Germany

• ECB Cash Averts ‘Funding Crisis’ for Italy, Spain (Bloomberg)
• Bailout talks in Greece ‘crucial’, Premier says (WSJ)
• Spain sees €50bn of new bank provisions (FT)
• Fed says expand Fannie, Freddie role to aid housing (Reuters)
• France’s Borrowing Costs Rise at Bond Sale (Bloomberg)
• Europe worries linger after French auction (Reuters)
• PBOC Suspends Bill Sale as Money Rates Rise Before Holiday (Bloomberg)
• Turkey warns against Shi'ite-Sunni Cold War (Reuters)
• New capital rules for banks ‘delayed to 2H’(China Daily)

And once again, US taxpayers are asked to create high-level jobs overseas. Contenders: Germany, Japan, France, and China....

The fact is that the US has been on a slippery slope for decades, and it's about to go over a cliff. However, our standard of living, while declining, is still very high, both relatively and absolutely. But an American can enjoy a much higher standard of living abroad. On the other hand, if I were some poor guy in a poverty-wracked country with few opportunities, I'd want to go where the action is, where the money is, now. Today, that means trying to get into the United States. The US is headed the wrong direction, but it's still a land of opportunity and a whole lot better than some flea-bitten village in Niger...This is one of the advantages of studying history, because it shows you that things like this rarely happen overnight. They are usually the result of trends that build over years and years, sometimes over generations. In the case of the US, I think the trend has been downhill, in many ways, for many years. Pick a time. You could make an argument, from a moral point of view, that things started heading downhill at the time of the Spanish-American War. That was when a previously peaceful and open country first started conquering overseas lands and staking colonies. America was still in the ascent towards its peak economically, but the seeds of its own demise were already sewn, and a libertarian watching the scene might have concluded that it was time to get out of Dodge –

• Iowa result leads to GOP confusion (FT)
• Romney ekes out Iowa caucus victory (FT)
• MF Global sold assets to Goldman before collapse (Reuters)
• China’s Wen Jiacao sees ‘relatively difficult’ first quarter (Bloomberg)
• German Scandal Adds to Pressure on Merkel (WSJ)
• US mortgage demand fell at year-end, purchases sag (Reuters)
• Bank worries hit Europe stocks, euro down (Reuters)
• Martin Wolf: The 2012 recovery: handle with care (FT)
• SNB Chief’s Wife Defends Dollar Trades (Bloomberg)
• China Home Prices Slide Amid Reserve-Ratio Speculation (Bloomberg)

All eyes were on Germany this morning, where up to €5 billion in new 10 Year Bunds would hit the market, with many dreading a repeat of November's failed auction. As it turns out, the auction was a success in relative terms, with the government getting bids of €5.14 billion or more than the desired maximum - something it could not do two months ago. At the end of the day, Germany sold €4.06 billion and the resulting bid/cover ratio of 1.3 was well higher than the failed auction of November which came at  1.1, when a large amount of paper was retained and bids were not enough to cover the amount of paper on offer. Wednesday's auction is still below the average of 1.54 seen at 10-year sales in 2011 and a 19 percent retention rate is also above the 2011 average. In other words, as we suggested, the November failure has nothing to do with the Buba pushing the ECB into auction and everything to do with prevailing rates: the average yield dropped to 1.93 percent from 1.98 percent but the dwindling returns on offer due to the sharp rally in safe-haven assets as the euro zone debt crisis has intensified have led to lower than average demand at recent German auctions. And while the auction was better than expected it was still quite weak, which explains why the EURUSD is trading at overnight lows, back at around 1.2980. Not helping things is Hungary, which had a failed bond auction last week, and whose IMF rescue package is now in tatters. As a result the CDS on the country just hit an all time record 688 bps and moving much wider, while the forint dropped to record lows. As everyone knows if Hungary falls, which is now operating in a bailoutless vacuum, Austria will tumble promptly next. Next, leading to a blow out in Spanish-Bund spreads is a report in Spanish Expansion which said that Spain may request EU, IMF loans to help banks. In other words - this morning's news shows a potential risk reflaring in the European core, periphery and deep periphery which was immune until now. And finally, a UniCredit €7.5 billion new stock issue pricing at a whopping 43% discount to market price shows that fair value of actual demand for European banks is about half of where the artificially propped up price is (recall Europe still has a short selling ban)

