Citigroup

• Spain Seeks Joint Bank Effort as Pressure Rises on Merkel (Bloomberg)
• Banks Cut Cross-Border Lending Most Since Lehman: BIS (Bloomberg)
• Shirakawa Bows to Yen Bulls as Intervention Fails (Bloomberg)
• Merrill Losses Were Withheld Before Bank of America Deal (NYT)
• Investors Brace for Slowdown (WSJ)
• China's lenders ordered to check bad loans (China Daily)
• Obama Seeks Way Out of Jobs Gloom (WSJ)
• Noda Reshuffles Japan Cabinet in Bid for Support on Sales Tax (Bloomberg)
• China to open the market further (China Daily)
• Australian Industry Must Adapt to High Currency, Hockey Says (Bloomberg)
• Tax-funded projects to be more transparent (China Daily)

Two weeks of utter confusion by most market participants out there, when the complete deja vu scenario is so very clear. To help out those banging their heads over what is happening, here, once again, is the full playbook as it was laid out here for eveyone to read and prepare, because it explained to the dot precisely what will happen, and has been happening since May 19. And yes, that 1000 bps on XO is still about 25% away... Do the math.

• Dublin in final push for EU treaty Yes vote (FT)
• Spain cries for help: is Berlin listening? (Reuters)
• Crisis draws squatters to Spain's empty buildings (Reuters)
• EU World Bank Chief Urges Euro Bonds (WSJ)
• but... EU: Current Plan Is Not To Let ESM Directly Recapitalize Banks (WSJ)
• Graff pulls Hong Kong IPO, latest victim of weak markets (Reuters) - was MS underwriter?
• EU Weighs Direct Aid to Banks as Antidote to Crisis (Bloomberg)
• Dewey's bankruptcy: Let the rumble begin (Dewey)
• More are cutting off Greek trade: Trade credit insurers balk at Greek risk (FT)
• Rosengren wants more Fed easing; Dudley, Fisher don't (Reuters)
• EU throws Spain two potential lifelines (Reuters)
• Fed's Bullard says more quantitative easing unlikely for now, warns on Europe (Reuters)

All you need to read and some more.

Europe's game of chicken, all of which is geared to one simple thing - to spook the Greeks into voting for pro-bailout powers, and against Syriza - has now officially entered the Twilight Zone. In the latest episode of what can now simply be described as the world's most entertaining yet terrifying mutual assured destruction showdown, because should Greece leave, the destruction, at least in the short-term, will impact both Europe and Greece, although Greece will recover far, far faster as the standard of living there has already been crushed (which incidentally is the primary reason why Europe has lost control over the situation: without the carrot of welfare state promises, a Ponzi regime is meaningless), we learn that on Monday a Eurogroup Working Group held a teleconference in which officials "agreed to prepare for individual contingency plans if and when Greece exits." Here is the problem - the contingency plan can be summarized in one word: panic. Because absent a full blown coordinated monetary intervention, Europe's individual states are completely powerless, and they know it. Sadly, and this is where the farce and charade are complete, the Greek people know it too. As a result, this little adventure, leaked subsequently to Reuters, loses all utility. But we expect many more such escalations from Europe: after all we have nearly a full month before June 17: plenty of time to crush the market in order to get a reaction out of the Greek voters, European politicians and ECB bankers, just as Citigroup suggested. Only issue is, the more Greek voters are prodded into a corner, the more likely they are to simply snap.

All you need to read.

The big banks are getting restless. Nowhere is this more evident than in the latest just released letter from Citi's European Credit Strategy, literally a letter to Europe's trio of leading politicians, which follows hot on the heels of yet another recent Citigroup missive from Willem Buiter, which was largely ignored in the noise, yet which made it all too clear that when all else fails, it is the Chairman's sworn duty to paradrop money. Because if anyone, it is the banks that know that if things aren't fixed (they aren't), it is up to the central banks to do something to prevent the vigilantes from forcing the politicians hands, as they did in the summer and fall of 2011 (which will not provide a long-term fix, but at least allow bankers to hope that the next collapse won't take place before bonus season). As Citi says, "Until the gravity of the situation is made clear, until the self-reinforcing mechanisms that already seem to be in motion are understood, we don't see how the solutions, the answers, and the certainty that market craves can be brought to the table." Which simply means that things are about to get much, much worse as it will be up to the markets to bring the world to the edge of collapse once again, just so Europe, with the help of the Fed of course, once again is forced to get over the political bickering and prop up risk assets, in yet another iteration of "this time it's different", even though it isn't. Sure enough: "Our impression is that markets will need to act as the proverbial 'attack dog', forcing the issue on the political agenda. We can't escape the sense that it is probably politically easier to let the markets run loose for the time being to make it apparent that further intervention is needed. But 1000bp on Crossover is much closer than you imagine." In other words, Citi just gave the green light for the bottom to fall from the market just so Europe's increasingly impotent political elite does something, anything. Look for many more banks to sign off on the same letter.

