Thursday, May 17, 2012

Nationalized Spanish Bank Plummets On News Of Bank Run

The problem with bank runs is that once they start, they don't stop. And while the world was conveniently distracted by events in Greece, debating whether or not people were withdrawing money in droves (they were), the real bank run happened elsewhere, namely in Spain, where just nationalized bank Bankia moments ago plunged 30% and was halted following an El Mundo report that "customers had withdrawn €1 billion over the past week." In other words -  a bank run (but whatever you do, don't call it that - it's not the politically correct and accepted nomenclature) which has sent shockwaves through Europe, pushed the EURUSD under 1.27, and bond yields in their traditional "Europe is open" direction - wider.








The Economist FTW (Redux)


Two years after bringing us the beginning of the end in Acropolis Now, the Economist has closed the loop with the end of the end courtesy of "The Greek Run."





 

 

 

Greek Lights Out... Literally


One for the "You can't make this stuff up" folder...
 

 

 

 

 

 

Moody's Warns Spain It Will Downgrade "More Than 21" Spanish Banks - Expansion

It was such a promising morning for Spain which sold some €2.5 billion in 2015 and 2016 bonds earlier in yet another meaningless and symbolic LTRO-covered exercise, when things went from bad (bank run, pardon, withdrawal meme) to worse, as local Expansion newspaper says Spanish bank ratings will be downgraded in a few hours.




Philly Fed Plunges, First Contraction Since September 2011

Remember the surge in the Empire Fed which was the straw so desperately clutched by all those who still held on to hope the US economy was still kinda sorta growing? Oops. The May Philly Fed just came out and was a disaster, printing at -5.8, down from 8.5 and crashing expectations for an increase to 10.0. This was the first contractionary print since September 2011 and the biggest miss since August 2011, but the worst news is that the Number of Employmees indicator was in absolute freefall, plummeting from 17.9 to -1.3. And now come the downward NFP revisions, and NEW QE (because courtesy of AAPL it is no longer QE [X] anymore) whispers.





Gold Welcomes Its New CTRL+Ping Overlords


After days and weeks and months of pounding, gold reacted like a stung dog, soaring over $20 upon the realization that following the Philly Fed confirmation that the "recovery" is now officially dead that, gasp, the Fed really has no other choice than to CTRL+P.





How The U.S. Dollar Will Be Replaced

The dollar was a median step towards a newer and more corrupt ideal.  Its time is nearly over.  This is open, it is admitted, and it is being activated as you read this.  The speed at which this disaster occurs is really dependent on the speed at which our government along with our central bank decides to expedite doubt.  Doubt in a currency is a furious omen, costing not just investors, but an entire society.  America is at the very edge of such a moment.  The naysayers can scratch and bark all they like, but the financial life of a country serves no person’s emphatic hope.  It burns like a fire.  Left unwatched and unchecked, it grows uncontrollable and wild, until finally, there is nothing left to fuel its hunger, and it finally chokes in a haze of confusion and dread…




Consumer Blinks as "Consumer Comfort" Collapses Most In 4 Years

We have seen three very loud and very clear messages this week on the state of the US consumer's mind. After a few months of extravagance, on the back of what can only be described as depression-fatigue, reality is biting once again. The Bloomberg Consumer Comfort index just missed expectations by its greatest amount in three years and has plunged over the last 5 weeks by the most in four years - dropping back to four-month lows. Do these two messages explain the catastrophe that is JCP's results this quarter? We suspect so as the outlook for the economy (sub-index) has plummeted by the most in 14 months - once again echoing the last two years and the end of the central-bank easing periods exposing the sad reality beneath







Today’s Items:

First…
Global Systemic Risk Soars
http://www.zerohedge.com
30 of the most systemically important financial institutions in the world are seeing risk surging to 3-month highs. The Market may stage mini-recoveries, but things are getting far worse under the thin Vail of paper lies and the main stream media, who are not clueless on the situation, is not reporting it.   In short, time is running out to get ready for the storm.

