Bill Gross

There are already three former European central bankers who criticize more or less openly the European Central Bank (ECB). All these older central bankers experienced the inflationary periods in the 1970s in detail, whereas the younger ones seem not to grasp what inflation means. Modern central bankers seem to think that monetary inflation will not lead to price inflation in the long-term. This might be true in countries where asset prices need to de-leverage after the bust of real-estate bubbles. But it is certainly not true in states like Germany, Finland or Switzerland, that did not have a real-estate bubble till 2008. With current low employment and the aging population, qualified personnel who speaks the local language  will get rare. PIMCO’s Bill Gross might be right saying that soon employees want to get a part of the cake and not only the stock holders. This essentially implies wage inflation, the enemy of the 1970s.

Two weeks ago, PIMCO's Bill Gross stirred up a few ivory-tower academics, permabull sell-side commission-makers, and bloggers pressured by Series [X] investors to generate maximum page views when he called for the death of the cult of equities. His main point was the apparent paradox that the total return on equities can outpace GDP growth over long periods. While there has been much gnashing of teeth over this comment, Morgan Stanley has very succinctly clarified and confirmed that this is not so much a paradox as a Catch-22. The key point is that, in aggregate, investors do not typically reinvest their dividends (or coupons); and akin to Keynes' paradox of thrift, if investors actually tried this en masse then the historical returns reported in total return indices would be unachievable. So here’s the Catch-22: over the long run theoretical total returns can exceed GDP so long as investors don’t actually try to capture those returns. But if ever investors try to achieve such GDP-plus total returns, it will be impossible for returns to stay above GDP growth. Hence, equities for the short- and long-term, are essentially a Ponzi scheme - as long as everyone buys-and-holds - but if 'someone' decides (or is forced) to take-profits, equity ROE will rapidly game-theoretically collapse to GDP growth.

A week ago we brought you Elliott Management's summary opinion on US paper: "We Make This Recommendation To Our Friends: If You Own US Debt Sell It Now." Today, Bill Gross doubles down.

Gross: The #Fed is where bad bonds go to die. Today it was 10-years. Tomorrow 30-years. Stay short my friends.

— PIMCO (@PIMCO) August 14, 2012

GROSS: Do bond markets take heart from Ryan selection? Not me. He talks lower deficits but really believes in lower taxes – exact opposite.

— PIMCO (@PIMCO) August 13, 2012

Virtually all developments in Europe over the past two years can be easily explained using a simple version of three actor game theory. So can the endless delays in reaching an actionable resolution. The problem, however, as Bill Gross earlier, and now Bank of America, shows, is that the incentive to delay, based at least on one the actors' preferences - that of the market - is becoming very tenuous, and "the risk of an ugly end game is rising." By implication, this means that the goodwill of both Europe's monetary and political authorities is waning by the day, as last Thursday demonstrated so very vividly.

The very vocal head of the world's largest bond fund has long been critical of the global ponzi system better known as the "capital markets." Now, finally, he shifts his attention to Europe, where the interests of his parent - Europe's largest insurance company Allianz are near and dear to the heart, and deconstructs not only the biggest challenge facing Europe: getting access to your money, but also the fatal flaws that will make achieving this now impossible. To wit: "Psst! Investors – do you wanna know a secret? Do you wanna know what Angela Merkel, François Hollande, Christine Lagarde and Mario Draghi all share in common? They want your money!" .... but... "private investors are balking – and for what it seems are good reasons – because policy makers’ efforts have been, until now, a day late and a euro short, or more accurately, years late and a trillion euros short." And so they will continue failing ever upward, as permissive monetary policy which allows failed fiscal policy to be perpetuated, will do nothing about fixing the underlying problems facing the insolvent continent. Then one day, the ECB, whose credibility was already massively shaken last week, will be exposed for the naked emperor it is. Only then will Europe's politicians finally sit down and begin doing the right thing. It will be too late.

What a difference a revisionist market rally makes. Remember when everyone was involved in Libor manipulation? No? Curious what a few hundred DJIA points will do especially when the corporate revenues and supporting them simply are not there, and one goes all in on multiple expansion. One entity which, however, has not forgotten about Lieborgate is Pimco parent and Europe's largest insurance firm, Allianz. And they are not happy: "Europe's biggest insurer, Allianz, is worried about the role central banks may have played in an interest rate rigging scandal that has enveloped some leading international lenders, the insurer's chief financial officer said on Friday. "We do not find it funny, what has happened, in particular the arising implication that it is not just the banks but central banks being involved in this," Oliver Baete told a conference call with analysts. "That really gives us cause for concern," Baete added." Of course, neither the ECB nor the FED could care much, considering that Allianz would be immediately insolvent if the same central banks who manipulated Libor stopped manipulating interest rates... which is implicitly what Allianz is unhappy about.

