Repo Market

"The sharp rise in bond volatility over the past week or so is reminiscent of the VaR shocks of October 2014 in US rates and April 2013 in Japanese rates," JP Morgan says, before explaining how volatility induced selling (i.e. a VaR shock) is behind the rout in German Bunds. Predictably, QE has helped create the conditions which make such episodes possible.

"From the BIS to BlackRock, and Jamie Dimon to Jose Vinals, everyone seems to be talking about market liquidity," Citi's Matt King writes, before taking an in-depth look at just how broken the 'markets' truly are. To summarize: no depth in the Treasury market, a duration mismatched powder keg in "long-term" mutual funds thanks to the fact that ZIRP has destroyed money market yields causing investors to find a new 'cash substitute,' and a magically shrinking repo market in the wake of new regulations ironically meant to promote stability.

Mario Draghi said this week that the transmission channels for European Q€ were opening up and crowed how well his cunning plan was working (by well we assume he means stocks are up). Today we get the ultimate test of that 'transmission' as 3-Month EURIBOR fell below 0.00% for the first time ever (likely wreaking havoc on European derivative pricing models). In English that means banks are being paid to borrow from one another in the interbank money-markets (which sounds a lot like a 'glut' of excess cash) seemingly confirming ICMA's de Vidts fears: "We are scared about the [repo] market freezing," as the ECB is "driving without headlights in the dark." Of course this is yet another disturbing distortion on the heels of homeowners being paid to take out mortgages...

There is a $100 trillion bond market out there that has been priced by a handful of central bankers, not a planet teeming with exhuberant savers. The mad descent of the former into the whacky world of QE and ZIRP has caused a double whammy distortion in the bond markets of the world. So, no, there isn’t a savings glut in the world; there is an outbreak of destructive central bank bond buying and money market price pegging that is virtually destroying the world’s bond market. What we have is a fraud wrapped in a bogus theory. Only none dare call it that. At least, not on bubblevision.

These are your euro money markets on central planning. The ECB is attempting to help correct the distortions created by its QE program by lending out its holdings in order to grease the wheels of European repo markets, but as JPM notes, the central bank's program will likely not be sufficient.

• Shell Will Buy BG Group for $70 Billion in Cash and Shares (BBG)
• IMF warns of long period of lower growth (FT)
• Wall Street sanguine as it heads into worst earnings season in six years (Reuters)
• Switzerland First With 10-Year Bond at Negative Yield (WSJ)
• U.S. Dot-Com Bubble Was Nothing Compared to Today’s China Prices (BBG)
• Rahm Emanuel Re-Elected as Mayor of Fiscally Ravaged Chicago (BBG)
• Oil falls on U.S. stock build, record Saudi output (Reuters)
• White South Carolina policeman charged with murdering black man (Reuters)
• German Factory Orders Drop for Second Month (BBG)
• A third of Republicans support Iran nuclear deal (Reuters)

"...I don’t think we know enough about how the private financial system works under these conditions... If you are an institution that is doing well within the parameters under which you’re used to functioning, you will fight any change without any notion as to whether that change is good or bad. That’s because there’s a very large uncertainty premium associated with the change... "

Following Thursday's H.4.1 update by the Fed, is that, inexplicably, in the week ended April 1, the amount of Treasurys held in custody by the Fed jumped by the most ever, or $63 billion in one week, to $2.963 trillion.

We're just a little over two weeks into PSPP and signs are already beginning to show that the ECB is effectively breaking the market. "The soaring cost of borrowing government bonds in secured lending markets highlights the distortions caused by the ECB's asset-purchase scheme, which analysts say could clog up Europe's financial system," Reuters notes.

According to AXA’s Nick Hayes, the EGB bubble may end in a 2000 Nasdaq-style collapse. "The comfort with which investors are embracing negative yields is similar to behavior of those who had been underweight technology stocks in 1999 before rushing in."

When even JPMorgan strongly implies that the ECB's QE is about to fail, one short week after it started, now may be a time to panic: "In all, we note the above analysis challenges the ability of the Eurosystem to meet its quantitative target without distorting market liquidity and price discovery."

Someone call the ECB because it looks like the game is well nigh up. Greek FinMins are taking time away from photo shoots and looting pension funds to call out QE for creating equity bubbles and the mainstream financial news media has figured out that there’s an acute collateral shortage and that buying €1.1 trillion in bonds €15 million at a time probably indicates a forced deviation from the original plan.

Central banks' ability to distort markets, inhibit price discovery, and create systemic risk is alive and well as ECB asset purchases ripple through euro money markets. "The ECB’s liquidity bazooka will likely create the conditions for all rates money markets to stay in negative territory. This would represent a very challenging environment for investors, especially those focusing on the euro money markets, whose resilience to negative rates has not fully tested yet," Barclays warns.

Yesterday's 10 Year auction played a trick on the repo market, which was so short the underlying the repo was trading very special at -1.8%. Today, as we noted earlier, the shortness persisted, and not only in the 10Y but the 30Y as well, whose repo was negative for the second day in a row. Well, while the bet yesterday was wrong, today it was spot on, with the 30 Year reopening of 29-Year-11-month CUSIP RK6 pricing surprisingly weak, stunning the bond market when a whopping 2.1 bps tail was announced moments ago, following a High Yield announcement of 2.681%, well above the 2.66% When Issue.