James Turk said that the situation in Europe is rapidly deteriorating. Moody’s downgrade of 26 Italian banks is the latest nail in the coffin as many more banks are flirting with insolvency.  Just to give you and idea, Greeks withdrew $894 million in one day.  This downward spiral has all the outer appearances of being a deflationary collapse. Also, people are taking their money out the euro and putting into the dollar.  Which is like going from the frying pan into the fire.  Make sure you are Stacking physical because when the dollar falls, it will not be pretty.

Now, we learn the reason for Obama’s support for JP Morgan.  The Sack of shit has up to $1 Million out of his total net worth of $10 million invested with this criminal enterprise. Is Mitt Romney any better? Hell no, this sack of shit is backing his contributor banker masters as well.  Talk about Quid-Pro-Quo.  In addition, the rumor in the pits is that that a major JP Morgan client was served a massive margin call, and was forced to liquidate massive silver positions to meet it.  Now, who could this client be?

Next…
Central Banks aim to Redistribute Gold
http://www.gata.org
With the constant suppression of gold and silver prices on the futures markets, central banks may now really mean to push the gold price up — way up — once the gold necessary for the plan has been obtained and redistributed among central banks.  This will provide support for confidence-based currencies that have lost the market’s confidence.   At the moment, Central Banks are working for physical gold and silver holders, not against them; thus, keep stacking.

Next…
Needy States Use Housing Aid Cash to Plug Budgets
http://www.nytimes.com
California, awarded $400 million for housing aid, is using this money to pay the state’s debts. This money was part of a $25 billion national settlement negotiated with five big banks over abuses in their mortgage and foreclosure processes. In Texas, $125 million went straight to the general fund. In short, homeowners got screwed again.

Next…
Sugar Makes You Stupid
http://now.msn.com
According to researchers from UCLA, too much sugar will not only rot your teeth, it can also make you stupid. So, not only is television bad for you, large amounts of sugar does the same thing.


Finally, Please prepare now for the escalating economic and social unrest. Good Day

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Bonds singing "Anticipation"!

Trader Dan at Trader Dan's Market Views - 14 minutes ago
While one day's worth of price action does not a trend make, it is interesting to me watching the combination of price action in both the gold market and in the Treasury market. In the long bond, the market has broken into a new all time high. That is significant as it shows that traders there are anticipating an upcoming round of bond purchases attached to a new Federal Reserve round of Quantitative Easing. It seems as if the catalyst for today's surge higher was the Philadelphia Fed business index drop to an unexpected -5.8. Business conditions in that corner of the realm are wors... more » 
 

Gold: Short Term Bearish Outlook

Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 41 minutes ago
Jim Rogers gives his short term bearish outlook for gold (with Maria Bartiromo on CNBC) *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.* 

Stay Balanced And Employ Discpline of Thought

Eric De Groot at Eric De Groot - 58 minutes ago
I absolutely agree, Jim. The Federal reserve has not failed any sitting Administration as long as I can remember. Unfortunately, I cannot remember much past Jimmy Carter. Jim is right, the Fed's ability to stare down the market is finite. The steady decay in the private sector credit trends illustrated in the table below has quantitative easing (QE) to infinity written all over it. Total... [[ This is a content summary only. Visit my website for full links, other content, and more! ]] 

Central Banks Will Eventually Move Into Gold

Admin at Marc Faber Blog - 1 hour ago
Even a central banker, with his just-below-average intelligence, will one day notice that maybe it’s not that desirable to be in the US dollar or Treasury bills that have essentially no yield. In other words, you have a negative real interest rate on these dollars. So they move money into gold. They should have done it a long time ago. But don’t expect too much from a central banker. - *in Money Morning Australia* *Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.* more »
 

