European Stress Reemerges As Risk Off Epicenter Following Portugal Admission It Needs €30 Billion Bailout

Even as the Euro-Dollar 3 Month basis swap has contracted to a nearly 6 month low at -75 bps, on residual hopes that the LTRO will do anything to fix Europe (it won't - just compare it to the €442 billion 1 year LTRO from June 2009 which worked until it didn't for the simple reason that Europe does does not have a liquidity problem), Europe has once again reemerged as a source of risk off (not least of all because the fulcrum security benefiting from the LTRO - the Italian 2 year BTP is for the first time in weeks wider by 17 bps). Why? The same reason as always: Greece, with a touch of Portugal. As BBG observes the positive sentiment in Asia earlier was retraced in the European session, with commodities, FX, equities lower, especially after ECB demurred from accepting losses on its Greek bond holdings. What that means is that as we patiently explained over the weekend, the imminent Greek default (just listen to Soros over in Davos spewing fire and brimstone on Europe for allowing the situation to get to a place where a Greek default is inevitable) will create so many subordinated junior tranches of Greek debt it will make one's head spin. But while the fate of Greece is all but sealed, and a CDS triggered virtually factored in (note: a Greek CDS trigger, in isolation, won't have much of an impact as repeated here before - in fact it will return some normalcy to the market as CDS will be a hedging vehicle once again over ISDA's corrupt trampled corpse), it is what happens to Portugal and its bonds that has the market gasping for air. Because as Zero Hedge pointed out first, a Greek default will be impossible to be enacted in Portugal in its currently envisioned format, as stupid as it may be. In fact, due to the pervasive and broad negative pledges in most medium-term Portuguese bonds, any priming Troika bailout is impossible without providing matching collateral for everyone else under UK indenture bonds!

 

 

The Ron Paul FIX is in: a SGT micro-doc

Gold for Oil: India and Iran Ditch Dollar -- Report
http://www.forexcrunch.com/gold-for-oil-india-and-iran-ditch-dollar-report/

http://www.nonstopgold.com/2012/01/currency-wars-iran-banned-from-trading-gol...


Why More QE is Coming and What That Means for the Future Price of Gold
http://www.munknee.com/2012/01/why-more-qe-is-coming-and-what-that-means-for-...


$58-60 Silver Price by September says Dubai Silver Trader
http://www.silverseek.com/commentary/58-60-silver-price-september-says-dubai-...


Older Americans Cutting Health Care To Save Money
http://financialadvisormagazine.com/fa-news/9683-older-americans-cutting-heal...


Earthquake Chimney Inspection
http://www.fema.gov/medialibrary/media_records/7146


The Ron Paul FIX Is In
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qRPldELzZXA


Fractional Banking and the Federal Reserve System Explained!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Fm5NSeVPog
 

ACTA vs. SOPA: Five Reasons ACTA is Scarier Threat to Internet Freedom 
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/286925/20120124/acta-sopa-reasons-scarier-thr...

Net Asset Value of Certain Precious Metal Trusts and Funds

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Relative Value In Equities Vs. Government Bonds

Admin at Marc Faber Blog - 55 minutes ago

I would not ay they (equities) are particularly attractive but look, I am in Switzerland at the moment, the 10 year government bond yields 0.7 percent and you can buy quality companies like Nestle or Novartis and so forth and they have a dividend of say, 3 percent. - *transcript from a recent Bloomberg TV interview* *Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.*

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Sugar Is Still 60 Percent Below It`s All Time High

Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 1 hour ago

"What else do you know that is 60 percent below its all-time high?" - *in Interactive Investor, talking about Sugar* *Related ETFs, PowerShares DB Agriculture Fund (DBA), ELEMENTS Rogers Intl Commodity Index - Agriculture Total Return ETN (RJA)* *Jim Rogers is an author, financial commentator and successful international investor. He has been frequently featured in Time, The New York Times, Barron’s, Forbes, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times and is a regular guest on Bloomberg and CNBC.*

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Stock Market Rally Still Missing One Thing: A Crowd

Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 2 hours ago

Today's market, spot-shadowed by the green circle in neutral territory, certainly reflects a rally without a crowd. Most retail investors still scarred by memories of the 2007-2009 cyclical bear market patiently wait for the return of “the crowd” at higher prices before returning. The red boxes of 1925-29, 1936-37, 1995-2000 and 2007 illustrate not only the return of the crowd but also the last... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]]