Today, at one point in the afternoon, CNBC's Michelle Caruso Cabrera "broke" the new that according to the IIF and its always amusing chairman Charles Dallara, Greece is about a month away from a final, conclusive and this time definitive resolution with its creditors. He punctuated the news by saying "progress has been made." Naturally, a minor detail was overlooked, namely whether the haircut would be 50% as per the Second Bailout, First Amendment, or 75% as Germany is rumored to have demanded recently. Also ignored is any update on whether hedge fund Vega is proceeding to sue Greece or anyone else for cramming the fund down in what ISDA defined as a "consensual bankruptcy." But the main reason why we ignored this news completely, is that as the annotated chart below of Greek bond prices show, this is not the first time Dallara has had encouraging "news" to say about the bankruptcy process. In fact, if bondholders had merely sold the first time the Frenchman had opened his mouth, they would have saved about 70% of their money. Frankly at this point it no longer matter. The only catalyst now is March, by when Europe needs to finalize and fund the Greek bailout's €130 billion or else it is game over for the Eurozone.

The issue of Germany and its approach to ameliorating the overleveraged balance sheets of its southern neighbors will dictate the direction of sovereign spreads in 2012. The direction of sovereign spreads will also determine the direction of risk premium spreads in the leveraged finance markets— both bonds and loans. Defaults in the leveraged finance market will and should be an afterthought to the systemic risk factors inherent in sovereign and next-of-kin bank credit spreads. Therefore, forecasting default rates should take a backseat to a better understanding of German Kultur and thought that will shape the euro-zone sovereign finance structure in 2012 and beyond. The most recent European Union summit highlighted that we are left with some of the same issues that confronted the great empires prior to World War I—the battle between “English liberalism with its emphasis on individual freedom and self-determination and Prussian socialism with its emphasis on order and authority.”

• Tight race in Iowa kicks off 2012 campaign (Reuters)
• West Is Using Cultural Means to Divide China: Hu (Bloomberg)
• Economists see bleak year ahead (FT)
• Billions needed to upgrade America’s leaky water infrastructure (WaPo)
• Sarkozy, Merkel set bilateral euro talks (WSJ)
• Romney’s hope of Iowa lead in balance (FT)
• Greece: Clinch Bailout or Face Euro Exit (Reuters)

• Market talk of a French sovereign downgrade continues to do the rounds – Unconfirmed
• German Unemployment Change (000's) (Dec) M/M -22K vs. Exp. -10K (Prev. -20K, Rev. to -23K)
• EU says the commission and member states have submitted amendments for new EU treaty

While nothing out of Italy or France was on the bond docket today, other countries in Europe will be issuing bonds on a virtually daily basis as the continent prepares to roll an record amount of debt in Q1, and in January as well (full calendar here). As such we saw new Bill issuance from Belgium and from Netherlands. The waffle country sold €1.280 billion in 3 Month T-Bills at a 2.13 Bid To Cover, a plunge compared to the 8.59 previously, albeit with the yield dropping from 0.78% to 0.264% as it falls flatly within the risk-free period defined by the 3 Year LTRO. Belgium also issued €1.155 6 Month T-Bills at a 2.01 Bid To Cover compared to 2.76 previously and a rate plunging from 2.438% to 0.364%. Elsewhere the Netherland also took advantage of the now mixed LTRO euphoria to sell €4.65 billion in Bills, specifically €2.99 billion in March 2012 Bills pricing at 0.00% (compared to negative -0.007% before), and €1.66 billion December 2012 Bills at a yield of 0.05% - obviously the market is still enamored with Netherlands as a safe haven on par with Germany. And speaking of the LTRO, that carry trade concept is now dead with the year end cash parking theory scrapped following the announcement thet banks parked the second highest amount in history at the ECB, or €446 billion, just shy of the €452 billion hit on December 27.