Want to buy stocks on anything than a greater fool theory, or hope and prayer that someone with "other people's money" will bail you out of a losing position when the market goes bidless? That may change after reading the latest monthly letter from Pimco's Bill Gross whose crusade against risk hits a crescendo. Yes, he is talking his book (and talking down his equity asset allocation), but his reasons are all too valid: "The cult of equity is dying. Like a once bright green aspen turning to subtle shades of yellow then red in the Colorado fall, investors’ impressions of “stocks for the long run” or any run have mellowed as well. I “tweeted” last month that the souring attitude might be a generational thing: “Boomers can’t take risk. Gen X and Y believe in Facebook but not its stock. Gen Z has no money.”.... So what is a cult chasing figure supposed to do? Well, the cult of equities may be over. But the cult of reflating inflation is just beginning: "The primary magic potion that policymakers have always applied in such a predicament is to inflate their way out of the corner. The easiest way to produce 7–8% yields for bonds over the next 30 years is to inflate them as quickly as possible to 7–8%! Woe to the holder of long-term bonds in the process!... Unfair though it may be, an investor should continue to expect an attempted inflationary solution in almost all developed economies over the next few years and even decades. Financial repression, QEs of all sorts and sizes, and even negative nominal interest rates now experienced in Switzerland and five other Euroland countries may dominate the timescape. The cult of equity may be dying, but the cult of inflation may only have just begun."

In a market which was left for dead with virtually no hope of a CTRL-Peus Ex Machina, and which otherwise would have tumbled to close at the lows, we realized that something was missing. In fact we noted it less than an hour ago:

Need a Hilsenrath rooomer

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 6, 2012

Sure enough, moments ago, with minutes left in the trading day and week, here comes the Fed's favorite leaking scribe, advising the market that not all is lost, and that Pavlovian dogs can, and in fact should continue to salivate at ever poster of a half naked toner cartrdige.

A month after the US Treasury sold $24 billion in 10 Year bonds at what was then a record low yield of 1.86%, the US government once again approaches that mysterious primary dealer-repo nexus with the latest offer US banks can't refuse: a $21 billion reopening. What is notable about today's auction is that in about 40 minutes, the auction will price at a record low yield of just about 1.63%, or 23 bps lower to the last record yield. So far so good: after all the global economy is once again collapsing (but don't look at US stocks for validation: they only indicate whatever Brian Sack wants them to indicate). Where things get patently surreal, however, is when one takes a look at today's POMO operation conducted by the Fed (remember those). Because as can be seen on the table below from the NY Fed, at 11 am today, so precisely 2 hours before when the Treasury will complete its own sale, bought $4.8 billion of... wait for it... 10 Year bonds.

As Many Have Predicted for Years

We all know that things are bad and getting worse. Goldman's Jan Hatzius take this opportunity to summarize all the various ways in which the global economy is floundering and once again floats the Goldman solution to everything: More QE, this time with a Bill Gross twist, pun and all, where the Fed again pulls a 2009 and goes for MBS: "Our confidence that the FOMC will ease policy once more at the June 19-20 meeting has also grown... Our baseline remains that Fed officials will purchase a mixture of mortgages and long-term Treasuries, financed via balance sheet expansion and possibly coupled with an extension of the forward guidance into 2015. This would be considerably more powerful than an extension of Operation Twist or other ways of changing the composition of the balance sheet, which are possible alternatives but are limited by the relatively modest amount ($200bn) of short-term paper that is still available for sale on the Fed's balance sheet." Well, if anything, global or Fed-based easing will most likely not come before the Greek June 17 elections - after all Greek confidence has to be crushed heading into the Euro referendum, and the only way to do this is by facilitating collapsing markets. So those hoping for a groundbreaking ECB announcement on June 6 will be disappointed. But June 20? That is fair game. We look forward to seeing PIMCO MBS holdings rise to a new all time high when the monthly TRF update is posted in a few days. Also look for something like this in the EURUSD if and when Bernanke surprises few at 2:15 pm on June 20.

Gold’s London PM fix today was USD 1606.00, EUR 1292.763, and GBP 1041.775 per ounce.

Gold lost 0.17% or $2.70 in New York yesterday and closed at $1,562.10/oz. Gold initially traded sideways in Asia then dipped and began to recover at the open in European trading prior to further slight weakness saw it touch $1,550/oz.