Budget Deficit

With the world still on edge over developments in the Ukraine, overnight newsflow was far less dramatic than yesterday, with no "bombshell" uttered at today's Putin press conferences in which he said nothing new and simply reiterated the party line and yet the market saw it as a full abdication, he did have some soundbites saying Russia should keep economic issues separate from politics, and that Russia should cooperate with all partners on Ukraine. Elsewhere Gazprom kept the heat on, or rather off, saying Ukraine recently paid $10 million of its nat gas debt, but that for February alone Ukraine owes $440 million for gas, which Ukraine has informed Gazprom it can't pay in full. Adding the overdue amounts for prior months, means Ukraine's current payable on gas is nearly $2 billion. Which is why almost concurrently Barosso announced that Europe would offer €1.6 billion in loans as part of EU package, which however is condition on striking a deal with the IMF (thank you US taxpayers), and that total aid could be as large as $15 billion, once again offloading the bulk of the obligations to the IMF. And so one more country joins the Troika bailout routine, and this one isn't even in the Eurozone, or the EU.

Dispassionate look at next week's calendar.

Few laws cause as much high blood pressure as the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Supporters of the law consider it the signature legislation of the Obama administration. Yet, in 2011 the House of Representatives passed the “Repealing the Job-Killing Health Care Law,” one of more than 40 attempts to scuttle the legislation. Public opinion polls are ambiguous: most Americans are against the law as a whole and yet most support many of its provisions. BofAML tries to slice through the partisan debate and show what serious research says about how the ACA will impact the labor market.

I crush the JP Morgan Managing Director and Head of FX, John Normand, and his false-factual rant against Bitcoin. Fear, envy & loathing in seeing your bonus floating margin at cryptocurrency risk!

Argentina is a country re-entering crisis territory it knows too well. The country has defaulted on its sovereign debt three times in the past 32 years and looks poised to do so again soon. Its currency, the peso, devalued by more than 20% in January alone. Inflation is currently running at 25%. Argentina's budget deficit is exploding, and, based on credit default swap rates, the market is placing an 85% chance of a sovereign default within the next five years. Want to know what it's like living through a currency collapse? Argentina is providing us with a real-time window.

Three days ago it was S&P that opened the can of Puerto Rico junk worms. Moments ago it was Moody's turn to downgrade the General Obligation rating of the Commonwealth from Baa3 to Ba2, aka junk status. We note this just in case someone is confused what the catalyst was that just sent stock to a new intraday high in the aftermath of today's disappointing jobs number which until this moment barely managed to push the S&P higher by 1%. From the report: "While some economic indicators point to a preliminary stabilization, we do not see evidence of economic growth sufficient to reverse the commonwealth's negative financial trends. Without an economic revival, the commonwealth will face difficult decisions in coming years, as its debt and pension costs rise. The negative outlook signals the remaining challenges facing the commonwealth."

We’ve all done it, haven’t we? Chucked something in the wash and turned it on too high, only to see it pop out at the end of the cycle and it ends up the size of your hamster. Well, Obama has been doing the same. Except this time it’s not your winter woollies that he’s shrinking, it’s the greenback.

It's snowing in New York so the market must be down. Just kidding - everyone know the only thing that matters for the state of global risk is the level of USDJPY and it is this that nearly caused a bump in the night after pushing the Nikkei as low as 13,995, before the Japanese PPT intervened and rammed the carry trade higher, and thus the Japanese index higher by 1.23% before the close of Japan trading. However, since then the USDJPY has failed to levitate as it usually does overnight and at last check was fluctuating within dangerous territory of 101.000, below which there be tigers. The earlier report of European retail sales tumbling by 1.6% on expectations of a modest 0.6% drop from a downward revised 0.9% only confirmed that the last traces of last year's illusionary European recovery have long gone. Then again, it's all the cold weather's fault. In Europe, not in the US that is.

Today's modest bounce in stocks - considerably removed after-hours - does not provide much hope for those looking to buy the dip with the Dow still down over 1000 points year-to-date. In fact, as we discuss below, troubling news just continues to pour in from all over the world... For those that are not interested in the technical details, what all of this means is that global financial markets are starting to become extremely unstable. Consider the following...

Following the evaluation of liquidity needs (and availability) for the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, S&P has decided that "it doesn't warrant an investment-grade rating":

• PUERTO RICO GO RATING CUT TO JUNK BY S&P, MAY BE CUT FURTHER
• GOVT. DEVELOPMENT BANK FOR PUERTO RICO CUT TO BB FROM BBB-:S&P
• PUERTO RICO GO RATING LOWERED TO 'BB+': S&P
• PUERTO RICO REMAINS ON WATCH NEGATIVE FROM S&P

Both the G.O.s and the Development Bank have been cut. Note that 70% of muni mutual funds own this - and it is unclear if a junk rating forces (by mandate) funds to cover. Worst of all, S&P warns Puerto Rico could now face a $1 billion collateral call on short-term debt - the same waterfall collateral cascade that took down AIG.

Unlike the other Fed presidents who are all too happy to lie in order to instill some confidence not realizing that by doing so they hurt their own credibility, non-voting member Jeffrey Lacker and president of the Richmond Fed has a different approach - telling the truth. Which is why we read his just released speech this morning with interest since once again, it contains far more truth and honesty than anything else the FOMC releases. Sure enough, it has enough fire and brimstone to put even fringe bloggers to shame.

It is still all about the Yen carry which overnight tumbled to the lowest level since November, dragging the Nikkei down by 4.8% which halted its plunge at just overf 14,000, only to stage a modest rebound and carry US equity futures with it, even if it hasn't helped the Dax much which moments ago dropped to session lows and broke its 100 DMA, where carmakers are being especially punished following a downgrade by HSBC of the entire sector.  Also overnight the Hang Seng entered an official correction phase (following on from the Nikkei 225 doing the same yesterday) amid global growth concerns and has filtered through to European trade with equities mostly red across the board. Markets have shrugged off news that ECB's Draghi is seeking German support in the bond sterilization debate, something which we forecast would happen a few weeks ago when we pointed out the relentless pace of SMP sterilization failures, with analysts playing down the news as the move would only add a nominal amount of almost EUR 180bln to the Euro-Area financial system. Elsewhere, disappointing earnings from KPN (-4.3%) and ARM holdings (-2.5%) are assisting the downward momentum for their respective sectors.

FX markets featured significant volatility in the past week, though the driver of that volatility was a combination of several idiosyncratic factors, rather than a core underlying narrative.  Widespread risk aversion and position unwinds dominated market trading with China PMI, weak US earnings, and BoJ un-dovishness cited among more systemic factors. Turkey and Argentina (among others) have more idiosyncratic risks (and limits approaching) but as Barclays notes, market positioning has played a major role in the moves as market volatility appears to have been the straw that broke the carry-trade's back - for now... as EM currency returns have notably decoupled from moves in US rates.

Krugman frequently accuses his opponents of being stupid and/or evil, when they present a view that he himself advanced in other circumstances. His typical readers would have no idea that Krugman once worried about bond vigilantes, or that his books lay out the standard case for why generous government unemployment benefits might contribute to structural unemployment. No, Krugman has led such typical readers to believe that anyone espousing such views is either a complete idiot - immune to theory and evidence that we’ve had since the 1930s - or is a paid shill who hates poor people.

Bottom line for financials is that 2014 is looking to be a tough year, even if the Sell Side wants to believe that growing earnings is still possible on flat revenue