Citigroup

Many local governments across the US face steep budget deficits as they struggle to pay off debts accumulated over years. Increasingly, as a last resort, some have filed for bankruptcy. There have been 26 municipal bankruptcy filings since 2010 and the pace is clustering, as Governing.com is keeping track. As Citi's George Friedlander noted (and we discussed here), technicals (net flows) are still dominant and dragging yields lower and spreads tighter; in spite of contagion fears from cities with clear economic problems (specifically those in CA with severe housing price collapses) and also general fund debt that is not secured by a G.O. pledge. However, with the August 'cliff' in redemptions clearly not priced in yet - as fear has driven momentum into bonds recently - we fear more than a few will be wrong-footed when the net flow shifts.

Facebook investors are about to get unliked...

• Draghi Says ECB To Do Whatever Needed As Yields Threaten Europe (Bloomberg)
• Spain not mulling seeking further EU help (Reuters)... and it won't need a Bank bailout either. Oh wait
• Weak lending adds pressure for ECB action (Reuters)
• Sweden's economy still resilient to eurozone woes (Reuters)
• Bo Xilai’s Wife, Zhang Xiaojun, Prosecuted for Homicide (Xinhua)
• China’s Changsha City Unveils $130 Billion Investment Plan (Bloomberg)
• Foreclosure Filings Increase in 60% of Large U.S. Cities (Bloomberg)
• Free ECB’s hand to aid states, says minister (FT)
• Hungarian Premier Says Aid Deal Not Near (WSJ)
• Nomura Chief Resigns Over Insider Trading Scandal (NYT)

Every hour of every day we are told by the 'repeaters' that sentiment is terrible, it's all priced in, market's gotta go higher. Nowhere is this more true than in the constant diatribe of commentary on the EURUSD exchange rate and the 'massive build-up of short EUR positions'. However, as Citigroup's Steven Englander points out - shushing the bullish mob - that "a closer look at the data suggests that the investors with the biggest shorts seem to have built up their short positions at much higher euro levels, so the short squeeze risk may not be as great as aggregate positions suggest."

Who is Sandy Weill? He is none other than a retired Citigroup Chairman, a former NY Fed Director, and a "philanthropist." He is also the man who lobbied for overturning of Glass Steagall in the last years of the 20th century, whose repeal permitted the merger of Travelers of Citibank, in the process creating Citigroup, the largest of the TBTF banks eventually bailed out by taxpayers. In his memoir Weill brags that he and Republican Senator Phil Gramm joked that it should have been called the Weill-Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act. Informally, some dubbed it “the Citigroup Authorization Act.” As The Nation explains, "Weill was instrumental in getting then-President Bill Clinton to sign off on the Republican-sponsored legislation that upended the sensible restraints on finance capital that had worked splendidly since the Great Depression." Of course, by overturning Glass Steagall the last hindrance to ushering in the TBTF juggernaut and the Greenspan Put, followed by the global Bernanke put, was removed, in the process making the terminal collapse of the US financial system inevitable. Why is Weill relevant? Because in a statement that simply redefines hypocrisy, the same individual had the temerity to appear on selloutvision, and tell his fawning CNBC hosts that it is "time to break up the big banks." That's right: the person who benefited the most of all from the repeal of Glass Steagall is now calling for its return.

Spain is not Uganda: this morning Spain is increasingly looking like the 10th circle of bondholder vigilante hell with its 10 Year trading at 7.59% after hitting a record 7.607% moment prior. The short end has blown out even wider and the 2 Year very appropriately at 6.66% and rising. Italy has also joined the party blowing out to just why of 6.5% and Italy's banks about to be halted across the board despite the short-selling ban. Next up: selling anything forbidden. Finally, the scramble for safety into Swiss 2 year notes accelerates as these touch a mindboggling -0.44%. There was no specific catalyst to lead to today's ongoing meltdown, but the fact that Spain just paid a record price for 3 and 6 month Bills is not helping: the average yield was 2.434 percent for the three-month bills compared with 2.362 percent in June and 3.691 percent for six-month paper compared with 3.237 percent. With each passing day, the selling crew is demanding the ECB get involved and stop the carnage. For now Draghi is nowhere to be seen as Germany continues to have the upper hand. After all recall just who it is that benefits from keeping the periphery on the razor's edge and the EURUSD sliding.

Because Everyone from the Ultra-Rich to Illegal Immigrants Pay Nothing

As the flow of subsidies from Washington slowly ebbs, the TBTF banks will begin to feed upon one another...

Two years ago, in January 2010, Zero Hedge wrote "This Is The Government: Your Legal Right To Redeem Your Money Market Account Has Been Denied" which became one of our most read stories of the year. The reason? Perhaps something to do with an implicit attempt at capital controls by the government on one of the primary forms of cash aggregation available: $2.7 trillion in US money market funds. The proximal catalyst back then were new proposed regulations seeking to pull one of these three core pillars (these being no volatility, instantaneous liquidity, and redeemability) from the foundation of the entire money market industry, by changing the primary assumptions of the key Money Market Rule 2a-7. A key proposal would give money market fund managers the option to "suspend redemptions to allow for the orderly liquidation of fund assets." In other words: an attempt to prevent money market runs (the same thing that crushed Lehman when the Reserve Fund broke the buck). This idea, which previously had been implicitly backed by the all important Group of 30 which is basically the shadow central planners of the world (don't believe us? check out the roster of current members), did not get too far, and was quickly forgotten. Until today, when the New York Fed decided to bring it back from the dead by publishing "The Minimum Balance At Risk: A Proposal to Mitigate the Systemic Risks Posed by Money Market FUnds". Now it is well known that any attempt to prevent a bank runs achieves nothing but merely accelerating just that (as Europe recently learned). But this coming from central planners - who never can accurately predict a rational response - is not surprising. What is surprising is that this proposal is reincarnated now. The question becomes: why now? What does the Fed know about market liquidity conditions that it does not want to share, and more importantly, is the Fed seeing a rapid deterioration in liquidity conditions in the future, that may and/or will prompt retail investors to pull their money in another Lehman-like bank run repeat?

