Gold Follows Stocks Vertically

Because if stocks like the prospect of imminent printing, or at least the latest daily rumor thereof, until Germany once again opens its mouth and refutes everything, gold should love it. Sure enough, the yellow metal has opened $20 higher and is back over $1700 again.

EFSF "Guidelines"

Buy the rumor, sell the news? Investors bought the rumor, then sold the lack of news, I think you are supposed to sell the news again, as there is nothing in this document that provides evidence that they get it, or that any scale can ever be achieved, and if anything, it makes you wonder if they will even get to the 440 billion of support the market thought they had back in July.

Bank of France's Noyer Speaks, Says Europe Is In A "True Financial Crisis"

In case anyone was wondering why the EURUSD is back to levels from several hours ago and well off the ramp highs (with ES continuing to pretend nothing matters), it is due to Bank of France Governor Christian Noyer who speak the following bullet points at a forum in Tokyo:

• Crisis Has Worsened Significantly
• Market stress has intensified and Europe is in a “true financial crisis,”

In other words precisley what Zero Hedge readers have known all along, the same as this aticle from the FT which shows what we presented to readers last week.

 

 

IMF devising huge aid plan to save Italy, Spain, and the euro

 

 

Goldman: "As The Endgame Approaches, The Rally In AAA-Euro Area Sovereign Bonds No Longer Seems Sustainable"

Goldman Sachs has for the time being been very quiet in joining all of its colleagues from around the street in screaming for an immediate intervention by the ECB or else. The reasons are glaringly obvious: with a Goldman alum in charge of the ECB, and a 23 year Goldman veteran acting as ambassador to Germany, whatever Goldman wants, Goldman will get, without the need for convincing pitchbooks and dramatic expostulations that the world is ending unless... Intuitively it makes sense for Goldman to wait: after all why not take advantage of the situation a la Bear and Lehman, and wait for 3-4 major European banks to collapse, which will be the green light for Goldman to do what it does best: step in and fill the financial and power vacuum. Needless to say, when UniCredit, Commerzbank or Raiffeisen are down, the ECB will have no choice but to intervene with or without the Fed's help. Which is why anyone looking for clues as to what will happen in Europe has to focus on Goldman alone as we already know too well how everyone else is axed. Luckily GS' Francesco Garzarelli and Huw Pill have just released a much overdue note presenting just how the firm feel ont he topic of Europe's continuation as a going concern, or, alternatively, collapse. While we present the full note below in its entirety which naturally seeks to avoid broad panic, here are some notable extracts from a nuanced read: "considering how much damage to confidence has now been inflicted, one must also entertain the possibility that the intensification of market tensions and/or deterioration of economic activity reinforce each other feeding domestic political and social pressures precluding a final agreement among EMU member states from being reached. In this case, rather than being the ‘forcing mechanism’ that drives agreement, the economic and financial environment could feedback into the political process in a negative way, leading to a vicious downward spiral and, ultimately, to the failure of the Euro project." Simply said "an alternative scenario of a ‘break-up’ of the Euro area certainly cannot be ruled out", which leads to Goldman's conclusion: "For the same set of reasons, as the ‘end game’ approaches the rally in AAA-rated Euro area sovereign bonds (Germany’s especially) no longer seems sustainable and could reverse in coming weeks. In our base case of more intrusive control on future deficit financing, the core countries will, in exchange, have to shoulder a greater part of the legacy credit risk of their peers if they want to keep EMU alive. In a ‘break-up’ scenario, the creditor ‘core’ countries will be confronted with a wave of insolvencies, which would also worsen their fiscal position. And in the middle ground between these two outcomes, where we currently stand, the ECB will be intermediating growing intra-Eurosystem imbalances. Through this monetary channel at the heart of EMU, the ‘shadow’ credit risk of the core countries is already rising, and at an increasingly rapid pace." As expected, it appears that Goldman sure will like occupying those European bank HQs for about $1 in equity.

 

 

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard: Fed should monetize all of Europe to save the banks

 

 

Here Comes The Drachma: ICAP Preparing For Return Of Greek Currency

As if we needed another reason to send the ES higher by a few more percent in the premarket session on 10 or so ES contracts, the news that ICAP is already preparing for the end of the Euro should do it:

• ICAP Testing Trades In Greek Drachma Against Dollar, Euro
• ICAP Drachma Tests Are Only Precautionary
• Drachma Currency Pairs Not Yet Launched For Trading, May Never Be Used - Execs
• ICAP Testing Trades In Greek Drachma Against Dollar, Euro - Executives

Futures Indicated Up More Than 1% Pre-Open

And so the market is once again shooting first, and doing the math later. While the EURUSD has since dropped substantially from its afternoon premarket highs and was trading just over 1.33 last check, the ES is now about 15 points higher per the bid/ask stack or at 1173, well over 1% more than Friday's close, even though CONTEXT fair value demonstrates a roughly 15 point arbitrage. Looks like the futures are all alone in this latest attempt to ramp everyone on the wrong side and sell to the greater fool. Fade the massive arbitrage to risk fair value.

Former IMF Employee And Greek Statistics Head Faces Life In Prison If Found Guilty Of Making Greece Look Uglier

A few months ago we reported that unlike in any other Banana Republic, where the natural bias is to fudge one's numbers higher to make the economy look better and get the stock market to rise, in Greece even the traditional banana metrics are upside down. To wit: "Greek newspaper Eleftherotypia reports that according to a just terminated member of the Greek Statistical Authority, Greece artificially misrepresented its 2009 15.4% deficit number to Eurostat in order to obtain aid from the EU and IMF." Sure enough, two months later even this absolutely bizarre story has been confirmed. The FT reports that "The head of Elstat, Greece’s new independent statistics agency, faces an official criminal investigation for allegedly inflating the scale of the country’s fiscal crisis and acting against the Greek national interest." Not surprisingly, the man who allegedly cooked the books is none other than a 20 year former IMF employee: precisely the kind of guy who knows just what buttons to push to get the US-funded organization to dole out capital. "Andreas Georgiou, who worked at the International Monetary Fund for 20 years, was appointed in 2010 by agreement with the fund and the European Commission to clean up Greek statistics after years of official fudging by the finance ministry." And just because someone needs to be made a scapegoat, if convicted Georgiou may face the same sentence as Madoff: "Mr Georgiou is due to appear before Greece’s prosecutor for financial crime on December 12 to answer the charges. If convicted of “betraying the country’s interests”, he could face life imprisonment." Well, that's fine: the man should rot in hell for not learning that "minus" is not really "plus" - surely no greater ex-capital punishment crime exists. Yet we wonder - will the same life sentence follow all those others who are found to have betrayed their countries interest and inflated numbers higher thus not getting US taxpayer-funded bailouts? Because when it comes to Europe, it is now every many for himself (as the soon to be faded rumor du jour of a €600 billion IMF-funded bailout of Italy confirms)... all the way to Joe Sixpack's wallet.

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