Дайджест валютного рынка

LINKS-ДАЙДЖЕСТ 29.02.2012

А теперь англоязычные ссылки:

China Dumps $100+ Billion In USTs In December Per Revised TIC Data; UK Is Now Russia's Shadow Buyer

Китай в декабре продал трежерей на 100 млрд. долларов. Скрытым покупателем, действующим через Великобританию, является Россия.

First, here is a link to the revised TIC data as of this afternoon. That lack of Chinese trade surplus is really starting to bite not only China, but also the US, which as we noted last time, will be forced to rely ever more on domestically funded purchases of USTs: read Primary Dealers and the Fed, as the rest of the world developing world, also known as US Treasury buyers, clams down and exports far less to a recessionary Europe and contracting America. As the chart below shows, Chinese holdings are sliding, no matter how one cuts the data.

Yet the biggest surprise, is that contrary to previous speculation, Russia has not been dumping its Treasurys. In fact the country's holding of $150 billion are the same as they were back in June, and over $60 billion more compared to the pre-revised number.

In other words the biggest beneficiary of stealthy UK accumulation is no longer China (which is not accumulating US paper at all and quite the contrary), but Russia.

Чтобы получить представление о том, как поведут себя US Treasuries, нужно следить за китайским торговым профицитом. Если он вдруг превратился в дефицит, то это немедленно вызовет проблемы в US Treasuries.

Then again, this is the TIC data, which is notoriously wrong all the time. Best advice: keep a track of that Chinese trade surplus. If it becomes a deficit (just like Japan did recently), that is the first signal that things are changing dramatically from an international flow of funds perspective. It also means that unless the US finds subtitute demand, most likely from within, the only remaining buyer will be the entity that already has the largest holding of US paper - the Federal Reserve.

Euro Area: "What to Watch" in the Coming Months

Danske Bank: какие важные события нас ждут в ближайшие месяцы

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-28/papademos-gets-backing-for-4-3-billion-of-cuts-in-race-for-european-aid.html

Греческий парламент ратифицировал сокращение затрат на 3,2 миллиарда EURO, повысив тем самым шансы на получение помощи

Only 54% Of Young Adults In America Have A Job

Только 54% молодых американцев имеют работу

A month ago, Zero Hedge readers were stunned to learn that unemployment among Europe's young adults has exploded as a result of the European financial crisis, and peaking anywhere between 46% in the case of Greece all they way to 51% for Spain. Which makes us wonder what the reaction will be to the discovery that when it comes to young adults (18-24) in the US, the employment rate is just barely above half, or 54%, which just happens to be the lowest in 64 years, and 7% worse than when Obama took office promising a whole lot of change 3 years ago.

Complete Paulson 2011 Letter

Управляющий одного из крупнейших хеджфондов объясняет свои неудачи

Полный отчет фондов Полсона на конец 2011 года

Dow Jones 13,000 Crossed 52 Times in Past 3 Days, Wreaks Havoc With Retirement Plans Of Trader Community

Dow 52 раза пересекал 13000 за последние 3 дня. Что делать: несчастливое число!

More Liquidity Extraction: Fed Resumes Reverse Repos

Федрезерв возобновляет обратные репо: надо изымать долларовую ликвидность.

В принципе это является бычьим сигналом для USD.

Dumping yet another liquidity cold shower in the aftermath of today's less than dovish Humphrey Hawkins speech by Bernanke (and sending precious metals even lower, albeit briefly), is the Fed's resumption of even more purely optical liquidity extractions, however symbolic, in the form of reverse repos, after the NY Fed just completed the first such operation since the dark days of summer 2011. As a reminder, the last time the Fed did these was back in August 2011 which cemented the market's plunge as it gave the market the impression that at least superficially no more money was coming in (intuitively it makes no sense to have Reverse Repos running at the same time as incremental liquidity), even as the reliquification baton was quietly being passed to the ECB. Today, reverse repos resume, as the Fed pays Primary Dealers an annualized rate of 0.17% in exchange for lending out $100 million in Treasurys. Will this continue? It depends entirely on what the economy, pardon, the Russell 2000 does. After all, that is the third and only mandate of the Fed that matter. And if the market considers this an indicator that QE3 really is delayed indefinitely, the FRBNY will mostly likely be forced to reassess.

QE3 Or Not To Be, A Brief Q & A

Европейская команда MS отвечает на наиболее часто дискутируемые вопросы, касающиеся QE.

Morgan Stanley's European Economics Team asks and answers five of the most frequently discussed questions with regard quantitative easing. From whether QE has worked to inflation fears and concerns over policy normalization and what happens if the public lose confidence in central bank liabilities, we suspect these questions, rather dovishly answered by the MS team, will reappear sooner rather than later, and as they interestingly note, the deployment of central bank balance sheets is, in essence, a confidence trick.

Greek Bank Deposit Outflows Soar In January, Third Largest Ever

Греки сейчас делают две основные вещи: они бастуют и забирают деньги из банков

Just like the housing market in the US, following the modest blip higher in December Greek bank deposits, immediately the great unwashed took to calling an end of the Greek deposit outflow and seeing a glorious renaissance for the country's bank industry. Well look again. According to just released data from the Bank of Greece, January saw Greeks doing what they do best (in addition to striking of course): pulling their money from local banks, after a near record €5.3 billion, or the third highest on record, was withdrawn from the local banking system. As a result, total bank cash has now dropped to just €169 billion, down from €174 billion in December, and the lowest since 2006. This is an 18% decline from a year ago, or €37 billion less than the €206 billion last January, and is a whopping 30% lower than the all time deposit highs from 2007, as nearly €70 billion in cash has quietly either left the country or been parked deep in the local mattress bank.

