Reuters

The Greek endgame appears to be approaching... or not. After a "marathon" (in Greek terms) session between the Greek coalition cabinet members ended with no definitive agreement, and in fact LAOS president said that more austerity would "contribute to a recession that the country can not afford, and a revolution of misery which will then burn down Europe", while New Democracy's Samaras stated he would "not permit any more austerity", even as Papademos on the other line apparently said that the leaders have agreed on 2012 spending cuts of 1.5% of GDP, the Troika seems to have had enough of being Greek'd around, and demands an answer by 11 am tomorrow. Supposedly, "or else" no more cash. Then again, we have heard all of this before. In fact, the Troika talks are continuing right now as European representatives entered the Greek PM office, following a late night meeting with the IIF. That said, the market is once again quite nonchalant about all of this, with the EURUSD trading down a modest 50 pips to 1.3107 having touched just under 1.3080 earlier. Bottom line: it is likely that nothing will happen tonight.

Following up on our report from this morning that according to former Greek defense minister, German submarine chief procurer, and not to mention Jenny Twenty repeat offender, Evangelos "Xanax" Venizelos, we learn that the god of Deus Ex Machinae is about to abandon Greece, after an announcement by that most magic unicorn-infatuated of bureaucrats, Eurogroup head Jean-Claude Juncker made it clear that Greece is all but finished. As Reuters reports, "The possibility of a sovereign default by Greece cannot be ruled out, Jean-Claude Juncker, head of the Eurogroup of finance ministers from the single currency zone, said in a German magazine on Saturday." Translation: A Greek default on that €14.5 billion bond maturity D-day of March 20, is now inevitable. In an advance copy of comments to news weekly Der Spiegel, Jean-Claude Juncker was quoted as saying Greece could no longer expect solidarity from other euro zone members if it cannot implement reforms it has agreed. "If we were to establish that everything has gone wrong in Greece, there would be no new programme, and that would mean that in March they have to declare bankruptcy," he said. So after years of delaying the inevitable sovereign Lehman weekend, it is finally here. As a reminder, when Lehman filed, everyone, at least those in charge, thought the fall out could be contained. It couldn't, and the Fed had to step in with roughly $30 trillion in backstops, guarantees, and asset purchases. The same will happen this time.

Daily news.

• Greece's Hazardous Road to Restructuring (WSJ)
• Spain Coaxes Banks to Merge to Purge Losses (Bloomberg)
• Brussels Discovers New €15bn Black Hole in Greece's Finances (Guardian)
• UK Recession Predicted to Return (FT)
• Senate OKs insider trading curbs on lawmakers (Reuters)
• China Limits Mortgages for Foreigners (Bloomberg)
• Villagers scramble for fuel in Europe's big chill (Reuters)
• SNB Head Warns of Political Fallout After Crisis (FT)
• Portugal Bond Rout Overstates Greek Likeness (Bloomberg)
• Bernanke Says He Won’t Trade 2% Inflation-Rate Target for More Job Growth (Businessweek)

A few days after Germany proposed the stripping of Greek fiscal authority from the insolvent country, in exchange for providing funding for what German FinMin Schauble called today a "bottomless pit" (and Brüderle chimed in saying that "a default of the Greek government would be bitter but manageable), Sarkozy decided to demonstrate his "muscle" if not so much stature, and openly denied Germany, saying "There can be no question of putting any country under tutelage." Sure enough, it was now Germany's turn to reciprocate the favor. According to Bloomberg, "Finance ministers from the four euro- area countries with AAA ratings -- Germany, Finland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands -- will meet in Berlin tomorrow afternoon, a German Finance Ministry spokesman said." And as is well known, FrAAnce no longer a member of this, however meaningless, club. "The gathering is part of a a series of meetings convened by officials from the highest-rated euro states, the spokesman said, speaking on the customary condition of anonymity. Ministers will discuss current issues without briefing reporters after the meeting." And so the gauntlet of public humiliation is now once again back in Sarkozy's court. The good news: if the de minimis Frenchman does not get his act in order, and overturn the massive lead that his challenger in the April presidential elections has garnered, he will need to endure the humiliation for at most 3 more months. In other news, it appears that when it comes to saving political face, the rating agencies are actually quite useful.

