Those that regularly follow me know that although I'm quite the mediocre short term trader, I have uncommon strengths that lie in the realm of medium to long term strategy and macro-fundamental valuation. Unfortunately, with the advent of free money and perpetually whirring inkjets splashing that Frankiln hue of green all over the place, the value of longer term strategy and analysis has taken a back seat to buy it today and flip it tomorrow wannabe mo-mo enthusiasts who do nothing more than chase leveraged beta with a 2/20 toll to those foolish enough to part with their lesser educated funds. It's downright disheartening to hear so many lament that fundamental analysis doesn't work. My dear friends, if fundamental analysis doesn't work, then math doesn't work! If math doesn't work, exactly how is it you can measure whatever gains you have made while trading? Oh yeah, that's right! Fundamental analysis doesn't work until its time to positively value your operation, then all of a sudden math is the new sexy, right?

Listen up, math never, ever went out of style. The Fed and its cartel of global central planners, AKA central bankers, did an unprecedented job of pushing capitalism to the side for the benefit of the financial oligarchy, but truly implemented capitalism is like unto a force of nature that constantly fights to reassert itself, and like the actual forces of nature - it never gives up and ultimately, never loses.

So, all of you mo-mo trading, fair weather arithmeticians, I'm bringing sexy back!

Back in January of 2009, I warned on Spanish banks. Take note that that was nearly 3 years ago...

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BBVA's valuation at... Register (for free) and download the full report  Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria SA (BBVA) Professional Forensic Analysis 2009-01-28 16:04:04 439.80 Kb

I also warned on the entire country a year later, which was still 2 years before the sell side truly got serious about the departure port of the Santa Maria, reference The Spain Pain Will Not Wane: Continuing the Contagion Saga.

Professional subscribers can now actually download the original Spanish Bond Haircut Model that we used to calculate loss scenarios - Spain maturity extension_010610 (The Man's conflicted copy). Despite the fact I was probably the most realistically bearish out of the bunch, things have actually gotten materially worse since this model was constructed two years ago, hence it can use a refresh. Alas, it is still quite useful.

In the general subscriber document Spain public finances projections_033010, the first four (or 12) pages basically outline the gist of the Spanish problem today, to wit:

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The stress caused by Spain breaking the central bank will bring to full fruition the theory behind our European Banking and Insurance research from the last few quarters.

 A Review of the Spanish Banks from a Sovereign Risk Perspective – retail.pdf

 A Review of the Spanish Banks from a Sovereign Risk Perspective – professional

On that note, this entire week the MSM has been on Spanish kick - Spain Is Crying for Help; Is Berlin Really Listening?

Crisis is the watchword in Madrid. Take your pick - liquidity crisis, debt crisis, banking crisis, economic crisis, confidence crisis, investor crisis, jobless crisis.

Spain, the ailing euro zone's latest problem child, has them all. As the problems pile up, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy's five-month-old conservative administration feels like a government under siege.

Nervy top officials are reluctant to speak on the record for fear of slipping up. Policymakers contradict one another. Plans keep changing. Financial markets reel amid the uncertainty. The gloom in ministry corridors is palpable.

The latest gaffe: after weeks insisting that one of the country's biggest banks, Bankia, did not need fresh funds, ministers dropped the bombshell last Friday that there was a 23-billion-euro hole in the accounts.

Damn! That's one helluva rounding error, eh???

They have yet to explain clearly how they will find the money when they are already struggling to finance a spiralling national debt.

The effect of the Bankia news on fragile financial markets was devastating.

Spanish shares dived to 9-year lows, the euro sank and investors fled Spanish government debt, pushing the yield towards the 7 per cent level at which fellow eurozone members Ireland and Portugal were forced to seek national bailouts from Brussels.

To hear the government tell it, outsiders have got it all wrong: Spain has lived beyond its means for too long and is now going through a painful but necessary period of adjustment to shrink its state sector, cut spending and boost competitiveness.

All the right things are being done.

