Swiss Franc Plunges By 600 Pips On Peg Speculation; Will It Succeed?
All those hoping that in the wilderness of fiat, the Swiss Franc would be to be a safe haven, are getting destroyed today, following speculation overnight that the SNB would implement a euro-swiss franc peg. The result: an unprecedented 600 pip plunge in the two key pairs, the EURCHF and USDCHF, since new overnight highs. The take home: for those seeing a safe haven from central banking stupidity, just go to where there is no counterparty: physical

Milan Bourse Says Will Not Resume Futures Trading On Thursday For FTSE MIB

Just in case there was any wonder what the outcome of the refutation of the short selling rumors was, here it comes courtesy of Reuters, which informs us that the Milan Bourse has decided trading will not resume on Thursday for futures on the FTSE MIB. We doubt this is due to concerns of an explosion in buying. If Italy opens close to limit down again tomorrow, and the contagion once again spreads to France, expect an imminent resumption of a short selling ban, only to be refuted yet again 10 minutes before market close, concurrent with a day-long halt in all futures trading. And so on ad inf.

Guest Macro Commentary: The “Our Capital Levels Are Adequate” Dance

“Our capital levels are adequate.”  Perhaps it’s just me but It seems like every time the market sells off more than 10%, we end up hearing that phrase a lot.  Hmm, perhaps it has something to do with the huge amount of leverage still sitting on the balance sheets of the TBTF banks and their exposure to the global derivatives market?  We need banks in our society, but do we really need these banks?  Until the world finally realizes that the concentration of leverage that currently sits on the balance sheets of the world’s largest 15-20 banks is the source of our global instability and protecting these same banks is literally cutting off our nose to spite our face, we will continue to suffer huge bouts of “risk-on/risk-off” madness.

Time Magazine FTW

A little over a year ago, it was The Economist that captured the Zeitgeist perfectly with its iconic cover Acropolis Now. Little did it know how prescient it would be. Today, it's Time, and unfortunately for Europe (and maybe the west), this cover in retrospect will be spot on yet again.

 

 

 

Rejected: A Europe-Wide Short Selling Ban "Does Not Look Likely"

Following the NYT debacle in which it announced there was a debt deal when there was anything but (in the process however sending stocks surging on nothing but what was proven to be a lie), today it appears the NYT may have gone for the double, after first reporting earlier that Europe is about to proceed with a short-selling ban. As of minutes ago, Reuters has reported that a short-selling ban "does not look likely" according to a regulatory source. In other words we are back to the yes bailout/no bailout that marked the European days of June and July, when the leakers merely gauged the market response to determine if the rumor should become policy. It seems that after having achieved the sought after (brief) market bounce on forced short covering, Europe has decided not to go ahead and impose a ban after all... At least until tomorrow's next -5% plunge in Italian and French bank stocks.

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Here Is What Happened When The SEC Banned Shorting Financial Companies In 2008

There are those who say the upcoming short selling ban in all stocks in Italy and France, which according to CNBC will take place as soon as after the close today, or in one hour, will be beneficial to stocks. Then there are facts. To those who may have forgotten, on September 18, the SEC banned the shorting of all financials here in the US. Below is a chart of the carnage that ensued... The same chart is coming to Europe first. End result: 48% drop in under a month.

 

 

Guest Post: Welcome To The Age Of Instability

As Nassim Taleb of “black swan” fame has explained, it is misleading to say the last few grains of sand on the debt pile, for example, subprime mortgages in the housing bubble, are responsible for the entire sand pile collapsing: the masking of risk was systemic, and thus the sand pile was doomed to collapse regardless of the nature of the final few grains of sand. Similarly, it won’t really matter what the final trillion dollars of Federal debt was borrowed for; the default/collapse of the government debt pile is inevitable. In betting the farm to prop up a façade of financial stability, the Federal Reserve and the Federal government have doomed the entire system to collapse. Taleb explained why in the June 2011 issue of Foreign Affairs: “Complex systems that have artificially suppressed volatility become extremely fragile, while at the same time exhibiting no visible risks.” That describes the global economy in 2007, just before the financial meltdown of 2008 “surprised” conventional economists and Wall Street apologists. As Taleb has explained, the very act of suppressing fluctuations renders systems extremely prone to large-scale disruptions that are viewed as low-probability events, the infamous “black swans.” The key to understanding this rising likelihood of supposedly improbable disruptions is to understand the difference between linear and complex systems. Linear systems lend themselves to causal chains (A causes B which causes C) or probability (the odds of drawing two aces in a game of Blackjack) that can be calibrated with a high degree of accuracy.

 

 

 

Q2 GDP To Be Second Consecutive Sub-1% Print Following Surge In Trade Deficit

Prepare for two consecutive quarters of sub 1% GDP. The culprit: the surge in the June trade deficit which came earlier at $53.1 billion, far, far higher than expectations of $48 billion, and much worse than the May $50.8 billion which also was a major downside miss. So following the revised 0.4% GDP in Q1, we are about to get a second revision to Q2 GDP that will bring it below 0.9%. And Obama bitches at the S&P for not believing (as neither does his former budget chief Orszag) that America will grow at a rate of 5% for the next decade.

 

 

Aaaaaand... Italy Breaks

 

 

Gold Implied Vol To Surge? Gold Sept15/Dec15 $3300 Calendar Spread Trades

Too lazy to bring up the chart but take our word for it: a block trade $3,330 Gold September/December 2015 calendar spread just hit the tape at 8:46 am on the CME at an 18.5 bps spread. Looks like someone is starting to believe that the CME interventions in gold via margin hikes will merely compress the implied vol which will explode sooner or later. Also, without knowing the details behind the trade, we wonder if the strike is an indication of where gold is headed or merely a arbed matrix glitch in the implied vol curve. We will try to bring you more on any other odd Greeks we notice in the gold market which is increasingly positioning itself as a reserve currency.

Claims Print At 395K On Consensus Of 402K, To Be Revised Higher Next Week As FAA Layoffs Are Accounted For

The noise that is the initial claims data presents just one question: will next week's upward revision bring today's 395K print to over 400K (yes, last week was revised higher as always from 400K to 402K, or 18 consecutive weekly 400K+ prints) thereby extending the stretch to 19 weeks in a row, or will we simply restart the count as next week sees another 410K plus print, which is very much disastrous for the economy. The one thing that BLS obvious glaringly forgot were the thousands of FAA employees that were fired, which will almost certainly be added to the rolls next week. Amusingly, in the state by state spread, not one state had an increase of more than 1000, while 10 states reported a decline of more than 1000, led by TN at -4,448 on "no comment." Indeed, same from us, suffice to say that those on EUCs continue to dwindle and drop by another 26K, down from 4,145,702 a year ago to just 3,158,312, a 1MM drop in Americans on 99 week claims who have now anniversaried their government benefits.And now back to apocalyptic headlines out of Europe.