Sovereign Debt

For years I have warned of the impending European collapse. Now, as it is happening, we still have banks getting away with nonsensical 60% writedowns on essentially worthless debt. LGD > 100+% - You ain't seen the worst of it, not by a long shot!

Why? Primarily because of this innocent statement by former R3 scion and former Lehmanite Rick Rieder, currently employed by the firm that ostensibly has more clout than even Goldman Sachs: BlackRock. From October 21 "BlackRock Inc. Chief Investment Officer Rick Rieder said the world’s biggest money manager remains a buyer of Italian government debt as European policy makers gather to address the region’s sovereign debt crisis. "Italy is attractive,” Rieder said during an interview on “InBusiness With Margaret Brennan” on Bloomberg Television. “As long as we are moving toward solutions, we think Italy is very reasonable at these levels. BlackRock, which manages about $3.66 trillion in assets, has also been buying debt issued by financial firms and high- yield bonds, Rieder said. As with the Italian bonds BlackRock has bought, the financial debt will benefit “as soon as you see stability,” Rieder said." Uh, Rick, you are marking to market right? Because Your P&L would be a 100% correlation to the following chart, which shows BTP prices since October 21.

And so the sovereign exposure that was perfectly innocent according to three previous press releases from Jefferies, has just been offloaded to some other bank, which has a bigger market cap and "won't be cause for major alarm." Thank you Jefferies for offloading shareholder risk onto someone dumber. And now, all this action has done is made any PIIGS exposure on any bank balance sheet, gross or net (and yes, Gross exposure apparently is a risk factor in an of itself, and the market is starting to ignore all lies about bilateral netting), an immediate excuse to sell off stocks right into the circuit breaker. Look for the vigilantes to comb through any and every 10-Q with a fine tooth comb and punish any bank that still has any exposure gross or net. Our only question remaining re: Jefferies is what was the P&L hit on this liquidation?

Here I discuss the chances of Goldman Sachs succumbing to an MF Global/Lehman/Bear Stearns style bank run. Impossible, you say? Don't bet the farm on that one, son!

In a much needed white paper just released by GMO's Rich Mattione, title "Et tu, Berlusconi? The daunting (but not always insuperable) arithmetic of sovereign debt" the author does just that: an overdue deep dive into the maths of the European, and global, sovereign bail out. "Much needed", because everything we have heard over the past month leading to a 20% surge in the market in the past 23 days, has been full of broad strokes and completely absent of any details. Cutting to the chase, Mattione's conclusion is that "the arithmetic of Europe’s sovereign debt crisis is daunting, but not insuperable." Which means it can be done, at least in theory, but at great costs, and will need something that Europe has never demonstrated until this point: proactive planning and tackling problems before they develop into full blown systemic crises. How does he get there? Here are his key observations...

Stocks hit their low on October the 3rd. They bounced on announcements and beliefs that Europe finally “gets it” and will “solve” the sovereign debt crisis. The S&P hit a low of 1075 and a high of 1233 and is back to about 1220, which is still a healthy 13.5%. Yes, there is more going on than the European crisis, but clearly the belief that the problems in Europe are solved has played a big role, especially in the financials where the return is over 17%. It seems like the market has gotten ahead of itself, and these 5 charts show why.

It is seemingly clearer and clearer that with the current structure and membership, the Euro does not work. The market seems to be driving the change in the direction of membership changes (via restructurings and temporary devaluations - e.g. GRE CDS and W.I. Drachma) while the euro-zone-'management' seem prone to structural changes (i.e. EFSF umbrella, Euro-bonds, and fiscal union). While the cost of either approach is likely extremely high, some research from early Summer by ESCP Europe suggests a non-trivial approach that reduces aggregate debt for the European sovereign complex by almost 64% is possible. The solution:- bi- & tri-lateral netting, and free-trading.

The bottom line for us that while breaking up the Euro will be extremely expensive and potentially dramatically destabilizing from more than a simple market-perspective (as monetary-union disruptions have historically tended to end in civil hostility), this study provides a simple way to see how a fiscally-joined and central Treasury-based system 'could' come out stronger. However, the path to that 'potential' strength will be littered with the bodies of financial and non-financial equity holders, senior- & sub-debtholders, CDS traders, and FX jockeys thanks to risk-free rate re-adjustments, subordination, ringfencings, forced recapitalizations, and implicit austerity.