Rajoy's government is serious, committed and enjoys a comfortable parliamentary majority.

Officials say foreigners don't understand that Spain has boosted its exports more than any other European country in the past three years, that it has reformed its labour markets, cut its costs of production and come clean about the problems in its banks, which lent too enthusiastically to finance a huge property bubble that has now burst.

Now, ministers say, Madrid just needs time and some help and support from its European partners to get through the most acute phase of the crisis and give the reforms time to work.

As I said yesterday, there's no way in hell the EU will be able to bail out its banking system -The Eurocalypse Has Arrived...

Subscribers, be ready. When/if Spain cracks, these two short positions will explode:

Subscribers reference:

•  Report_122511 - Professional/Institutional edition (Insurers, Insurance & Risk Management)
•  Report_122511 -Retail edition (Insurers, Insurance & Risk Management)

Bank Haircuts, Derivative Risks and Valuation10/20/2011

Of course, in today's environ of mega banks, mega marketing, mega investment returns, white hot IPOs, it may be hard for many to appreciate the words of an entrepreneurial investor and blogger. Then again, just remember that this also coming from the same man that called Bear Stearns, Lehman, GGP, CRE, RIM, housing, the entire Pan-European Debt crisis, etc. See Who is Reggie Middleton for more. 

Today's top MSM headline - European Commission Recommends Euro Banking Union:

The euro zone should move toward a banking union and consider recapitalizing its banks using its permanent bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism, the European Commission said on Wednesday, in remarks that briefly boosted stocksand the euro. 

The European Union's executive arm said in documents laying out recommendations for theeuro [EUR=X  1.2422 (-0.51%)]area that the crisis had slowed the financial integration process and "ambitious steps to accelerate and deepen financial integration may be needed."

"More specifically, a closer integration among the euro area countries in supervisory structures and practices, in cross-border crisis management and burden sharing, towards a 'banking union' would be an important complement to the current structure of [the Economic and Monetary Union]," the European Commission said in the documents.

"In the same vein, to sever the link between banks and the sovereigns, direct recapitalization by the ESM might be envisaged," it added.

Hmmmm... BoomBustBloggers crossed this intellectual Rubicon over 2 years ago. I was explicit in explaining that the bulk of the sovereign nations' debt woes stem from thier feeble and failed attempts to prop up their banking systems. I posted a refresher to this thesis a few weeks ago in So, Can Europe Nationalize All Of Its Troubled Banks? 

In a discussion that I had over at ZeroHedge there came the topic of whether bank runs are possible in Europe. Well, I believe we've already had some devastating one's (ex. Northern Rock) but if one takes the continent only or the EZ in particular, we still have a significant systemic threat. The gist behind the argument is that if the true economic capital is weakened to the point that depositors/creditors/counterparties make a run for it, the sovereign nation in which it is domiciled will simply nationalize it. Hmmm... Let's take a look at how that might work out, as excerpted from Overbanked, Underfunded, and Overly Optimistic: The New Face of Sovereign Europe March 2010

Literally years later, the sell side is now chiming in: Banks No Longer 'Float Above Their Countries': Deutsche

Banks' countries of origin have become important again. 

No shit, Sherlock!!!

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 Most of the developed EU nations don't stand frozen raindrop's chance in hell of bailing out banking systems that are literally multiples of the GDP of the domiciles themselves. 

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The problems is getting worse over time, not better, as risk, leverage and unrecognized NPAs continue to pack the banking system. 

I warned heavily last year about the connection between overleveraged, garbage laden banks and over-indebteded sovereigns...

Just as in the case of my call on the fall of Bear Stearns (again, I believe I was the only to make such a call so far in advance), this situation consists of something you NEVER hear in the media or investment circles. This is not merely a liquidity crisis of even a solvency crisis. For the first time in recent history, it is BOTH!!! As a matter of fact, it's not just both. There is a another problem that came into play, and it is the direct result of tomfoolery at the hands of the sovereings themselves. The games that they played to assist the banks in hiding thier problems has materially weakened the entire financial system by sowing rampant mistrust. Plain and simple, government endorsed lying has made the entire system afraid to do business with itself. Let's walk through this step by step.

