Citigroup

Citi's head of FX, Steven Englander, has some contrarian observations on the fate of the US dollar, which a more nuanced read may even indicate a slightly conspiratorial bent, namely that in order to cut the surging global inflation dead in its tracks (alas, too late for the regimes of Tunisia and Egypt), the dollar will have to surge even more. To wit: "If the world’s inflation problem is primarily derived from rising commodity and food prices, it is very likely that a stronger USD will help mitigate this inflation quickly and efficiently. There is a well established relationship between USD strength and weaker commodity prices." Of course, with the Printing Dutchman at the helm, what hope is there for a sustainable strong USD thesis: "The problem is that there does not appear to be a market driver for USD strength." Yet this could very well be the contrarian trade going forward as the G-20 looks aghast at events in Africa and realizes that the "last case" scenario just seems that much more credible. If this happens and there a concerted effort to reincarnate the dollar, look for the EURUSD to plunge, and all USDXXX pairs to surge in the following days, especially as the carry funding shorts realize that they will once again, just like in late 2008, be the sacrificial lambs at the altar of "Kicking the can down the road one last time"-dom. Quote Englander: "During a similar high commodity price episode in mid-2008, we saw some evidence of high reserves growth, which is unusual when the private sector is buying dollars. Moreover, then as now, market macro investor positions appeared to be long commodities. While it would be unusual for reserve managers to buy USD for inflation stabilization reasons, as a quick solution to a major problem it may be more effective than most."

Just headlines for now. And so after the great subprime debacle, the latest yard winner for JP is piggybacking on the government's at all costs rescue of the biggest financial zombie in the American financial hierarchy. As a reminder as of the last publicly filed 13F, Paulson held 424 million shares of C, a drop from just over half a billion shares at June 30. In other words, the $2 pick up in Citi shares is the monetary equivalent of having Goldman tell ACA that Paulson was long the equity tranche of something or another.

Yesterday, Citigroup's homebuilding team hosted a call with investors in which the guest speaker was Adam Levitin, an associate professor of law at Georgetown University. Far from providing the "all green" call participants had desired, Levitin said that what we have recently seen and heard in the news is “just the tip of the iceberg” and that the foreclosure halt may well cause a "systemic problem", as was suggested on Zero Hedge when the news of the Florida's court involvement was first made public (here and here) a month ago. And since by now everyone knows what the key tension points in this potentially massive development are, we will cut straight to Levitin's somewhat unpleasant conclusions: "Our speaker predicted that more and more lenders are likely to stop their foreclosure processes in both judicial and non-judicial states. He also expects more states’ attorney generals to get involved. At the federal level, it is possible than banking regulators might step in as there is legal and reputational risk for the banks involved. Ultimately, if these issues do in fact escalate, the Administration may try to broker some sort of settlement. If such deal brokering does take place, Levitin believes that “some payment” will be exacted from the lenders and servicers. The Administration could bargain for more mortgage principal write downs." In other words, the endgame will likely end up being the extraction of material concession from the banking syndicate, in the form of systemic mortgage writedowns, with Obama's blessing, which will likely put the 25% of homeowners who are underwater on equal footing with the other 75%. It may turn out that this was the plan all along. And people naively wonder why banks have hundreds of billions in cash stashed on the sidelines...

Life at UBS continues to suck, as rumors of defections eventually ceasing are greatly exaggerated. Today we have learned that the entire American UBS energy and MLP investment banking team has defected to Citi. This follows such high profile departures as the firm's healthcare and stock churning teams leaving for Jefferies some time ago, and who knows how many other people. Those who are seeking to get a confirmation from UBS' Stephen Trauber may have to look for him at his new position somewhere in the bowels of 399 Park.

• Finra fines Citigroup Inc over cemeteries
• Finra says Citigroup pays $1.5 million for failures related to scheme to misappropriate millions in trust funds belonging to cemeteries
• Finra says Citigroup pays $750,000 fine, $750,000 disgorged commissions
• Finra says Citigroup does not admit wrongdoing in agreeing to settle

