head around the world (as the bears told us earlier). Whether this leads to a slow grind higher or a tactical correction is the question Morgan Stanley considers in a recent note and their answer is that bullish sentiment, 'under-appreciated' risks, and 'tranquil' markets justify a cautious asset allocation. The focus has switched much more to growth, likely why we have not seen a greater deterioration post-printing yet, but this leaves the market much more sensitive to data surprises (as the backstop of QE has been removed for now). Simply put, we tend to agree with MS' view (given our previous discussions of the volatility surface) that as event and growth risks linger, and with valuations no longer cheap in most cases, expectations of a continued grind higher without a tactical correction are overly confident.

Today we observed how as the US is considering releasing crude from its Political, pardon Strategic Petroleum Reserve, China was doing just the opposite. Now, in a further step confirming that China is acting as a much more rational capitalist power, and is rapidly encroaching on the "reserve" status of the sacrosanct USD, the FT writes that China intends to extend renminbi loans to other BRIC nations in "another step toward the internationalisation of its currency." To those following the stealthy Chinese incursion into currency markets as a dollar alternative, this is not news: already we know that China and Japan have bypassed the dollar entirely and now engage in direct bilateral trade using JPY and CNY (even as most other nations in Asia have developed bilateral agreements to transact in a non dollar basis). This is merely the latest incremental step which will see China become the dominant player in the currency arena, and further puts to doubt the fate of the US Dollar as the default currency. Of course, the market will not acknowledge any of this until the developing (i.e., non-insolvent world) is transacting entirely with US intermediation. And at that point, the US will be merely another Zimbabwe case study, where it can print all the money it wants to fund its deficit, and the only ones who care will be wheelbarrow manufacturers.

Yesterday we pointed to the fundamental reason for Europe's angst - that of dramatic imbalance across nations finances. Today we look at the implications of the growing concerns at sustainability of the Euro-area itself. Deposits are fleeing the PIIGS at ever faster rates, growth remains a dream as PMIs for most of the PIIGS trend towards (or are at) record lows, and despite all the liquidity provision of the two LTROs, credit extension to the real economy dropped once again. The Greek PSI remains front-and-center from a headline perspective but yesterday's dismal Euro macro data combined with the reality of these three factors appears to be increasingly repriced into sovereign credit spreads as CDS drag manipulated bonds wider in the last week.

We have been warning that the stocks of the major US financials are on weak ground for a few weeks as credit (and implied vol) markets for the TBTFs had been underperforming notably. Today saw the financials ETF, XLF, have the largest down day in three months (dropping over two standard deviations), breaking its uptrend and heading for its 50DMA. As volumes in stocks and stock futures surged to year-highs, we note that the major financials were much worse hit than the broad ETF, roughly separated into 3 groups: Good (JPM, WFC), Bad (GS, C, BAC, GE), and Ugly (MS). While the market is 'only' down around 2%, it is worth noting that Financials and Energy stocks are back at five-week lows, while Industrials and Materials are back at two-month lows as the growthium hope fades. Risk was very highly correlated on the downswing today and along with significantly higher than average volume suggests more broad de-risking than idiosyncratic profit-taking as some would like to suggest. Commodities made headlines as Silver is now down over 5% on the week but Gold stabilized for much of the post-European close session around $1675. The vol term structure snapped flatter today, catching short-dated premium sellers fingers as it tends to, ripping to its flattest in 3 weeks as VIX jumped almost 3 vols to around 21% (back above its 50DMA for the first time since Thanksgiving), with its biggest rise in three months.

As gold pulls back under $1700, back to 6 week lows (and Silver collapses in its high beta way, reverting back in line with Gold), Morgan Stanley says 'Stay Long Gold'. The recent sell-off notwithstanding, they remain bullish through 2012 and while the current USD strength is a headwind, they expect aggressive Fed action (and other global central banks), including the likely adoption of QE3 in 1H12, to be gold positive. Deciphering the demand and supply dynamics, they forecast prices to rise on a quarterly average basis through 4Q13 as the four pillars of their bull market thesis persist.

Two weeks ago we presented the latest and greatest "commodity thermometer" courtesy of Morgan Stanley's commodities team. Below is the latest just released iteration. Not much of a change, with gold still the most loved, and inc the most hated (this could well be one of those "endorsed by John Paulson" moments), and the only notable change being that silver has pushed above Live Cattle and entered the Top 5.