The Liquidity Issue 

From The BoomBustBlog BNP Paribas "Run On The Bank" series...  "As The French Bank Runs...."... Saturday, 23 July 2011 The Anatomy Of A European Bank Run: Look At The Banking Situation BEFORE The Run Occurs!

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The solvency issues

From the research note to subscribers,  The Inevitability of Another Bank Crisis followed by the free blog posts on the same, see Is Another Banking Crisis Inevitable?

Impact of bank’s banking books on haircuts

EU banking book sovereign exposures are about five times larger than trading book. The table below gives sovereign exposure of major European countries for both trading and banking book. The EU trading book has €335bn of exposure while banking book has €1.7t exposure towards sovereign defaults. EU stress test estimated total write-down’s of €26bn as it only considered banks trading portfolio. This equated to implied haircut of 7.9% on trading portfolio with losses equating to 2.4% of Tier 1 capital. However, if the same haircuts (7.9% weighted average haircut) are applied to banking book then the loss would amount to €153bn equating to 13.8% of Tier 1 capital.

And last but not least...

The credibility crisis, whose sole responsibility lies dead center on the sovereigns themselves...

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You see, as you bend the rules to reporting, you resuce the banks for a day, but doom them for a decade (or in the case of Japan, 2.4 decades!!!). Now, the counterparties simply CANNOT trust each other!

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... and why should the counterparties trust each other when all are privvy to the games that they are playing on each other! 

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Before government officials start crying innocent, remember the tricks that you youreselves have played to bring use where we are now. In case your memory is failing, simply review Lies, Damn Lies, and Sovereign Truths: Why the Euro is Destined to Collapse! 

Now, I ask all... How in the world will grouping all of these increasingly unmanageable individual soveriegn problems cure the overall problem. By gathering all of the roaches into a big pile, you don't get less roaches - you just get a big pile of roaches! The bank failures will increase in both speed and intensity as time progresses and the drag will simply engulf the EU as a whole versus engulfing the states individually. At least individually, the better run states will recieve less pressure, and suffer through crossborder and financial contagion and counterparty risk rather than through this pooled method wherein direct pipes of contagion are being engineered to transmit the problems deep within each country. Does it sound like a good idea to you? I have my own ideas, of course....

How To Prevent Bailouts, Bank Runs & Other Fun Things To Do With Your Hard Earned Dollars

Subscribers, see 

BNP Exposures - Professional Subscriber Download Version

BNP Exposures - Retail Subscriber Download Version

BNP Exposures - Free Public Download Version

 French Bank Run Forensic Thoughts - Addendum and Update 

In today's MSM front pages:

EU Seen Agreeing on Project Bonds—Not Eurobonds - of course not! 17 different nations, 17 different cultures, 17 different sets of federal laws (not to mention local municipality legislation), 17 different economies, 17 different banking systems... It's this lack of homogeneity that brought the Euro concept to its knees in the first place. Why throw good money (what would have went into Eurobonds) after bad (what went into a flawed Euro concept) to justify flushing it with awful (the multiple bailout mechanisms/default losses, ECB balance sheet bloat)? Reference A Summary and Related Thoughts on the IMF’s “Strategies for Fiscal Consolidation in the Post-Crisis 

Germany Sells 2-Year, 0% Bonds Amid Greek Anxiety - Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble! It's as simple as that. Why lend money at risk for no return? Reference The Biggest Threat To The 2012 Economy Is??? Not What Wall Street Is Telling You... where I explained in explicit detail the risk this view of Germany causes the entire European continent and the UK! As a matter of fact, a follow up opinion of the subscription research illustrated subject company (an insurer) in this write-up will be the topic of my next post. After all, we can't let GS and JPM blow up the world by themselves, can we?