Volatility and wild gyrations in all financial markets continues due to a confluence of negative data, news and fundamentals. French banks have been downgraded and Chinese Premier Wen’s call that Europe get its own house in order quashed the unsubstantiated and unsourced rumors regarding massive Chinese intervention to solve the Eurozone debt crisis. European banks are hemorrhaging deposits as savers and money funds pile into other perceived havens such sterling, dollar and Swiss franc deposit accounts. Retail and institutional deposits at Greek banks fell 19 percent in the past year and almost 40 percent at Irish lenders in 18 months.  A tiny fraction of these European deposits has gone into gold with the majority going into other fiat currency deposits. It is not just the saver of periphery nations who are opening non euro deposit accounts - many German savers are opening up deposit accounts in Switzerland. Greece’s inevitable default is being prepared for despite the usual denials. A conference call among Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel is set for 16:00 GMT.

“Equities in Dallas” was the worst job a trainee at Salomon brothers could get. I have to believe that the G-20 sovereign debt rating group was the equivalent at the rating agencies. It wasn’t volatile and sexy like Emerging Markets. It had nothing to do with the core business of rating corporate debt. It had even less to do with the fast growing structured product business. It must have been a pretty dull place to work. I think that is important because it means, certainly at this stage that all the decisions on sovereign debt are being made at a very high level within the rating agencies. Someone isn’t running some numbers and coming up with a rating proposal. Some people are sitting around in a room, trying to figure out what rating they want to give, or need to give, or can get away with giving. Knowing that these decisions are being made at the highest levels of the firm and have nothing to do with what any analyst in the area says or does is important in trying to figure out where the ratings go next.

What happens if Sovereign Debt blows up?

Don’t be fooled by the IMF’s announcement that Greece will get a new round of money. This bailout is merely to give a couple of months for the parties to seriously negotiate what haircuts and debt extensions investors need to take in Greece, and Ireland and Portugal. Virtually all the comments made by the parties involved fit in with the view that we are now in a phase where people are negotiating how much they will write off and what else they will do. Almost none of the comments indicate that anyone is really trying to put together a plan that is going kick the can down the road for a long time. I am fading this rally as only the most optimistic investor can believe that this problem doesn’t lead to real default/restructuring with haircuts in the next couple of months.

Some thoughts by David Schawel at Economic Musings who follows up on our observations from a week earlier regarding the possibility for a major Treasury collateral scramble if and when Basel III is ever implemented, and the implications for US Treasury demand. "In my opinion, the implications of this are crystal clear: banks will obviously need to dramatically ramp up their holdings of these securities (mainly treasuries) in order to comply with the LCR ratio. This could provide a significant tailwind to treasury demand over the near to intermediate term. S&P says it best, “We believe there is a risk that this standard is too conservative- to the point where it could create a shortage of liquid assets…"

I warned that the attempt to centrally plan 16 economies in concert, by force nonetheless, would result in the Eurocalypse (that's a Reggie Middleton copyrighted term)! As is customary with warnings of common sense against unbridled, optimistic BULL(ishness), I was dismissed as being sensationalist. Well, as Malcom X is known as saying, "The chickens are coming home to roost!"

Gold is marginally lower while silver is showing strength again today after yesterday’s 'worst ever' OPEC meeting ended in disarray and saw oil prices surge. Markets await today’s ECB rate decision and signs as to whether interest rates are set to rise sooner rather than later. Signs of an interest rate rise in July should see the euro and gold rally versus the dollar. The precious metals are also likely to be supported by further sharp falls in peripheral markets bonds, particularly Greece, this morning. While all eyes are on the ECB today, there was a reminder late yesterday that it is not just the Eurozone that is struggling with debt. Fitch Ratings said it would put US debt on watch in early August if Congress fails to raise the federal debt limit. OPEC, the oil cartel’s increasing impotency was seen yesterday when Libya, Iraq, Angola, Ecuador and Algeria sided with increasingly influential Iran and Venezuela rather than Saudi Arabia and its allies Kuwait, Qatar and United Arab Emirates. Also, Japan’s nuclear crisis is leading to a decline in nuclear energy production, possibly long term in nature, and China’s massive drought has led to marked decline in hydroelectric energy production. There is increasingly the real risk of an oil crisis especially given the very tense geopolitical situation in North Africa and the Middle East. Separately, Iran announced it planned to treble its capacity to produce highly enriched uranium which alarmed western powers and was deemed ‘provocative’ by one international relations analyst. Oil prices have risen over 10 times since 1999. For gold prices to just catch up with the price increases seen in ‘black gold’, gold would have to rise over $2,500/oz (10 X $250/oz).

There is a plethora of original insight in Don Coxe (BMO Capital Makets) among them observations on sovereign risk moving from east to west, state finances (or lack thereof), the ongoing correction in financial stocks which portends nothing good for the equity investors, the ongoing violence in MENA, why this inflationary spike in food may last far longer than previous ones, and naturally, some very spot on thoughts on gold, which conclude with: "The only gold bubble likely to burst is the bubbling ridicule of gold."