Less Than Two Months Ahead Of The Greek D-Day, Rogoff Says "Europe Is Clearly Not Ready For A Greek Default"

It is less than two months until the Greek March 20 D-Day past which there is no more can-kicking? Check. Creditor negotiations which are going "so well" they may collapse at any given moment, have had their deadline extended indefinitely just because, and in which hedge funds now have every option to put the country into bankruptcy? Check. You would think Europe is prepared for this contingency right? Wrong. Per Ken Rogoff (who together with Simon Johnson are two former IMF chief economists who have become some of the biggest bears in the world - what is it about not being shackled to one's salary, that allows one to speak the truth), Europe is "clearly unprepared for a Greek default", less than two months from the day when it very well may finally occur. He adds: "there's going to be an endgame to this and it's not going to be pretty.... If you are just printing money and you are not making fundamental change you either lose money and you will have to recapitalize with the ECB or you will get inflation." And it gets worse: "it's not just Greece. You are going to see other restructurings before this is over." He ends with what we have been saying since mid-2011: "Once you set the precedent then say Portugal are going to say 'hey, look how much you gave Greece. How come we don't get the same?'." Unfortunately, the fact that Portuguese bondholders are far more protected than Greek ones will make an in kind restructuring virtually impossible. Which is something else for Europe to ponder as it prepares for the only key catalyst event between now and March 20 - the February 29 LTRO, which as Credit Suisse already suggested could be up to a ridiculous €10 trillion to firewall not only Greece and Portugal, but all the other PIIGS. Intuitively, this does make a lot of sense.

Koo Concerned Keynesian Class Contracting

The fear of 'turning-Greek', which is now apparently worse than 'turning-Japanese', is the anchoring bias that seems to be driving more and more countries to dramatically adjust their fiscal affairs. However, Nomura's Richard Koo (whose blood pressure was already elevated last week at the ignorance of many nations to his balance sheet recession diagnosis and treatment protocol) points out in a note this week that Greece's problems stem from fiscal profligacy, a lack of domestic savings, and dishonest reporting by the government (it does kind of ring a bell). His point being that the rest of the eurozone - not to mention Japan, US, and the UK - are suffering balance sheet recessions (unlike Greece), which occur when the collapse of an asset price bubble drives sharp increases in private savings. His problem is that traditional economists are not taught of a situation in which private sector deleveraging (which we discussed last week also) leaves fiscal stimulus as the only way to stabilize an economy and in the currrent environment of deficits being watched and denigrated by any and all politician, market participant, and talking head, Koo's borrow-and-spend 'all deficits are good deficits' medicine is hard to swallow. Koo believes that the post-Lehman world was saved by fiscal stimulus, that Greece is different, and that the anti-Koo austerity actions have 'thrown a large wrench into the works of many world economies' and while the UK is coming around to the notion that austerity is not working, he worries on recent actions in the US and Japan at a time of excess private saving. It seems to us that his argument boils down to - given the system's fragility - an Austrian solution to the broken Keynesian problem is unworkable (without depression), and he hopes that the growing doubts (recessions popping up left, right, and center) about an overriding focus on fiscal consolidation will bring people back to Keynesian (Kooian) fold. He concludes with a worrying reflection on his countrymen in the MoF that seem to have learnt none of his lessons as they look to raise the consumption tax and Japan's rising sun sets.

Why The LTRO Is Not A "Risk On" Catalyst

Over the past month, much has been said about the recent 3 year LTRO, and its function in stabilizing the European bond market. Certainly it has succeeded in causing an unprecedented steepening in European sovereign 2s10s curves across the periphery (well, except for Greece, and recently, Portugal) as by implication the ECB has made it clear that debt with a sub-3 year maturity is virtually risk free, inasmuch at least as the ECB is a credible central bank (and if it is perceived as no longer being one, there will be far bigger issues), along the lines of what the Fed's promise to keep ZIRP through the end of 2013, and today's likely extension announcement through 2014. Yet does filling a much needed for European stability fixed income "black hole" equate to a catalyst for Risk On? Hardly, because as in a new note today Brockhouse Cooper analysts Pierre Lapointe and Alex Bellefleur explains, the LTRO is "not a catalyst for a risk-on rally as the central bank is substituting itself for funding sources that have “dried up.” Sure enough - all the ECB is doing is preserving existing leverage (especially in light of ongoing bank deleveraging), not providing incremental debt, something which could only be done in the context of unsterilized bond monetization ala QE in the US. So just over a month in, what does the LTRO really mean for Europe (especially as we approach the next 3 Year LTRO issuance on February 29)? Here is Brockhouse's explanation.