Roubini Strategist: High Yields Are Europe's New Normal This is a no brainer. How about high rate volatility as well as all of the financial entity fun that that will ensue? Here's a better question. What happens to real estate values as interest rates increase? Yep! You heard it here first... Watch As Near Free Money To Banks Fails To Prevent Nuclear Winter In European Real Estate. As a matter of fact, We're At Step 2 Of The Global Real Estate Compression!

Of course, after pondering that query, must become more investigatory - What happens to bank mortgages as CRE values plunge? So, Can Europe Nationalize All Of Its Troubled Banks? 

CNBC reports Banks No Longer 'Float Above Their Countries': Deutsche - Banks' countries of origin have become important again. No shit, Sherlock!!!

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I warned heavily last year about the connection between higher interest rates and falling real estate in Europe...

Reggie Middleton as the Keynote Speaker at the ING Real Estate Valuation Seminar in Amsterdam

Bank of England to Print Money if Economy Worsens - Well, you know I've always said The UK Can't Be In A Double Dip Recession If It Never Truly Left The First Recession, Can It?

As we clearly articulated two years ago, when it was alleged that recession was over, in the subscriber (click here to subscribe) document  UK Public Finances March 2010:

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UK Retail Sales Slide at Fastest Pace in 2 Years in April - Well of course. Don't these guys read the BoomBust??? The Greatest Risk To Retail Commercial Real Estate Is? Sovereign Debt! Macro Headwinds! Popping Bubbles! Busted Banks! No, It's The Internet! and Prepare For CRE Crash And Burn Marks At A Shopping Mall Near You

'Nuff said! Subscribers, as (not if, but as) this breaks, these are the companies trading at the valuations that are most shortable/profitable in my opinion... Relevant downloads for subscribers only! Click here to subscribe...

US CRE

• US REIT Fire Sale Scenario Analysis
   US REIT Foreclosure Scenario Analysis
•  US REIT Sample Property Valuation
•  US REIT Cashflows and Debt Preliminary Analysis

European Insurance

•  Insurer Report_122511 - Professional/Institutional edition
•  Insurer Report_122511 -Retail edition

European CRE (this one is a bit dated)

•   Debt Analysis, Blog Subscriber Edition
•  Preliminary Download

European banking

Haircuts, Derivative Risks and Valuation

And the cat that was already let out of the bag...

BNP Exposures - Professional Subscriber Download Version

BNP Exposures - Retail Subscriber Download Version

BNP Exposures - Free Public Download Version

 French Bank Run Forensic Thoughts - Addendum and Update

 Follow me...

The  day before yesterday I posted Who Will Be The Next JPM? Simply Review The BoomBustBlog Archives For The Answer. It was actually a very, very instructional post for although I run a subscription research service, there are troves of extremely insightful information buried in the archives - much of it available for free. It is actually ironic that one could have used the actual paid product to have predicted the events of this year with unerring accuracy two years ago, and using much of the same names from the 2008/9 archives profited heavily from the financial names that gave up 20% of the last few weeks. The more things change, the more they remain the same, eh? Which brings us to one of the first big warnings published on BoomBustBlog way back on Thursday, 08 May 2008: Counterparty risk analyses - counter-party failure will open up another Pandora's box (must read for anyone who is not a CDS specialist)

Creation of colossal US$45 trillion CDS market may unfold into trouble larger than that of the subprime (really to be read as imprudent underwriting) crisis

The creation of the massive US$45 trillion CDS market in the last few years, which faces some unique problems, can unfold into a massive bubble collapse that would easily dwarf that of the subprime crisis. The CDS are supposed to cover the losses of banks and bondholders in the event of default by companies. However, the CDS market has evolved from being primarily a means to hedge credit risk to a speculative and trading platform for a large number of banks and hedge funds. If the corporate defaults surge in the coming quarters (as Reggie Middleton, LLC expects them to) or there is default in payments of coupon and principal amounts, this could lead to a crisis far worse than what we have seen so far in the current “asset securitization crisis” and quite possibly in the recent history of the financial system. The high yield default rate has increased significantly (125%) in the last few quarters from 0.4% in 1Q 07 to almost 0.9% in 1Q 08. In addition, the monolines which are under considerable stress and play the role of both counterparty as well as the reference entity in the CDS market could spell major trouble for the market participants.