Yesterday we noted how a CBO analyst may have been terminated for her conflicting views on model assumptions, especially when they veered away from the Wall Street-defined norm. Today, we find that the same approach to dissent may have been the reason why MF Global ended up taking inordinate risk, and ultimately blowing up, leaving over a billion in client money transitioning from liquid to gas phase overnight. According to Reuters, "The former chief risk officer at MF Global who raised red flags about the firm's aggressive trading bets told lawmakers that his warnings contributed to the firm's decision to let him go in early 2011. Michael Roseman, who was ousted in January 2011 from the now-bankrupt futures brokerage, said he rang alarm bells about the firm's exposure to European sovereign debt a year before the firm collapsed in late October of 2011." Roseman's statement on whether his skepticism to Corzine's get rich quick scheme was the reason for his termination? ""My views on risk certainly played a factor in that decision," Roseman told a House Financial Services subcommittee, about why he was asked to leave the firm." And so the status quo continues: any time anyone ever dares to disagree with broad misconceptions, whether it is regarding infinitely rising home prices, broad global compression trades, or the ability of European banks to onboard toxic CDOs in perpetuity is always promptly shown the door. The flipside to this complete lack of checks and balances? Why the bailout culture of course, in which finding one company responsible for gross complacency would mean all are guilty. Which is nobody will ever go to prison as it would set the "worst" possible precedent ever: that one is ultimately responsible for their own stupidity. Said otherwise: the best qualification one can hope to add to one's resume: "distinguished yes man with honors."

Gold has risen to 8 week highs despite positive manufacturing data, higher factory activity in Germany, China and the US and the hope that a Greek debt restructuring solution is imminent. Demand for physical in Europe, Asia and internationally remains robust which is supporting gold. Investors will today watch the US weekly jobless claims data for the week ending January 28th. Adding to the very gold supportive interest rate backdrop, Japan's finance and economic ministers are putting pressure on the Bank of Japan to consider easing monetary policy even further. Negative yields on some bonds (such as TIPS) are very gold positive as is moves to let investors buy short term bills with negative yields. Gold is also being supported by central bank buying. Russia's gold and foreign exchange reserves rose to $504 billion in the week to Jan. 27 from $499.7 billion a week earlier.

• Merkel Seeks to Reassure China (FT)
• German-IMF Rift Stalls Greece Deal (WSJ)
• Survey of Banks Shows a Sharp Cut in Lending in Europe (NYT)
• Bernanke to testify on economy and deficit (AP)
• House votes to freeze congressional, federal pay (WaPo)

Did the first (of many) European LTRO buy just one month of marginal improvement? According to a compilation of analyst views by Bloomberg, who looked at today's mixed Spanish auction results when the country sold €4.56 billion of three-, four- and five-year government bonds, the easy money may have been made. Because while average yields fell for all three lines at the auctions, maintaining the trend at Spanish debt sales so far this year, it was the internals that showed weakness and could indicate that the marginal benefit from the first LTRO is now ending, even as the real task - the longer-dated bonds 10 years and great - still have to see much if any carry trade benefit at auction. Lastly, anyone hoping for a full carry flush from the European banks has to give up all hope: ECB announced its deposit facility usage rose to €486.4 billion, up €14 billion overnight. And with that we now know what the LTRO half-life is.

All you need to read.

Anyone who went to bed with the EURUSD about to breach 1.30 to the downside may have been surprised this morning to see it trading nearly 150 pips higher. Checking the headlines for news of a Greek deal however would be futile, as one did not occur. Instead what did, were more promises of a deal being "imminent" even as Greece is doing all it can to appease intransigent creditors, offering GDP upside warrants (something that did not work too well for Argentina), with the IMF stating it demands guarantees that this time Greece will follow through with promises. Oddly enough the German demand for fiscal overrule has gotten lost in the noise but is certainly not forgotten and last we checked Merkel has not withdrawn this polite request. Still futures are up, primarily on a smattering of better than expected PMIs, in China and Europe. Alas, the Chinese PMI beat as discussed last night, was more of a cold water shower as the market had been hoping for much more defined promises of PBoC intervention and instead got a lukewarm Goldilocks economy which could last quite a bit longer without RRR-cuts. As for European PMI numbers being better than expected, we only wonder if these now correlate with the prevailing unemployment rate throughout the Eurozone.