A Strange Chart, In More Ways Than One

Странный во многих отношениях график, который предоставил Peter Tchir

Everyone and their mum knows by now that Italian bonds have rallied since the first LTRO and we are told that this is symptomatic of 'improvement'. While we hate to steal the jam from that doughnut, we note Peter Tchir's interesting chart showing how focused the strength is in the short-end of the bond curve (which we know is thanks to the ECB's SMP program preference and the LTRO skew) but more notably the significantly less ebullient performance of the less manipulated and more fast-money, mark-to-market reality CDS market as we suspect, like him, the CDS is pricing in the longer-term subordination and termed out insolvency risk much more clearly than the illiquid bond market does, and perhaps bears closer scrutiny for a sense of what real risk sentiment really looks like.

Рынок CDS показывает риск неплатежеспособности гораздо более отчетливо, чем рынок бондов.

Back in late November (pre LTRO and more SMP), the CDS spread was lower than the bond yield across the board (we could look at Italian bond spread to German bunds, or Italy CDS spread to German CDS). We have seen a very big move in bond yields. Yields have moved lower across the board, with the front end outperforming. CDS has moved tighter, but not by as much, and the curve when from slightly inverted, to slightly steep.

In fact, CDS spreads are now higher than bond yields (significantly so) in the 1 to 3 year range.

It would tell me that the less manipulated market, less subject to non mark to market accounting, has been less convinced by the move. I would hate to say “smart” money vs “dumb” money, but a bigger % of investors in the bond market are not subject to mark to market and are not subject to being right in the short term (or with all the bailouts – being right at all). We have also seen evidence in Greece, that the ECB’s SMP program likes the short end more than the long end, creating another artificial buyer, and they are DEFINITELY senior. So maybe CDS with less manipulation is a better assessment of risk. Since that tends to be fast money and mark to market money, it is interesting to see how much above bond yields they are willing to pay (though liquidity is low in sovereign CDS too). Maybe the CDS market is already pricing in the subordination that will occur if there is another crisis. The bond market can’t help but be pulled to the level of the ECB bid (though SMP has been quiet for 3 weeks), whereas CDS can anticipate the impact of subordination if things get bad again?

I’m not really sure what the answer is, but think this is worth watching (though in this market, the ECB will now finally get permission to sell CDS, or ban it, because who wants anything out there not fully controlled by the central banks).

Chicago PMI Soars To 64, Beats Estimate Of 61, Employment Index Highest Since 1984

ZH с обычным сарказмом пишет о статистических данных.

Earlier today, when forecasting the Chicago PMI, we warned to "expect another massive beat courtesy of consumers confident that they can have Apple apps, if not so much food, since they still don't pay their mortgages." Sure enough, the economic data is now straight out of China, with the Chicago PMI not only trouncing expectations, printing at 64, on consensus of 61 (the highest since last April when the peak of the liquidity bubble popped and the stock market rolled over), but, wait for it, the Employment index came at 64.2, up from 54.7, which was the highest employment print since April 1984! At this point it is no longer worth commenting on economic data, as between this, the NAR, the consumer confidence, it was all become farce of a blur. we now expect February unemployment to print negative as the labor participation rate slides to 50%, and seasonal adjustments and birth/date fixtures account for 5 million "additions" to jobs. One thing that is sure. There will be no more easing for a looooooooong time. Kiss any hope of more trillions in central bank liquidity goodbye.

The Relentless Household Deleveraging In Charts

Три графика, которые показывают, что несмотря на накачку экономики деньгами, доля кредита сокращается.

While the narrower spreads in Europe created the unintended consequence of perversely reducing the urgency for banks to delever their over-stuffed balance sheets (and in fact in many cases likely make them worse thanks to the ECB), the US Household continues to (sensibly) slowly but surely reduce their leverage. As today's Bloomberg Brief notes though, the slow pace of deleveraging will continue to weigh on growth over the next few years - even as they have drawn down debt as a percentage of personal income from its peak in June 2009 at 114.76% to 101.1% at the end of 2012. There is a long way to go to the apparent Maginot line of supposedly sustainable 90% and with wage growth stagnant, the bulk will come from debt reduction in true balance-sheet-recession style - putting still more pressure on a perniciously polarized government to do anything about it.

With LTRO Out Of The Picture, Portugal Is Back In Play - Bonds Sliding

У португальских банков нет такого покровителя, как Драги, и покупать португальский долг некому....

As the ECB has stopped its SMP bond-buying and now the LTROs are all done (until the next one of course), Portuguese bond spreads have been increasing rapidly and post-LTRO today even more so. While broadly speaking European sovereign risk is modestly higher this week (and notably steeper across the curve) leaving funding costs still very high for most nations, Portugal has exploded over 100bps wider (and almost 70bps of that today post-LTRO) to back over 1200bps wider than Bunds. Only Italian bonds are better and even there they are leaking back to unch from pre-LTRO. Perhaps, shockingly, more debt did not solve the problem of too much debt and with growth and deficits being questioned in Ireland and Portugal (and Spain), it's clear the newly collateralized loan cash the banks have received won't be extended to the medium-term maturities in sovereign bonds.

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