Spectacular growth of credit risk transfer instruments

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Fastforward five full years, and has anybody learned there lesson? Well, prance through the recent BoomBustBlog headlines to find the answer:

• Is The Entire Global Banking Industry Carrying Naked, Unhedged "Risk Free" Sovereign Debt Yielding 100-200%? Quick Answer: Probably!

If you don't trust the thoroughly researched, high end alternative info sources such as BoomBustBlog, realize that today Bloomberg reports U.S. Banks Sold More Insurance on Europe Debt, as annotated and excerpted: 

U.S. banks increased sales of protection against credit losses to holders of Greek, Portuguese, Irish, Spanish and Italian debt in the last quarter of 2011 as the European debt crisis escalated.

Well you can't say they didn't see this coming, for I warned throughout 2010 via the Pan-European sovereign debt crisis series.

Guarantees provided by U.S. lenders on government, bank and corporate debt in those countries rose 10 percent from the previous quarter to $567 billion, according to the most recent data from the Bank for International Settlements. Those guarantees refer to credit-default swaps written on bonds.

JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., two of the top CDS underwriters in the U.S., say they have bought more protection than they sold, indicating they may benefit from defaults in the region. That outcome is called into question by JPMorgan’s $2 billion loss on similar derivatives, which shows that risks don’t vanish when offsetting bets are taken, said Craig Pirrong, a finance professor at the University of Houston. “All these hedges trade one risk for another,” said Pirrong, whose research focuses on derivatives markets.

EXACTLY!!!! Risk doesn't disappear when you buy a hedge, it's simply shifted and transformed. In the case of the aforementioned 2008 article and my ramblings about the banks and insurers, naked credit (and market, depending on how the hedge was constructed) risk was simply traded for counterparty risk. With 96% of notional derivative exposure concentrated in just 6 banks - all with excessive leverage, opaque VouDou accounting (Sak Passe'), and tummy full of hidden NPAs amongst one of the worst macro environments of several lifetimes , one must question, "Is the counterparty risk one just assumed greater than the credit/market risk sold, combined?"

“The banks say they’re flat on European risk, but that’s based on aggregated positions. We don’t know how those will hold off if the European crisis blows up.”

JPMorgan Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon said last week that the bank was trying to reposition a portfolio of corporate credit derivatives and used a flawed trading strategy. The lender, the largest in the U.S. by assets, is believed to have sold protection on an index of corporate debt and bought protection on the same index to hedge its initial bet, according to market participants who asked not to be identified because their trading strategies aren’t public.

The two bets moved in opposite directions this year, causing losses and proving that even hedges that look perfect can break down, Pirrong said.

Once again for the unitiated, shall we?

Reggie Middleton on CNBC's Squawk on the Street - 10/19/2010

Mr. Middleton discusses JP Morgan, bank risk and technology and is the only pundit in the financial media that we know of that called Apple's margin compression issues and did so successfully just hours before they reported! Click here or click below to see the video.

Here's a subscription dump of our archives for JPM to placate the insatiable thirst of the BoomBustBlog paid subscriber: JPM Q1 2011 Review & Analysis   JPM 3Q 2010 Forensic Update  JPM Public Excerpt of Forensic Analysis Subscription JPM Restricted Stock scheme JPM 2Q10 review  JPM 1Q 2010 Valuation Review   JPM 4Q09 review  JPM Report (092209) Final - Professional09/24/2009 JPM Forensic Report (092209) Final- Retail JPM Option Analysis

For those who have not read my seminal piece on Dimon's house of Morgan, JPM Public Excerpt of Forensic Analysis Subscription published nearly three years ago, allow me to take the liberty to excerpt it for you...