Forced Liquidations Among Banks

Admin at Jim Rogers Blog - 3 hours ago
I know that a lot of people are having to liquidate positions because now the banks’ examiners are all over these banks especially J.P. Morgan (JPM) so they’re trying to take off as many positions as they can so that the regulators don’t put them out of business. - *in CNBC * *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.* 

I Think There Are More People That Own Apple Stock Than Gold

Admin at Marc Faber Blog - 3 hours ago

In 1989, everybody owned Japanese stocks. And in 2000, everybody owned tech stocks. That is the bubble, when the majority of market participants own an asset. I think there are more people that own Apple stock than gold. - in *Money Morning Australia* *Related: Apple (APPL), SPDR Gold Trust ETF (GLD) * *Marc Faber is an international investor known for his uncanny predictions of the stock market and futures markets around the world.*




How JPM's "Hedge" Blew Up In One Easy Chart

It seems every critical-to-stay-relevant talking head and blogger is trying to make sense of, and gain as much airtime discussing, how JPMorgan's CIO unit could have been so 'stupid'. The answer is - they weren't. As we described first here and here - and has now been accepted by the mainstream media as fact (of course we are flattered by the mimicry) - the reason that the hedge got out of control was the massive amount of delta-hedging that Iksil had to do to manage the position as the Fed and ECB crushed the systemic risk out of the system and blew up the correlation assumptions in his models. This is complex to explain but, by way of example, we show a chart of the implied delta of a proxy for the JPM hedge. The lower the delta, the more and more index protection that needs to be sold to maintain a stable hedge - and as is clear, not only did the delta collapse (almost halving in 4 months) but it reached pre-crisis levels which would have been generally unthinkable in the risk scenarios - given the backdrop of reality. Whether Iksil arrogantly enjoyed ignored the cornering of the IG9 index market and the momentum and P&L he was relishing in is a different matter but to comprehend the forced selling protection pressure he was under, this chart is all you need to understand...




Schumer Introduces Ex-PATRIOT Act: Will Banish Those Who Renounce US Citizenship

What comes after Banana Republic? Because America is it - after last week Facebook co-founder, and native Brazilian, Eduardo Saverin announced he would denounce his US citizenship, America has decided to make it virtually illegal to denounce one's citizenship in what can only be classified as the dumbest proposed law in recent history: meet the Ex-PATRIOT Act (Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy) proposed by Chick Schumer and Bob Casey. One wonders just how much taxpayer money was spent to pay naming consultants to come up with this witty acronym for a law that can only be classified as utter idiocy. Here is our suggestion for the follow up law: The "GULAG" Act: Get Ur Laughable Asses Gone (although we are open to any other non-taxpayer funded acronym suggestions).




The Forthcoming Hellenic Curse

The days have passed since January 13, 2010 when we first expressed opinion that Greece would default. Weeks and months have come and gone; Athens has been rescued by the Troika, private bondholders were forced into a Draconian swap as the Germans attempted to soothe their citizens and boatloads of money has been dumped into the Greek economy and into the Greek banks. The demands for “austerity measures” heaped upon the citizens and the economy of Greece has sent the marginally poor into the streets and into bread lines and caused a Depression in Greece based largely upon the imposition of the Troika’s demands that Greece must curtail the standard of living which was initially granted by Greece joining the European Union. Almost everyone has focused upon the sovereign debt, that it is no longer placed at the European banks and that it is resident at the European Central Bank which is protected by all of the nations in Europe. This is true, as far as it goes, but the summation does not go nearly far enough. The hit, when it comes, will require the ECB to be recapitalized, will be felt at the IMF where the United States will take 16% of the hit or around $16 billion which will be trumpeted in the Press by the Republicans and waved like a banner in the Press. The EIB will also take a hit and it may get downgraded but all of this just focuses upon the sovereign debt and is non-inclusive of the rest of the story or even of the truth of the sovereign debt. Greece has $90 billion in derivative contracts that will likely default and the losses will then have to be taken at the French, German and American banks. The number is approximately $1.3 trillion in total and all of it is going to default as Greece heads back to the Drachma.




