European Bailout Time Of Death: EFSF Cut In Half Due To "Market Conditions"

If only we had known that the EFSF was nothing but the latest Chinese reverse merger IPO gimmick, dependent entirely on market conditions for its success, we probably would have sold even more euros to Thomas Stolper. Alas, despite all the pomp and circumstance of last month's European summit announcement when the 50% Greek debt haircut (which has a snowball's chance in hell of passing) was accompanied by vague promises of a 4-5x leveraging of the EFSF's €440 billion, it now appears that our original skepticism was well-founded. Because according to the latest news out of the FT, the EFSF won't get 4-5x leverage. Nope. It will, in fact be lucky if it can be doubled, which however kills the whole point as it needs to be well over €1 trillion to even exist. From the FT: "A plan to boost the firepower of the eurozone’s €440bn rescue fund could deliver as little as half what the bloc’s leaders had hoped for because of a sharp deterioration in market conditions over the past month, according to several senior eurozone government officials." Well what do you know. Next we will learn that when the EFSF denied it was an outright pyramid scheme, and was buying its own bonds, it was actually kidding. Either way, as it currently stands, there is no bailout in place for Europe whatsoever, as the ECB's demands for a fallback to the ECB are now moot. Furthermore, once the market realizes there is no even implicit backstop to the trillions in debt rollover over the next several years, it will dump sovereign bonds with even more gusto, pushing Europe into an even deeper funding crisis, which in turn will make bond repayment even more impossible, which will send prices even lower, and so on. There is a reason they call it a toxic debt spiral.








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"My advice: We are moving closer and closer to what I call 'survival period' -- the period where the magic of compounding turns into what will be the poison of compounding. This isn't a time for timing. This is a time for action. Reduce your exposure to bonds and all items that provide fixed interest rates. Similarly, reduce your exposure to stocks except the gold miners. Look to expand your positions in inflation-protected assets, especially gold."

"Those who are holding stocks in the hopes of the usual rebound are going to be terribly disappointed in the years ahead. This bear market is going to be unlike anything we've ever seen before. In the end my survival vehicle will be gold. I say again, timing is hopeless. Gold will have purchasing power and true wealth as almost everything else is destroyed by this unprecedented bear market. The US Government is now so loaded with ever-growing debt that it has become a mathematical freak. We return to different times, when rising interest rates will eat up the US government. With $55 trillion in assorted debts, the US is in no shape to deal with rising interest rates. We are in a state of reverse compounding, leading to inevitable bankruptcy on a massive scale." - Richard Russell, Editor of The Dow Theory Letters.




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A Burned Goldman Says To Hell With European Trade Recos

After being mocked and humiliated (repeatedly) by various blogs, not to mention losing a ton of money (for the clients, not the Goldman traders on the other side of the firm's clients) on his most recent horrendous EURUSD reco, Goldman's Tom Stolper has had enough (as a reminder, precisely the same thing happened at precisely the same time last year - sometimes even a broken clock is never right). And not only him, but all of Goldman appears to be withdrawing from making any future recos on Europe. To wit: "The lack of predictability in Euro-zone policy developments and the high degree of volatility it has created for markets have made it particularly challenging to recommend trades around that theme. Over time, our attempts to actively trade Euro-zone-related developments have had varying degrees of success. Our long EUR/$ trade recommendation was the latest to fall victim to this broader market uncertainty. We initiated the trade under the assumption that reduced political tensions in the Euro-zone ten days ago would also help the EUR move higher, given the significant degree of negative sentiment for the currency. Despite positive developments in Italy, Greece and Spain, however, market tensions have broadened. We therefore closed the trade yesterday at close to 1.34, as we thought that further deterioration in price action was likely." This is truly sad news: it means that the one sure source of (inverse) alpha in the past 2 years, Goldman's FX "advice", has been silenced, and if anything has now turned outright bearish on Europe - and all it took was 2 weeks for Goldman's expert strategists to completely invert their opinion. Oh well, nobody ever said trading was supposed to be easy...

Hungary 'Junked' By Moody's

Citing uncertainty over the country's ability to meet 'austerity' targets and its rising susceptibility to external shocks - given its heavy reliance on external investors - Moody's just downgraded Hungary to Junk Ba1 (with a negative outlook). With its 10Y yield currently at 9%, only 190bps wider than Italy, we thought it somewhat ironic that Hungary's average 10Y yield from SEP09 to SEP11 was 7.2% - almost exactly where Italy finds itself trading currently.

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