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JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs

JPMorgan said in a regulatory filing that it purchased $144 billion of CDS related to the five European countries as of the end of the first quarter, while it sold $142 billion. Goldman Sachs (GS) bought $175 billion of protection and sold $164 billion, the firm said in its filing.... Bank of America Corp., Morgan Stanley (MS) and Citigroup Inc. (C) report only net CDS exposures. The five banks together account for 96 percent of the credit-derivatives market in the U.S., according to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency. JPMorgan has written a quarter of the total, the OCC data show.

And here's the BoomBustBlog version of events:

I'm Hunting Big Game Today:The Squid On The Spear Tip, Part 1 & IntroductionI'm Hunting Big Game Today:The Squid On The Spear Tip, Part 1 & Introduction	I'm Hunting Big Game Today: The Squid On A Spear Tip Summary: This is the first in a series of articles to be released this weekend concerning Goldman Sachs, the Squid! In this introduction (for those who do not regularly follow me) I demonstrate how the market, the sell side, and most investors are missing one of the biggest bastions of risk in the US investment banking industry. I will also...
Hunting the Squid, Part2: Since When Is Enough Derivative Exposure To Blow Up The World Something To Be Ignored?Hunting the Squid, Part2: Since When Is Enough Derivative Exposure To Blow Up The World Something To Be Ignored?	Hunting the Squid, Part2: Since When Is Enough Derivative Exposure To Blow Up The World Something To Be Ignored? Welcome to part two of my series on Hunting the Squid, the overvaluation and under-appreciation of the risks that is Goldman Sachs. Since this highly analytical, but poignant diatribe covers a lot of material, it's imperative that those who have not done so review part 1 of this series, I'm Hunting Big Game Today:The Squid On The Spear Tip, Part...
Reggie Middleton Serves Up Fried Calamari From Raw Squid: Goldman Sachs and Market Perception of Real Risks!Reggie Middleton Serves Up Fried Calamari From Raw Squid: Goldman Sachs and Market Perception of Real Risks!	Hunting the Squid Part 3: Reggie Middleton Serves Up Fried Calamari From Raw Squid For those who don't subscribe to BoomBustblog, or haven't read I'm Hunting Big Game Today:The Squid On The Spear Tip, Part 1 & Introduction and Hunting the Squid, Part2: Since When Is Enough Derivative Exposure To Blow Up The World Something To Be Ignored?, not only have you missed out on some unique artwork, you've potentially missed out on 300%...
Hunting the Squid, part 4: So, What Else Can Go Wrong With The Squid? Plenty!!!Hunting the Squid, part 4: So, What Else Can Go Wrong With The Squid? Plenty!!!	Hunting the Squid, part 4: So, What Else Can Go Wrong With Goldman Sachs? Plenty! Yes, this more of the hardest hitting investment banking research available focusing on Goldman Sachs (the Squid), but before you go on, be sure you have read parts 1.2. and 3:  I'm Hunting Big Game Today:The Squid On A Spear Tip, Part 1 & Introduction Hunting the Squid, Part2: Since When Is Enough Derivative Exposure To Blow Up The World Something To...

Matched Protection

Not all protection sold by banks is matched exactly by protection bought. CDS purchased and sold on Spanish sovereign debt can have different expiration dates. Banks also can net a swap on a Spanish bank with one on another lender. Even if those two firms are in a similar condition at the time of the trades, one could deteriorate faster, increasing the cost of CDS.

Some of the swaps sold by U.S. banks were bought by European lenders trying to reduce exposure to the five so-called peripheral countries. Since it’s considered insurance, a German bank can subtract the value of the contracts it purchased on Spanish debt from the total value of its holdings, with the understanding that if Spain doesn’t make good on its payment, the CDS underwriter will pay instead.

