default

The Greek bankruptcy, pardon, sovereign liability management exercise, pardon reprofiling, is once again front and center in the news this morning, after Moody's had some words of caution about a broad spillover effect in Europe should Greece file. From Reuters: "A Greek debt default would hurt other peripheral euro zone states and could push Portugal and Ireland into junk territory, Moody's said on Tuesday, warning it would classify most forms of restructuring as a default.  "A Greek default would be highly destabilising and would have implications for the creditworthiness of issuers across Europe," Moody's Investors Service's chief credit officer in the region, Alastair Wilson, told Reuters in a telephone interview. "This would result in more highly polarised credit worthiness and ratings among euro zone sovereigns, with the stronger countries retaining very high ratings and the weaker countries struggling to remain in investment grade." And yet a Greek bankruptcy seems increasingly more inevitable after a brand new fissure has now appeared in the government, after the chief opposition, New Democracy, party leader Antonis Samaras said he would oppose the latest round of austerity which, nonetheless, must pass in order for Greece to not run out of funds in 2 months, as we previously reported, and finally set off the dominoes. While the political bickering will likely hit fever pitch, and result in new and increasingly more violent protests in Athens, it is likely that austerity will pass as western banks are licking their chops at acquiring Greek "privatized" assets, at least when it comes to infrastructure and real estate, banks not so much, at below cost prices.

Last week David Stockman was on Tom Keene, making the usual media rounds (sometimes we marvel at his patience and endurance), as one of the few voices of fiscal prudence available to TV producers who seek to hold a balanced debate on the topic of US insolvency. Today, Reagan's budget director was again on Bloomberg TV explaining the reality of the situation to Matt Miller for the nth time (by now even a 2 year old will understand the cul-de-sac facing the US), although presenting a new spin on the situation, namely that we have gotten to a point where both parties are implicitly pushing for a US default, while though their inability to reach a political compromise, blaming each other for this inevitable outcome. "The real problem is the de facto policy of both parties is default. When the Republicans say no tax increases, they're saying we want the U.S. government to default. Because there isn't enough political will in this country to solve the problem even halfway on spending cuts. When the Democrats say you can't touch Social Security, when you have Obama sponsoring a war budget for defense that is even bigger than Bush, then I say the policy of the White House is default as well...That is the question that really needs to be understood better and appraised by the bond market. Both parties are advocating default even as they point the finger at each other."

The presumed default catastrophe driven by an inability to increase debt is precisely why it shouldn't be increased.

And for today's second most surreal piece of news (the first being that Osama was a fan of RedTube and Adult Friend Finder, whose stock tumbled 25% after its IPO on news that such a loyal customer is now dead), we turn to Reuters which brings us news of a "report" by centrist think tank Third Wave, due out on Monday, which finds that "the United States could plunge back into recession if inaction in Washington forced a debt default, according to a new analysis that arrives as the country reaches the legal limits of its borrowing authority....Some 640,000 U.S. jobs would vanish, the housing market's woes would deepen, stocks would fall and lending activity would tighten if the country were unable to pay its bills, according to a report by the centrist think tank Third Way due out on Monday." And yes, first Dow Jones and now Reuters confirms what we have been warning all this week, namely that "the Treasury Department is expected to hit its $14.3 trillion borrowing limit on Monday, making it unable to access the bond markets again. Lawmakers from both parties say they won't approve a further increase in borrowing authority without steps to keep debt under control." Yet back to the topic at hand: which is that someone actually paid money to discover what will happen to America when it filed for bankruptcy. If this was a paper out of the San Fran Fed we understand, but private industry? If there is one margin hike we approve of it is for the CME to hike the margin to 1000% cash in trivial common sense BS.

It's about damn time... "The best way to stop an investigation is to become one of the investigators" 4closureFraud 2010

Gold and silver continue to rebound from their sell offs as Euro zone periphery worries intensify with real risks of defaults and possible contagion. Gold has risen from €1,010/oz to over €1,057/oz since Friday. The long period of correction and consolidation may soon see a break out above resistance at record nominal highs of €1,072/oz - less than 1.5% below the current price. The recent strength of the euro looks set to end as sovereign debt risks come to the fore again. This will likely see the euro fall versus most currencies and especially against gold. There has been the usual misinformed and non evidence based assertions that the gold and silver markets were ‘bubbles’ and that they have burst. The same simplistic assertions were made after the sharp price corrections seen in 2008 and were proven badly wrong.