• China’s factories in strong start to 2012 (FT)
• Merkel to court Chinese investors (FT)
• States to decide this week on mortgage deal (Reuters)
• Europe is stuck on life support (FT)
• IMF's Thomsen Says Greece Must Step Up Reform (Reuters)
• Tax cuts expiry to slow US growth (FT)
• Government health spending seen hitting $1.8 trillion (Reuters)
• Romney Win in Florida Primary Shows Strength (Bloomberg)
• EU regulator blocks D.Boerse-NYSE merger (Reuters)
• Greek Bondholders said to get GDP Sweetener in Debt Swap Agreement (Bloomberg)
• S. Korea Plans to Buy China Shares (Bloomberg)

Because the last time the administration got involved in the car space the results were so positive (for the unions if not so much for creditors), it appears we may be approaching another episode where central planning will make the decisions in the US auto space. Only this time instead of creditors, the impaired party will be China. Reuters reports: "Midwestern U.S. lawmakers and union groups on Tuesday urged President Barack Obama to restrict imports of auto parts from China that they said benefited from massive illegal subsidies and threatened hundreds of thousands of American jobs. "We need to stand up to the bully on the block," U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat, said, referring to Beijing. "The bully on the block continues to take our lunch money and we need to stop that," she said." Odd - China was not complaining when the Obama administration was providing massive subsidies (whether or not illegal remains to be seen  - surely Holder is all over it) to the solar and other "green" industries. In other words, just like Solyndra and Ener1, who are merely the first of many artificially subsidized entities, provided such great if highly transitory results for US employment, let's recreate the experiment at the wholesale level, by implicit subsidies and while also angering America's biggest creditor. Something tells us this proposal has a definite probability of passing. In the meantime, central planning for everyone.

The most recent addition to the "I am Jack's complete lack of surprise" pile comes from Reuters, which reports that the latest out of Greece is a proposal for even greater cuts for creditors than previously expected. From Reuters: "Greece's private sector creditors could take a loss of more than 70 percent in a planned debt swap, Finance Minister Evangelos Venizelos said on Tuesday. "There is a very serious discussion based on new facts. We are talking about a PSI much greater than the original," he told lawmakers, referring to private sector involvement in the deal. "We are talking about a haircut on the net present value exceeding 70 percent," he said." What this means, simply, is that when calculating the NPV of the post-reorg bond, the Yield to Maturity is now less than 30%, and thus is likely going to have a cash coupon of about 3.6%. This is relevant because as is known, one component of the creditor recovery is receipt of EFSF bill in lieu of cash to the tune of 15 cents of notional, and the balance, at least until this point, would have been a 35% yielding piece of post-reorg paper. That was the case when the cash coupon was 4%. Going forward, and assuming a 3.6% cash coupon, the return on this fresh start debt drops substantially. Needless to say, creditors will almost certainly balk at this, because when it comes to calculating real yield, most are expecting a roughly 90% recovery at best on the EFSF strip (as every fund will scramble to dump their paper), so 14 cents on the total, and then funds are also hoping for at least 1 year of current yield, i.e., cash coupon. It becomes iffy around the 2 year mark, as it is a roughly 90% probability that Greece will file for bankruptcy yet again just after the first coupon is paid, at least according to hedge fund return calculations. It also means that nobody gives a rats ass about the IRR, but most are only concerned with what the cash coupon will be that they can collect for one, max two years. Which explains why at 14 cents + 3.6 + 3.6 or 21.2, which is where Greek paper trades currently, there is absolutely no upside for creditors, and the only real upside option is to hold out for sovereign debt litigation, where the recovery could be as high as par. Expect no deal to come out of this, despite what the IFF, which now likely represents just Deutsche Bank and SocGen, says. So much for that upper hand.

While so many were hoping for the siren-call of private-equity or perhaps a reverse-merger MBO with RadioShack, CIT has once again managed to pour well-risk-managed-credit-extension cold water on Sears short-squeeze. SHLD is down 6% following Reuters reports (via The Orlando Sentinel) that CIT will again stop providing loans to suppliers of Sears Holdings as the lender/factor awaits further information of the company's health. Volume picked up dramatically as the stock fell and we note that SRAC (the more active 5Y CDS contract) is leaking wider but has surged around 400bps (to 1800bps) in the last week (as the stock has been treading water off its spike squeeze highs on 1/23).