British, German and French banks’ loans to the five countries were reduced by 5 percent in the fourth quarter to $1.33 trillion, according to the BIS data. That was a $73 million decrease compared with the $53 million increase in U.S. banks’ CDS exposure to the periphery.

... Bank Losses

More than half of the CDS related to Spain, Italy and Portugal were to protect defaults by companies in those countries, not the government, according to data compiled by the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp., which runs a central registry for over-the-counter derivatives. About a quarter of the total in each country was protection on bank debt.

As banks in the five countries face mounting losses and funding strains, it’s impossible to model accurately how the risk on different institutions will change, Rowady said. Government and central bank interventions in markets can also upset correlations in those models, he said.

Now, I wouldn't go so far to say that it's impossible. After all, we did it and BoomBustBlog subscribers benefitted from it. Reference The BoomBustBlog Contagion Model: How We Predicted 9 Months Ago That The UK and Sweden Would Rush To Bail Out Ireland, and Why and Introducing The BoomBustBlog Sovereign Contagion Model: Thus far, it has been right on the money for 5 months straight!.

The BoomBustBlog Sovereign Contagion Model

Nearly every MSM analysts roundup attempts to speculate on who may be next in the contagion. We believe we can provide the road map, and to date we have been quite accurate. Most analysis looks at gross claims between countries, which of course can be very illuminating, but also tends to leave out many salient points and important risks/exposures.

foreign claims of PIIGSforeign claims of PIIGSforeign claims of PIIGS

In order to derive more meaningful conclusions about the risk emanating from the cross border exposures, it is essential to closely scrutinize the geographical break down of the total exposure as well as the level of risk surrounding each component. We have therefore developed a Sovereign Contagion model which aims to quantify the amount of risk weighted foreign claims and contingent exposure for major developed countries including major European countries, the US, Japan and Asia major.

I.          Summary of the methodology

• We have followed a bottom-up approach wherein we have first identified the countries/regions with high financial risk either owing to rising sovereign risk (ballooning government debt and fiscal deficit) or structural issues including remnants from the asset bubble collapse, declining GDP, rising unemployment, current account deficits, etc. For the purpose of our analysis, we have selected PIIGS, CEE, Middle East (UAE and Kuwait), China and closely related countries (Korea and Malaysia), the US and UK as the trigger points of the financial risk dissemination across the analysed developed countries.
• In order to quantify the financial risk emanating in the selected regions (trigger points), we looked into the probability of the risk event happening due to three factors - a) government default b) private sector default c) social unrest. The probabilities for each factor were arrived on the basis of a number of variables determining the relative weakness of the country. The aggregate risk event probability for each country (trigger point) is the average of the risk event probability due to the three factors.
• Foreign claims of the developed countries against the trigger point countries were taken as the relevant exposure. The exposures of each developed country were expressed as % of its respective GDP in order to build a relative scale for inter-country comparison.
• The risk event probability of the trigger point countries was multiplied by the respective exposure of the developed countries to arrive at the total risk weighted exposure of each developed country.
•  Sovereign Contagion Model - Retail - contains introduction, methodology summary, and findings
•  Sovereign Contagion Model - Pro & Institutional - contains all of the above as well as a very detailed methodology map that explains what went into the model across dozens of countries.

Latest Pan-European Sovereign Risk Non-bank Subscription Research

• Ireland public finances projections_040710
• Spain public finances projections_033010
• UK Public Finances March 2010
• Italy public finances projection
• Greece Public Finances Projections

Back to Bloomberg...

Last week, Spain’s government took control of Bankia SA (BKIA), the country’s third-largest lender, and asked banks to increase provisions for souring real estate loans. Losses of Spanish banks could top 380 billion euros, according to the Centre for European Policy Studies. Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the credit ratings of 16 Spanish banks yesterday and 26 Italian lenders earlier this week.