Following today's release of European manufacturing PMI data we are sadly no closer to getting any resolution on which way the great US-European divergence will compress. Because all we learned is that, very much as expected, Europe managed to contract for a fifth month in a row, with the average PMI in Q4 2011 the weakest since Q2 2009, essentially guaranteeing a sharp recession once the manufacturing slow down spills over to GDP. The only silver lining was that the contraction across the continent was modesty better than expected, however if this merely means that the band aid is being pull off slowly and painfully instead of tearing it off is up for question.

Following today's end of day rumor being a dud (and non-existent due to the habituation nature of the market), the closing news is more unpleasant than Europe would have liked to set the overnight mood, and comes to us via the FT (yes, that FT), which states that, as long speculated both here and elsewhere, "the German government has begun preparations for a possible state bail-out of Commerzbank." The plan would be activated if CBK is unable to figure out a way to fill a €5.3 billion shortfall in the next 30 days, which in reality will likely turn out to be far greater when all of the bank's dirty laundry is exposed for all too see. And with German banks by far the most sensitive to any perceived "tipping points", since it is the German state whose job it is to bail out the world's biggest economic block, it becomes obvious why letting doubts appear about the stability of German megabanks would likely not be a "good thing."

In yet another confirmation of just who is driving policy in Europe, Handelsblatt has broken news that 3 years after Hank Paulson "forced" US banks to take cash, Germany will follow suit next, and "bailout" the German banking sector by stuffing it to the gills with cash soon to be made even more worthless courtesy of persistent and relentless devaluation as it is used for no productive purposes but merely stave off the inevitable collapse of a financial system so broken it now requires not monthly but weekly bailouts. From the German publication: "the German bank rescue fund Soffin will force ailing banks to recapitalize next year. That's at least out of the draft bill, to be released by the Handelsblatt (Thursday edition), and the Cabinet is to decide the next week. Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (CDU) is following the U.S. example: The US distressed banks were temporarily distressed during the 2008 financial crisis. The banks have since there is significantly more stable than the euro-zone in which the institutions were saved only at their own request the European Banking Eba by the banks of the euro-zone by mid-2012 its core capital to nine percent increase. Institutions that make this not your own to get guarantees from the Soffin." Simply said, because it worked (courtesy of an additional $1.6 trillion in excess reserves used fungibly by banks to plug capitalization holes) in the US, the forced bailout will work in Germany, where unlike the US, the top banks account for about 200% of German GDP. In other words, Germany is about to proceed with an implicit nationalization of its banking sector. Which means that while we thought yesterday that the German AAA-rating is the safest of all in the Eurozone, following this development we will certainly reevaluate.

Germany is interested in the EU as a political entity, NOT the Euro as a currency. With that in mind, consider the following story which received almost NO attention from the media:

Following late November's disastrous 10 year Bund auction, in which the goal seekers saw everything from a failure of the repo market to the Bundesbank trying to fail the auction on purpose, yet which was nothing more than a simple case of little demand and high supply, today, following a steady leak wider in yields in the entire bund curve, Germany sold €4.09 billion in 1.25% 5 year bonds, with the maximum amount of €5 billion selling easily following bids for a total of €8.67 billion. The Buba retained €0.91 billion, which it always does, and is not an indication of some ulterior motive to have the ECB bailout Europe. As expected the Bid To Cover was a soaring 2.1x compared to 1.5x on the last 5 year auction on November 2. In other words, a stunning success and demonstrating what happens when you actually have demand for paper following a decline in prices. Below are the Wall Street responses to this strong auction. So that takes care of that. What is more important, and why futures are down is that as expected, yesterday's deux ex FT was promptly denied by Germany after a "senior German official" spoke to Reuters and said they are "not sure if summit will reach conclusion on using IMF funds in eurozone crisis" and "can't forsee running EFSF and ESM simultaneously". They have also said they are "more pessimistic than last week on overall summit deal". In other words, look for many moresuccessful Bund auctions as things resume their downward trajectory all over again.