Everything You Wanted To Know About Credit Trading But Were Afraid To Ask

Markets have become far less volatile than last year, but many investors remain focused on the Credit Markets for signs and cues as to the next move.  With so many people looking to moves in credit markets and trying to determine how successful an auction has been, we thought it would make sense to go through some examples of how credit trades.  At one extreme you have a real market like for the E-mini S&P futures.  That trades from Sunday at 6pm EST until Friday at 4:15 EST.  It is virtually continuous and at any given time you can see the bids and offers of the entire market.  Then you have credit trading, which has almost nothing in common with ES futures and their incredible liquidity and transparency.

Guest Post: President Obama's State of the Union: Ten Skirted Issues

In all, the President's speech was reminiscent of George Clooney’s in Ides of March. We’ve heard it all before, maybe with slightly different words: America lost 4 million jobs before I got here, and another 4 million before our policies went into effect, but in the last 12 months, we added 3 million job. We must reduce tax loopholes, and provide tax incentives to businesses that hire in America. We must reform taxes for the wealthy (though he signed an extension of Bush’s tax cuts.) We must train people for an apparent abundance of expert jobs. We need more clean energy initiatives.  We created regulations (big sigh of relief he didn’t use the word ‘sweeping’) to avoid fraudulent financial practices. We will help homeowners. Wall Street must ‘make up a trust deficit.”   Like Jamie Dimon cares. In other words, Obama gave Wall Street a pass, while waxing populace. Don’t get me wrong. I expected nothing different. I will continue to expect nothing different, when he gets a second term, given the lame field of contenders all around.

Daily US Opening News And Market Re-Cap: January 25

The advance reading of Q4 UK GDP released today came in at -0.2%, slightly below expectations, however many market participants had feared a worse outcome for the indicator, allowing the GBP to pare the losses made in the lead-up to the GDP announcement. The Bank of England minutes released today have shown that the MPC unanimously agreed to keep the UK rate at 0.5%, and maintain the volume of the APF, however they also revealed that some MPC members saw the need for further QE in the future. Despite higher than expected German IFO Business Climate data this morning, European indices are trading in negative territory, with technology and financial stocks suffering the highest losses. This has seen asset reallocations into safe havens, which has seen Bunds outperform for the morning.

Previewing Today's Economic Events And FOMC Announcement

This is how Goldman sees today's events, and critical FOMC announcement, public communication overhaul and press release, unfolding.

Goldman Now Aggressively Selling Apple To Clients, Hikes Price Target To $600

In case one was wondering how the Goldman trading team was axed in Apple, we now know that they are pushing their inventory of stock in the name out of the door and to clients harder than ever, having just released a forecast with a $600 price target. However, with nearly 200 hedge fund holders in the name, and pregnant to the teeth in the stock, we fail to find who the incremental buyer of GS' AAPL stock will be.

Frontrunning: January 25

• Angela Merkel casts doubt on saving Greece from financial meltdown (Guardian)
• Germany Rejects ‘Indecent’ Call to ECB on Greece, Meister Says (Bloomberg)
• Obama Calls for Higher Taxes on Wealthy (Bloomberg)
• Fed set to push back timing of eventual rate hike (Reuters)
• Recession Looms As UK Economy Shrinks By 0.2%, more than expected (SKY)
• King Says BOE Can Increase Bond Purchases If Needed to Meet Inflation Goal (Bloomberg)
• When One Quadrillion Yen is not enough: Japan's first trade deficit since 1980 raises debt doubts (Reuters)
• Sarkozy to quit if he loses poll (FT)
• U.S. Shifts Policy on Nuclear Pacts (WSJ)
• ECB under pressure over Greek bond hit (FT)

RANsquawk European Morning Briefing - Stocks, Bonds, FX etc. – 25/01/12

Submitted by RANSquawk Video on 01/25/2012 - 07:08 ETC Morning Briefing RANSquawk



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