Risk Management

As clearly indicated well over 2 yrs ago, Italy will first default on its over optimistic promises (check), then look to actually default on (restructure) its debt (next).

The Bonds in Spain will drain without restrain showing utter disdain for the Euro domain. Research that Rhymes!!!

Addressing his perception of lessons learned from the financial crisis, Ben Bernanke is speaking this afternoon on poor risk management and shadow banking vulnerabilities - all of which remain obviously as we continue to draw attention to. However, more worrisome for the junkies is the total lack of QE3 chatter in his speech. While he does note the words 'collateral' and 'repo' the proximity of the words 'Shadow, Institutions, & Vulnerabilities' are awkwardly close.

"What Bernanke is to the Treasury market, Iksil is to the derivatives market"

Last week we had the Fed's hawks line up one after another telling us how no more QE would ever happen. We ignored them because they are simply the bad cops to the Fed's good cop doves. Sure enough, here comes Bernanke's right hand man, or in this case woman, hinting that one can forget everything the hawkish stance, and that ZIRP may last not until 2014 but 2015! Which, by the way, is to be expected: since ZIRP can never expire, it will always be rolled to T+3 years, as the short end will never be allowed to rise, until the Fed has enough FRNs in circulation to absorb the surge in rates without crushing the principal, as explained yesterday.

#444444; font-family: Verdana, Geneva, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 16px; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.917969);">Chesapeake Energy took the road less traveled by entering 2012 "naked" with none of its gas volumes hedged.

Unfortunately, nobody in the Treasury seems to want to deal with the mess at Ally Financial before Election Day.  But the question is whether Ally can wait until then.

For all those who have long been curious what the precious metals "queen" thinks about allegations involving her and her fimr in gold and silver manipulation, how JPMorgan is positioned in the precious metals market, and how she views the fringe elements of media, as well as JPMorgan's ethical limitations to engaging in 'wrong' behavior, the answers are all here.

• China's Central Banker to Fed: Act Responsibly (WSJ)
• Spain's debt to jump to 78 percent of GDP: De Guindos (Reuters)
• Rajoy Needs All the Luck He Can Get (WSJ)
• Spain Faces Risks in Budget Refit (WSJ)
• Top JP Morgan banker resigns to fight abuse fine (Reuters)
• Reinhart-Rogoff See No Quick U.S. Recovery Even as Data Improve (Bloomberg)
• Program to help spur spending in domestic sector (China Daily)
• Barnier hits out at lobbying ‘rearguard’ (FT)
• U.S. CEOs' take-home pay climbs on stock awards (Reuters)

• Greece's Fringe Parties Surge Amid Bailout Ire (WSJ)
• ECB fails to stem reduction in lending (FT)
• More Twists for Spanish Banks (WSJ)
• Banks use ECB cash to buy bonds, lend less to firms (IFR)
• UK still long way off pre-crisis growth – King (Reuters)
• Dublin confident of ECB deal to defer payment (FT)
• Goldman's European derivatives revenue soars (Reuters)
• Japan Faces Tax Battle as DPJ Finishes Plan on Sales Levy (Bloomberg)
• Insurance Mandate Splits US Court (FT)

Wherein Tom Day of Sungard drops out of hyperspace just long enough to write the following missive on the PRMIA DC web rant soapbox and get a few hours sleeep.  Ode to Frank Partnoy. --  Chris

One of the big stories of the week was that Morgan Stanley “reduced” its exposures to Italy by $3.4 billion mostly by unwinding some swaps they had on with Italy. Morgan Stanley booked profit of $600 million on the unwind. The timing couldn’t have been worse coming on the heels of the “Darth Vader” resignation at Goldman Sachs, attracting more attention to profits on derivatives trades was the last thing the investment banks need. Much of the outrage seems misplaced though. In this case, don’t blame Morgan Stanley, blame Italy, and be very afraid of what else Italy has done.

Mark Fisher is a staple contributor on CNBC. Or at least was. According to various headlines flashing across both Bloomberg and Reuters, it seems that his MBF Clearing Corp is the first victim of the CFTC expanding its MF Global inquiry, and Fisher's MBF Clearing Corp of performing just the same "vaporization" activity that MF Global engaged in and that boggle regulators' minds.

MBF CLEARING CORP SUED BY CFTC FOR FAILIING TO SEGREGATE FUNDS
CFTC ACCUSES MBF OF DEPOSITING CUSTOMER FUNDS INTO A NON-SEGREGATED ACCOUNT THAT ROUTINELY HELD BETWEEN $30-90 MLN
CFTC ALLEGES CUSTOMER ACCOUNTS WEREN'T PROPERLY SEGREGATED

Oops. In other news, JPM and Jon Corzine are both completely innocent of anything. But at least the CFTC can say it has done its duty of punishing transgressors and all is now well.

As Portugal gets jealous of Greece's ability to just not pay bills, insurance portfolios will suffer greatly as the FIRE sector burns! The first domino has fallen, yet the MSM is taking this as a non-event!