Japan

Heading into the North American open, equities are trading lower with the benchmark EU volatility index up 1.6%, with financials underperforming on concerns that the latest Greek bailout deal will need to be revised yet again. Officials said that the deal will require Greece’s private creditors to take a deeper write-down on the face value of their EUR 200bln in holdings than first agreed. The haircut on the face value of privately held Greek debt will now be over 53%. As a result of the measures adopted, the creditors now assume that Greece’s gross debt will fall to just over 120% of GDP by 2020, from around 164% currently, according to the officials. However as noted by analysts at the Troika in their latest debt sustainability report - “…there are notable risks. Given the high prospective level and share of senior debt, the prospects for Greece to be able to return to the market in the years following the end of the new program are uncertain and require more analysis”. Still, Bunds are down and a touch steeper in 2/10s under moderately light volume, while bond yield spreads around Europe are tighter.

While all eyes are on Europe and its Greek farce, Japan is advancing at an inexorable pace...

JPM brings some less than good news for the administration, which unless planning to propose another $500 billion or so gas price offsetting fiscal stimulus (which would bring total US debt to $17 trillion by the end of 2012) may find itself with the bulk of its electorate unable to drive to the voting booths come November. In a just revised crude forecast, JPM commodity analyst Larry Eagles, has hiked both his Crude and Brent expectations across the board, and now sees WTI going from $105 currently to a $120 by the end of the year, $4 higher than his prior forecast. Alas, since in another report from this morning titled "Return of Asset Reflation" JPM finally figures out what we have been saying for months, namely that the stealthy global central bank liquidity tsunami is finally spilling out of equity markets and into everything else, inflation is about to become a substantially topic in pre-election propaganda. As a reminder, when gold was at $1900 last summer, central banks had pumped about $2 trillion less into the markets. We expect the market to grasp this discrepancy shortly.

• Germany FinMin: More Talks Needed On 2nd Greece Bailout Plan (MarketNews)
• You stand up to the bankers, you win - Icelandic Anger Bringing Record Debt Relief in Best Crisis Recovery Story (Bloomberg)
• Iranian ships reach Syria, China warns of civil war (Reuters)
• Men's suit bubble pops? Zegna CEO Says China Sales Slowing (WSJ)
• German presidency row shakes Merkel's coalition (Reuters)
• Greece must default if it wants democracy (FT)
• Decision day for second Greek bailout despite financing gaps (Reuters)
• So true fair value is a 30% discount to "market" price? Board of Wynn Resorts Forcibly Buys Out Founder (WSJ)
• Spain Sinks Deeper Into Periphery on Debt Rise (Bloomberg)
• Walmart raises stake in China e-commerce group (FT)
• Iron Lady Merkel Bucks German Street on Greek Aid (Bloomberg)

The week ahead is fairly light on big ticket data releases, but what is released will provide more evidence of the strength of global activity. The most important of these will be the flash PMIs for China and the Euro area and the German IFO reading . There is no consensus expectation for the China print, however the Euro area indices are both expected to rise slightly, as is the German IFO. In terms of cyclical hard data, Taiwan export orders and IP for Singapore and Taiwan, Euro area industrial orders and trade data from Japan and Thailand will be notable. Admittedly the data from Asia is likely to be complicated by Chinese New Year which fell in the third week of January, and presumably this is why the consensus expects such a sharp drop in Taiwan IP, however the data are still worth watching for indications of the strength in global activity. Generally, consensus expectations for these prints are not particularly encouraging and any 'beats' would be a positive surprise. It goes without saying that ongoing negotiations towards signing off on Greece's second package will also remain on the radar screen. As we write, Reuters has posted suggestions that the debt swap will be open by March 8 and complete by March 11.