Initial Claims Miss, Media Spin: "Unchanged"


While claims were expected to improve from last week's pre-revision print of 367K, we got not only a miss but a deterioration, with the print coming at 370K on expectations of 365K. But all is well, for the media already has its spin: "Unchanged", because you see last week's number was as usual pushed up higher to 370K, hence no change. Of course, next week this week's 370K will be revised to 374K or something, but the algos will be long past caring. What is worse is that the exodus from the cliff continues, as those off EUCs and Extended benefits declined by another 68K (and down by 1.14 million from this time last year): people who no longer get their weekly allowance from Uncle Sam and having been without a job for 99 weeks are pretty much guaranteed to not find a job, thus making them rely exclusively on disability and foodstamps.




Gold Demands Trend (Q1 2012) - Enter The Dragon

The World Gold Council has released the Q1 2012 Gold Demands Trend report. Gold demand grew 16% over the past 12 months to 1,098 tonnes. This had a US dollar value of just $59.7 billion spent on gold, globally, in Q1 2012. While global demand was down 5% from the record high of Q4 2011, it was significantly higher than demand in Q1 2011 suggesting that global demand may be consolidating at these higher levels.  Probably the most important aspect of demand and one of the most important fundamentals in the gold market is that of still very robust and increasing Chinese demand. In this the Chinese Year of the Dragon – China is becoming a fundamental driver of the gold market. Global demand was boosted by China posting a quarterly record of 98.6 tonnes of investment demand up 13% from Q1 2011. This increase was a result of investors’ continued move to preserve wealth amid ongoing concerns over inflation, volatility in equity markets and price falls in some property markets. Jewellery demand in China, much of which is also store of wealth demand, increased to 156.6 tonnes – 30% of the global appetite.  This increase places China as the largest jewellery market for the third consecutive quarter.




Daily US Opening News And Market Re-Cap: May 17

European cash equities are in the red across the board at the midway point, as the bourses fail to reverse the trend of the past few sessions. With data points very light today, participants continue to focus on the macroeconomic themes as speculation regarding a Greek exit maintains focus. A medium-term maturity Spanish bond auction slightly eased fears, selling to the top of the indicative range, however the appearance of solid demand was countered somewhat by limited supply and sharply higher yields across all three lines. Following the auction results, EUR/USD saw some modest support and the Bund exhibited slight weakness, but this was short-lived as the macroeconomic concerns took over once more. Unexpectedly, the 3-month Euribor rate fixing came in with its first increase since December last year, prompting some selling pressure on the Euribor strip. This move was retraced as it was rumoured that one bank had not submitted a rate due to the Ascension Day market holiday across certain European markets, prompting the incline.




Frontrunning: May 17

  • As ZH warned last week, JPMorgan’s Trading Loss Is Said to Rise at Least 50% (NYT)
  • Spanish recession bites, may be prolonged (Reuters)
  • Obama Lunch With Boehner Ends With Standoff Over Budget (Bloomberg)
  • Hilsenrath: Fed Minutes Reflect Wariness About Recovery's Strength (WSJ)
  • N. Korea Ship Seizes Chinese Boats for Ransom, Global Times Says (Bloomberg)
  • Greece Plans for June 17 Vote Under Caretake Government (Bloomberg)
  • Hollande turns to experience to fill French posts (FT)
  • ECB Stops Loans to Some Greek Banks as Draghi Talks Exit (Bloomberg)
  • Spain Urges EU to Provide More Support (WSJ)
  • North Korea resumes work on nuclear reactor: report (Reuters)
  • Fed’s Bullard Says Labor Policy Is Key to Cut Joblessness (Bloomberg)
  • China Expands Scope for Short Selling, Securities Journal Says (Bloomberg)
 



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