This does not sound like the sound of European consensus: "The leader of Finland’s euro-skeptic True Finns party, Timo Soini, said Europe’s crisis-handling mechanism “doesn’t work” and Greece will default on its debts as efforts to keep the country afloat have failed. He spoke today in a phone interview with Bloomberg Television." More like the sound of inevitability...We wonder how this will be spun by Trichet. In the meantime, things in carry land are getting worse and worse, as the USDJPY hit 79.60 overnight, a level at which the Japanese economy joins Europe and the US in full contraction mode. The summer of central bankers' discontent is coming fast and furious.

Let us reiterate a COMEX default on delivery of precious metals and specifically of silver bullion bars is far from “noise”. It is of significant importance and that is why we have covered its possibility for some months. A COMEX default would have massive ramifications for precious metals markets, for the wider commodity markets, for the dollar, for fiat currencies and for our modern financial system. Silver surged 3.4% yesterday to settle at a 31 year nominal high and rose by $1.55 on the day. Silver is up some 28% in April alone. The last time this happened is when Warren Buffett took a large stake in silver in 1987 and there were rumours of Buffett “cornering the market”. Silver remains in backwardation and the possibility of a COMEX default cannot be ruled out – especially as silver bullion inventories are very small vis-à-vis possible capital allocations to silver in the coming weeks and months. The possibility of an attempted cornering of the silver market through buying and taking delivery of physical bullion remains real and would likely lead to a massive short squeeze which could see silver surge to well over its inflation adjusted high of $140/oz. Indeed, a recent article in the Financial Times suggested that private or state interests with very deep pockets are attempting to corner the silver market. Bizarrely, this massive story which mooted the possibility of Russian billionaires, Chinese traders and even the People’s Bank of China and other central banks secretly buying silver, has subsequently been barely reported or commented on. There are now two “conspiracy theories”. One is the long side conspiracy theory which claims, a la the FT, that there are foreign private and state actors attempting to corner the silver market through secret buying.

The idea that the US will default on its debt and we’ll somehow re-enter the stone age is false. Human ingenuity and survival skills are far better than that. Indeed, the human race was in much worse conditions when we were hiding in caves and running from prehistoric monsters. We somehow survived that situation and evolved to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and drive cars… so I’m sure we’ll figure out how to deal with the collapse of the US empire and the end of the Dollars status as world reserve currency.

The various Yen funding crosses have suddenly seen a bit of a hiccup (but fear not: it only means far greater USD shorting instead) following a rumor that Greece may default as early as this weekend. While we think there is absolutely no possibility of that happening, a far more interesting piece of news comes from Finland, where the recent electoral upstart Soini from the True Finns party has said that the May EcoFin meeting would discuss an "entirely different" solution to the debt crisis, than the previous one. Specifically, he was quoted by Reuters as saying the best solution would be one of bank recapitalization whereby banks, and not taxpayers, bear liability. Is Europe about to pull the plug on taxpayer funded bailout for good? And if so, does the European financial system have enough a buffer to absorb what will certainly be hundreds of billions in capital shortfall. Looks like May is shaping up to be another rescue Europe month... just like last year.

And so we see another tipping point in action: while absolutely nothing has changed in the fundamentals of Europe's insolvent peripherals, today, for the first time since early January, we are seeing an absolute bloodbath in the risk gauges of the European periphery. As the PIIGS list below shows, spreads are surging, and while it is no surprise that Greece is now trading north of 1200 bps following a weekend full of Greek default chatter, the important observation is that Spain and Italy are once again in the default mix.