What a difference a quarter makes: back in Q4 2011, in light of the imploding global economic reality, the only recourse equity bulls had to was to point out that corporate profitability was still at all time highs, and to ignore the macro. Fast forward a few months, when Europe's economic situation continues to deteriorate with the recession now in its second quarter, China's home prices have just slumped for a 4th consecutive month (forcing the PBOC to do only its second RRR cute since November), Japan is, well, Japan, yet where the US economic decoupling miracle is now taken at face value following an abnormally high seasonal adjustment in the NFP establishment survey leading to a big beat in payrolls and setting the economic mood for the entire month (with flows into confidence-driven regional Fed indices and the PMI and ISM, not to mention the Consumer Confidence data) as one of ongoing economic improvement. That this "improvement" has been predicated upon another record liquidity tsunami unleashed by the world's central banks has been ignored: decoupling is as decoupling does damn it, truth be damned. Yet the bullish sentiment anchor has flip flopped: from corporate profitability it is now the US "golden age." How long said "golden age" (which is nothing but an attempt to sugar coat the headline reality for millions of jobless Americans in an election year) lasts is unclear: America's self-delusion skills are legendary. But when it comes to corporate profit margin math, things are all too clear: the corporate profitability boom is over. As Goldman points out: with the bulk of companies reporting, in Q4 corporate profits have now declined by a significant 27 bps sequentially, and an even more significant 52 bps excluding Apple.

In the past week we have seen the Banks of Japan and China join the queue for printing ink along with the Fed, the Bank of England, the ECB and the Swiss National Bank; many other minor central backs have either cut rates or are about to. Admittedly the Chinese have not actually cranked up the Hewlett Packards but PBOC Governor Zhou said that “China will continue to invest in EU countries’ government bonds, and will continue, via possible channels, including the IMF, the EFSF and the ESM, to be involved in resolving the euro-zone crisis”. He added that he hopes Europe can offer “more attractive investment products”. I wonder what he has in mind. With the support he can muster Greek 2 year bonds on a 200% yield should do the trick surely…

The equities market is acting like we know Greece's default will be orderly and no threat to financial stability. It is also acting like we know the U.S. economy can grow smartly while Europe contracts in recession. Lastly, the high level of confidence exuded by market participants suggests we know central bank liquidity is endlessly supportive of equities. What do we really know about the coming default of Greece? Whether we openly call it default or play semantic games with "voluntary haircuts," we know bondholders will absorb tremendous losses that are equivalent to default. We also suspect some bondholders will refuse to play nice and accept their voluntary haircuts. Beyond that, how much do we know about how this unprecedented situation will play out?

Market participants continued to react positively to yesterday’s reports that Euro-zone central banks, via the ECB, are to exchange the Greek bonds they hold for new bonds, without CAC’s, to help the Greek debt deal. As a result, stock futures traded higher throughout the session, led by the financials sector, while the health-care sector which is characterised by defensive-investment properties underperformed. Looking elsewhere, EUR/GBP traded briefly below the 0.8300 level, while GBP/USD continued to consolidate above the 1.5800 level following the release of better than expected retail sales. Hopes that a Greek deal is in the pipeline also lifted EUR/USD, which trades in close proximity to an intraday option expiry at 1.3110.

There are those who have been waiting to buy undilutable precious metals in response to a headline announcement from the Fed that it is starting to buy up hundreds of billions of Treasurys or MBS.  This is understandable - after all that is precisely the trigger that the headline scanning robots which account for 90% of market action in the past year are programmed to do. And the worst thing that one can do is put on the right trade at the wrong time. Yet it may come as a surprise to some, that while the world was waiting, and waiting, and waiting, for Bernanke to hit the Print button, virtually every other central bank was quietly unleashing it own mini tsunami of liquidity. In fact, as Morgan Stanley puts it, "the Great Monetary Easing Part 2 is in full swing." But wait, there's more: in an Austrian world, where fundamentals don't matter and only how much additional nominal fiat is created is relevant, it is sheer idiocy to assume that the printers will stop here... or anywhere for that matter. They simply can't, now that the marginal utility of every dollars is sub 1.00 relative to GDP creation. This means that by the time the Global Weimar is in full swing, we will see much, much more easing. Sure enough, MS anticipates an unprecedented additional round of easing in the months ahead. So for those waiting to buy gold et al at the same time as DE Shaw's correlation quants do, the time will be long gone. Because slowly everyone is realizing that it is not the Fed that is the marginal creator of fake money. It is everyone.