We see considerable scope for other, fiscally weak EMU markets to underperform in the current environment. Portugal, another dual deficit economy, has underperformed sharply over the past week, with 10yr spreads to Germany reaching new wides and PGBs now trading around 20bp wider in ASW terms than Irish gilts in the 10yr sector. Spain continues to defy its relative fundamental weakness and remains particularly rich in the EMU space, as shown by our rankings. However, we sense that SPGBs are starting to lose favour and increasingly Spain should be exposed to tighter liquidity conditions as the ECB withdraws its special OMOs. The collapse of the Belgian government has finally been the catalyst for a repricing of OLOs, which in our view have already out-punched their weight relative to core EMU markets, notably Germany. We would also consider shorting OLOs versus the smaller core markets of the Netherlands, Finland and Austria or, indeed BTPs. - Citigroup

American Banking News investigates the reason for the recent massive surge in financial stocks, to a big extent predicated by the government's desire to push Citi stock price over the $5 critical threshold "participation" barrier. As ABN notes: "The reason behind wanting the share price to go beyond $5 is in relationship to institutional investors, who in many cases are prohibited from investing in any stock under $5 a share. For example, pension funds and mutual funds are some of those I’m referring to here." Nothing surprising there. However, the scathing critique that follows, based on nothing but the truth and exposing the government's endless stock market manipulation gimmicks, deserves a broader audience.

Uh Oh. We will get you more as we see it.

A month ago Goldman told its clients to go long the EURUSD with a 1.35 stop. The stop was triggered within a week. Then the firm flipflopped and followed up with a diametrically opposite call. That call was also stopped within a few days. Goldman learned its lesson. But not Citi: the nationalized firm, whose stock, together with that of bankrupt Ambac, has just issued a long EURUSD call at 1.359. The call by technical analyst Aron Gera, proposes a stop at 1.349. In other words it is now Citi's turn to offload its EUR book. Gera's recommendation is based on technical analysis, which, in the form of momentum chasing, is all that seems to work these days. Aron thinks the EUR could surge to an 11-week high, even as the GBPUSD could jump as high as 1.5966 alongside EUR strength.

Paulson & Co's December 31, 2009 13-F was just released. The disclosure for the fund's equity long (shorts are not disclosed, neither are credit cash nor CDS and other holdings) reveals $19.8 billion in positions. The fund's top position continues to be GLD at a value of $3.4 billion (unchanged from September 30). Notable is the addition of 206.7 million shares to the fund's Citi position which is now worth approximately $1.7 billion. Other notable financial additions include SunTrust Bank, in which Paulson added 28.8 million shares, Wells Fargo, a new 17.5 million position worth $472.3 million, JPMorgan common, in which the fund added 5 million shares to 7 million for $291 million, as well as JPM Warrants worth $250 million (a new position). Other new positions in the top 20 include Comcast (44 million share), XTO Energy (10 million shares), IMS Health (18 million shares), and Pfizer (15.6 million shares). A primary reduced holding is the fund's exposure in Bank Of America - Common stock, which declined by 8.8 million shares to 151 million, or $2.27 billion. This was offset by the purchase of 13.8 million BAC "Units" worth $205 million.

Standard and Poor's whacks Citi and Bank of America, revising its outlook on both firms from Stable to Negative, cites "increased uncertainty about the U.S. government's willingness to provide additional extraordinary support to highly systemically important financial institutions in a way that will benefit debt holders."

More smoke and mirrors for the peasantry, courtesy of Wall Street, this time coming from Citigroup. Remember all that hoopla how banks are making payments in stock almost entirely, and how no Citigroup employee would get more than $100,000 in cash? Well, turns out the stock portion of compensation is just as liquid: it has been revealed that Citigroup employees can sell stock received as part of their bonuses as early as April. Hopefully by then the CNBC watching sheep will have forgotten all about Wall Street's record bonuses year and everyone can get on with their lives.

In the wake of the crumbling of certain sandcastles in the sky, sovereign wealth funds in the middle east have baited our analytic gaze over the last month or so. It takes very little, therefore, to prompt us to take careful notice now just about whenever one is mentioned. Today, the Kuwait Investment Authority (hereinafter the "KIA") and its brutal body-blow to Citi demand our attention.

"Simon Johnson, an MIT professor and former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, reckons there should be caps of roughly $100 billion on the assets of financial institutions and "serious criminal consequences" if firms are caught trying to get around such limits."

So, it looks like Lloyds and RBS are going to get broken up into smaller, more manageable pieces by the Brits. I think it is clear that something similar is needed in the US to dismantle the banking oligarchy. Could it happen here? Well, maybe the follow the leader dynamic that occurred during the misguided attempt to ban short sales will play out in this case as well.