• Portugal 615 (+15) - officially insolvent
• Italy 156 (+13)
• Ireland 588 (+21) - officially insolvent
• Greece 1225bp (+89) - officially insolvent
• Spain 250 (+16)

Concerns that the sovereign debt crisis may be entering a new phase and the risk of contagion has seen peripheral eurozone bonds fall sharply and the euro fall against major currencies and gold today. Sovereign debt risk, global inflation concerns, geopolitical risk, disappointing European earnings and concerns about Japan's coming reporting season have seen equities weaken and new record nominal highs for gold and silver (all time and 31 year). Greek bond yields have continued their relentless march higher and have risen above 14.07% (10 year) and Portuguese debt (10 year) has risen to a euro era record over 9.27%.Spanish and Irish debt are also under pressure this morning. Gold is increasingly being seen as the superior currency in a world of trillion dollar and euro deficits and bailouts. Indeed, the printing and electronic creation of billion and trillions of the major paper currencies is increasingly making gold and silver the currencies of last resort. One of the largest pension funds in the world, the University of Texas Investment Management Co (which manages the endowment for the Texas teachers pension fund), has realized this and has put 5% of the pension fund into gold bullion (see news). The fund has previously expressed concerns about the counter party risk in ETFs. However, the reason given for opting for taking delivery of 100 oz gold bars in a warehouse was that if the holders of just 5 percent of COMEX futures contracts opted to take delivery of the metal, there wouldn’t be enough to cover the demand leading to a COMEX default. The risk of a COMEX default increases by the day and appears to be moving from the realms of the “conspiracy theory” to that of “of course we knew it would happen, it stands to reason and was inevitable.” A COMEX default would have serious ramifications for the dollar and all fiat currencies as it would further erode trust in central banks, fiat currencies and today’s monetary system.

An 'important' voice has just advocated default on federal debt. I think he's a fool.

In a letter focusing on what has been well known to Zero Hedge readers for about two years now, Bill Gross' latest investment outlook does the usual attack of Beltway stupidity (as if Congress is in any way competent of making math-related decisions - they do what Wall Street - that's you Bill! - tell them to do, and you know it), emphasizing the impossible math of total US entitlement liabilities (on a net present value basis), which Gross estimates at $75 trillion. That Gross conclusion is predetermined from the onset is not surprising: "Unless entitlements are substantially reformed, I
am confident that this country will default on its debt; not in
conventional ways, but by picking the pocket of savers via a combination
of less observable, yet historically verifiable policies – inflation,
currency devaluation and low to negative real interest rates." Then again, that America is bankrupt is not really news to anyone. Neither is it news, that Gross, as we first reported, no longer has any US bonds to dispose of. What will be news is the inflection point at which Gross starts purchasing Treasuries once again. And after all with $220 billion in AUM in the Total Return Fund, what else will he do: hold on to cash? Buy Netflix? Then the only question will be how Gross spins the inevitable capitulation of the re-hypocrisy trade, validating that he, in a narrow sense, and PIMCO in a broad one, is perhaps the biggest cog in the very system that Bill spends so many hours writing letters about and complaining against. But yes, even that won't be all that surprising to us. After all, in this bizarro world absolutely everything is now priced in.

Over two years ago, when discussing the absolutely top ticked purchase of one 666 Fifth Avenue by under-30 real estate mogul extraordinaire, NY Observer owner and now Donald Trump son in law, Jared Kushner, we said: "Looks like the commercial mortgage apocalypse is about to claim its next victim, this time in the form of the appropriately numbered 666 Fifth Avenue building, home to such previously flourishing tenants as Citi Private Wealth Management...the building's DSCR has fallen to an abysmal 0.69. Even when taking into account the $98 million (or much less) reserve fund the building has set aside to cover rent shortfalls, one can assume it won't be long before the 666 insignia again prominently graces the roof, especially since it would have to replace a laughable Citi sign." Ah, the good old days of 2009, when news mattered, data actually flowed through models, hedge funds traded on constant inside information, markets actually dipped, POMO was a clown, and central planning was merely a drop of unrecycled ink in Ben Shalom Mugabe's toner cartridge. But we digress. As usual Zero Hedge may have been just a little bit ahead of the curve, though still better late in our prediction than never. With little surprise we read in the WSJ, that after an artificial delay of over 2 years, the inevitable is about to catch up with reality, confirming that no amount of Vissarionovichian market manipulation can make up for the complete absence of cash flows. "As of March, the aluminum-panel-clad skyscraper was about $3.5 million-a-month short on debt service, say people familiar with the matter. Only $10 million remained in a reserve fund used to service the property's $1.22 billion mortgage, which is tied to the office portion of the building. Its revenues are only one-fourth the amount forecast in 2007." Next steps: technical and/or full blown default.