From the inbox: "Tilson splitting from Tongue, unwinding T2 Partners, new fund at KASE Capital" We very much hope our tipster is wrong: after all how will CNBC Fast Money viewers know to buy JCP at $27, and $26, and $25, and $24, and all the way down to $19 where it is today. Also who could have possibly foreseen the end of a mega long-biased end of a $345 Million fund which had over $125 million in long derivative equivalents? Oh wait...

Despite the 'idiosyncratic' stresses in California (and elsewhere) the reach-for-'safe'-yield has maintained a strong bid for Munis in the last few weeks (on both a spread and yield basis). As Citi's George Friedlander notes, the last week alone saw 15-20bps compression in the mid- to long-end of the Muni curve - notably outperforming the longer-end of the Treasury curve. New issues have been oversubscribed and snapped as much as 20bps on the break. The reason is simple - 'all-time record' total redemptions (maturing and called bonds) - which left net issuance negative and a strong tendency for certain types of investors to put cash back to work as soon as it is received. However, this flood of 'technical' liquidity from reinvestment faces a rather sudden cliff around the start of August when expected net issuance will turn aggressively positive relative to redemptions. Given the constant refinancings and a lack of maturing reinvestment, Freiedlander expects "the muni market to struggle to absorb [the heavy calendar] after August 1 - and slightly earlier if participants begin to discount this shift", which will only push refinancing costs higher for issuers coming to market.

When the Fed released its "trove" of materials confirming that the Fed indeed knew that the Barclays was manipulating its Libor submissions (amusingly explained by Ben Bernanke before Senate today that "the employee had no idea what Libor is in that case"), few were surprised, but more were confused why the congressional inquiry focused solely on the Fed's interactions with British Barclays, instead of focusing on the three domestic banks that were part of the BBA's USD Libor fixing committee.Sure enough, the 3 US banks on the USD Libor fixing committee were just dragged into the fray: "Representative Randy Neugebauer, a Texas Republican and chairman of the oversight and investigations panel of the U.S. House Financial Services Committee said he intends to request correspondence between the Fed and the three U.S. banks on the Libor-setting panel, JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), Citigroup Inc. (C) and Bank of America Corp., according to a congressional aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the details were not yet public."

• Lieborgate fallout: Bank of England Governor Sir Mervyn King faces MPs (Telegraph)
• Yahoo's brand new CEO to seek maternity leave shortly (NYT)
• China’s Foreign Investment Drops 6.9% In June (Bloomberg)
• Falling property investment drives China H1 FDI drop (Reuters)
• German Court Delays Ruling on Fund (WSJ)
• Fed's George Says U.S. Growth May Not Exceed 2% in 2012 (Bloomberg)
• China Echoes 2009 Stimulus Planned Railway Spending Boost (Bloomberg)
• ZEW: Investor Outlook For German Econ At Six-Month Low (MNI)
• Fed Shifts Focus To Jobs As Unemployment Stalls Above 8% (Bloomberg)
• Goldman Builds Private Bank (WSJ) - lock in those deposits asap
• UniCredit, Intesa Among 13 Italian Banks Cut By Moody’s (Bloomberg)

Here are the key highlights from the just released Citigroup Q2 earnings:

• Net Income of $0.95 or $1.00 excluding CVA and one time loss; Exp $0.86
• Citigroup Net Income of $2.9 Billion; $3.1 Billion Excluding CVA/DVA and the Loss on Akbank;
• Citigroup Revenues of $18.6 Billion; $18.8 Billion Excluding $219 Million of CVA/DVA and the $424 Million Loss on Akbank; Exp. $19.01 Billion
• Where the bottom line beat came from: Loan Loss Reserve Release of $984 Million in Second Quarter, or 35% of pretax net income.
• Complete freeze in capital markets:
  
  • Fixed Income markets revenue plummets from $4.7B in Q1 to $2.8B in Q2 (and down 4% Y/Y from $2.9 billion)
  • Equity Markets revenue slides 39% sequentially from $776MM to $550MM, down 29% Y/Y from $776MM. It's a zombie zone out there
• Total Securities and Banking revenues slide 22%, yet Expenses decline just 4%
• And just like JPM, Americans can't wait to hand over their deposits to Citi: Citigroup Quarter-End Deposits of $914 Billion, 6% Above Prior Year Period
• This compares to total Loans of $655 billion or a $259 billion mismatch; we know that this surplus is what JPM uses as funding for its Treasury/CIO group. Does Citi also use the excess deposits to fund its internal hedge fund?

So when you see Citi’s Q2 2012 earnings, remember that about ¼ of the number will come from non-interest bearing deposits covered by FDIC's TAG program.