While all eyes are focused on Greece (and contagiously Spain), they have forgotten that two far weaker countries still exits - and combined have the power to do as much (if not more) damage than Spain. Portugal and Ireland have moved back into the Red-Zone of risk in Europe's credit markets. Ireland back over 700bps and Portugal back over 1200bps reflects both their idiosyncratic issues (that we have discussed at length) or the systemic issues (which we discussed most recently this morning here). In the case of Portugal, it appears the Dan Loeb trade (we said to fade it) is now being unwound en masse as the reality of the fundamental risks we discussed here seem to be realized. In the case of Ireland, not only is there a rising chance of a 'no' vote at the forthcoming referendum (discussed here) but as Deutsche Bank notes today, via Bloomberg, that Irish banks may face a further $5.1 billion capital call to cover loan losses as "A new, even modest, increase in capital requirements could deter sovereign investor participation and tip the balance in favor of the sovereign requiring a second loan program." Of course the CDS reflect not just the chance of these nations restructuring but also the probability of a EUR devaluation (since the instruments are denominated in USD) but still - we thought Ireland was the template for the success of austerity?

So stepping aside from the biggest aggregator of private data for a few minutes, and focusing on what actually matters, here is Citigroup telling our European readers who have those fancy multi-colored bills in their wallets, that they are in deep trouble.

To summarize from Citi:

• There are many scenarios for a Greek exit;  almost all of them are likely to be EUR negative for an extended period
• Some scenarios could be positive in equilibrium but the run-up to the new equilibrium could be nasty, brutal and long 
• The positive scenarios for the euro involve aggressive reduction of tail risk; none of these seem likely
• It is unlikely that central banks busily substitute EUR for USD in their portfolios during periods of intense political uncertainty.

There's a big, fat "I told you so" coming down the pike. 

For all the totally inexplicable facetime T2's Whitney Tilson gets on prime time financial comedy air, one would imagine that the man runs billions and billions. Instead, as per the just released 13F, Tilson's fund has a grand total of $345MM in long AUM as of March 31. So far so good, however that does not explain why the manager has a Sharpe ratio of roughly 0.00 in the past 3 years. Well, now we know: of the $345 MM total, a ridiculous $104 Million is in call options! In other words, not only is Tilson nothing but a bullish bet that copycats various other select hedge fund portfolios, it is a mega-levered one at that, with what appears ridiculously high theta! It get's worse: as it turns out, another $24MM or so is... in Warrants. Yup: all levered products without actually owning the underlying, leading to massive monthly swings in actual P&L. In other words, real assets held by Tilson amount to $217 Million. And one wonders why the fund can be up 20% one month and down 30% the next... or how Tilson can spend hours a day on TV.

As either taxpayers or long-term JPM investors, we should be more grateful than sorry about the JPM CIO Ina Drew.

European bourses are trading in modest positive territory ahead of the US open with early trade seeing moves higher across equities as Germany printed an expectation-beating 0.5% growth in their flash Q1 GDP. Elsewhere, Eurozone growth surprised to the upside somewhat, coming in flat against the expected contraction of 0.2%. However, as time passed, Greece garnered the focus of markets once more as they face a EUR 435mln foreign-law bond redemption today. Government source comments have somewhat reassured markets that the payment will be made, but participants await official confirmation. Further assisting the moves off the highs was a lower-than expected ZEW survey from Germany, with economists noting that the French and German elections have knocked confidence in the country over the past month.

I have to hand it to the Central Planners.  They are good.  Really, really good.  Of course, they are battling a crippled opponent considering so much of America consists of lobotomized sheeple, but nevertheless to be able to steal so much from many people with such blatant and simplistic methods and not be widely discovered is an act of devious brilliance.  The reason I say this now is because ever since last fall TPTB have changed tactics and totally taken over the markets and with it shoved many people into what is best described as a trance.  The people know something is very wrong.  They know they are getting poorer; that life is getting harder, yet the television and the markets have cloaked a blanket of sedation upon their minds.

All yopu need to read.