The long-term link between demographic supply-demand shifts and the dynamics of asset price changes is hard to quantitatively dismiss and while it is just as difficult to trade these long-term shifts, as Credit Suisse notes, it is a useful context for considering tactical and strategic asset allocation. Based on projections of two interesting ratios (Middle-/Old-age ratio for equity multiples and Yuppie/Nerd ratio for bond yields), they find that US and European equity P/E multiples are set to structurally fall for the next decade (while Japan may see expansion) and similarly Japan is expected to see bond yields continue to structurally fall while US and European yields will rise (with US yields rising only modestly - though still painfully for governments - and UK quite significantly). While, of course, significant differences exist in the equity and debt market participation level and demand and supply mechanics of foreign investors, the relationships have stood the test of time and should warrant concern for the medium-term in both US and European markets as perhaps monetary policy's extreme experimentation is fundamentally fighting these trends that are exaggerated in the short-term by the cyclical-to-secular end of the leverage super-cycle.

In his best Lewis Black impression, TrimTabs CEO Charles Biderman succinctly destroys the 'growth' myth behind Obama's budget plan as nothing but a handout and money-printing exercise in futility and drain-circling. Based on the $3.8tn budget plan, the TrimTabs truth-seeker notes that current government tax revenues are about $2.4tn, and growing at no more than $100bn each year, making the math surprisingly simple - we spend around $300bn per month and receive only $200bn with the missing $100bn to pay for the US government's largesse (income shortfall) coming from - 'printing money'. The spin is, of course, that revenues will somehow magically start to grow faster than spending and shrink the budget deficit. With take home pay at $6.3tn for everyone who pays taxes, up $300-400bn from the 2009 low, but still well below the $7.1tn rate from early 2008; Biderman's consternation at the self-hypnosis that a $200bn tax increase in an economy where take-home pay has been growing by only $100bn per year will somehow create anything other than slow-growth at best (or more likely contraction) is palpable. This slow- or no-growth will mean less tax revenue and more spending on safety-nets and thus the Sausalito-savant factually points out that most people do not realize that government spending is simply giving people money whether they do anything useful with it or not and still the governments of the US, Japan, and Europe want us to believe that our economies will grow faster if we keep taking more money from the workers and give that money to the government.

Previously we presented some alternative thoughts to the mainstream misperception of the Iranian "isolation" by some of its biggest oil trading partners. Unlike others, we simply believe that the gulf nation, together with the new axis of anti-USD (as confirmed once again earlier today) is simply preparing itself for a barter based economy, or alternatively, one with commoditized intermediates. However, this ignores the likelihood of geopolitical instability caused by intervening US and Israeli interest in the region. Below are some thoughts from Doug Casey of Casey Research on the likelihood of another full blown shooting war erupting in the Persian Gulf, as well as his thoughts on how one may prepare for such a contingency.

Pandora's Box?

• Europe ushers in the recession: Euro-Area Economy Contracts for the First Time Since 2009 (Bloomberg)
• Greek conservative takes bailout pledge to the wire (Reuters)
• China Pledges to Invest in Europe Bailouts (Bloomberg) - as noted last night, the half life of this nonsense has come and gone
• Japan's Central Bank Joins Peers in Opening the Taps (WSJ)
• EU Moves on Greek Debt Swap (EU)
• EU Divisions Threaten Aid For Greece (FT)
• Athens Woman facing sacking threatening suicide (Athens News)
  
• King Says Euro Area Poses Biggest Risk to UK’s Slow Recovery (Bloomberg)
• Sarkozy to Seek Second Term, Banking on Debt Crisis to Boost Bid (Bloomberg)