Oh yeah, we caught Spain too - as far back as 2008/9/10. Yes, the Spain pain was apparent 4 years ago. Follow the BoomBustBlog archives, starting with a post from this month The Spain Pain Will Not Wane: Continuing the Contagion Saga and going back to '09 - The Spanish Inquisition is About to Begin... and even farther back to '08 - Reggie Middleton on the New Global Macro - the Forensic Analysis of a Spanish Bank. Back to the Bloomberg article...

Counterparty Failure

Counterparty failure is another risk for banks selling insurance on the debt of the five counties. When a swap is triggered by default, a bank could find that a client who sold the protection can’t pay. The firm still has to make good on its promise to pay whoever bought protection.

Lenders try to mitigate this risk by asking for collateral from their counterparties as the value of CDS or other derivative changes. Dexia SA (DEXB) failed in October when the bank faced 47 billion euros of such margin calls on interest-rate swaps it sold. If Dexia hadn’t been bailed out by Belgium and France, it wouldn’t have been able to put up the collateral, causing losses for its unidentified counterparties.

U.S. banks didn’t suffer losses when swaps on Greek sovereign debt were paid out in March because prices of CDS had surged and collateral was collected in advance, according to Francis Longstaff, a finance professor at the University of California Los Angeles. While collateral protects middlemen from counterparty risk, there could be unexpected losses if the price of CDS doesn’t rise to reflect an imminent default, he said.

“Sudden defaults would shock the market because then you wouldn’t have the collateral to cover the full payment,” Longstaff said.

Banks also may discover that collateral they hold might not be worth as much, said University of Houston’s Pirrong. That happened in 2008 when banks saw the value of mortgage-related securities held as collateral plummet.

“Collateral is a great way to protect yourself,” Pirrong said. “But when the financial system is in a crisis, you might end up holding an empty bag.”

All of the afore-linked articles and info should lead one to do as I did, and query Is The Entire Global Banking Industry Carrying Naked, Unhedged "Risk Free" Sovereign Debt Yielding 100-200%? Quick Answer: Probably! Of course, I could always be more direct and simply state, Squids, Morgans & Counterparty Risk: Blowing Up The World One Tentacle At A Time. Honestly, though, how is it that so few banks (five or six) can attain and allegedly hedge hundreds of trillions of dollars of exposure, yet assert they only have billions of dollars of risk? Asked in a more laymen, ex. common sense fashion, So, When Does 3+5=4? When You Aggregate A Bunch Of Risky Banks & Then Pretend That You Didn't?

On Monday, 23 April 2012 I posted "It's Official & As I Foretold Years Ago, Greece Is Now In A True Depression As Reality Hits Greek Banks", roughly 2 years after penning 

How Greece Killed Its Own Banks!. Well, guess what!? The Wall Street Journal’s report, “Greek Depositors Withdrew $898 Million From Banks Monday”:

Greek depositors withdrew €700 million ($898 million) from the country's banks on Monday, fueling fears of a bank run amid the growing political disarray.

With deposits falling, Greek banks become even more dependent on the European Central Bank to meet their funding needs, exposing the central bank to potentially huge losses if Greece leaves the euro area.

Greek President Karolos Papoulias told the country's political leaders that bank withdrawals plus buy orders received by Greek banks for German bunds totaled some €800 million on Monday, a transcript of his comments said. A central bank official confirmed the figures.

Wait until a 2nd Greek default (virtually guaranteed as we supplied user downloadable models to see for yourself, the same model used to forecast the 1st default) mirrors history. Of the 181 yrs as a sovereign nation after gaining independence, Greece been in default 58 of them. Don't believe me! Check your history, or just read more BoomBustBlog - Sophisticated Ignorance Or Just A Very, Very Short Term Memory? Foolish Talk of German Bailouts Once Again...

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Greece's default will hit an already bank NPA laden Spain quite hard: The Spain Pain Will Not Wane: Continuing the Contagion Saga and ditto with Italy "As We Assured Clients Two Years Ago, Italy's Riding The Broken Promise Express To Restructuring". Once Italy gets hit, the true bank runs will start as socialist France (the so-called half of the EU anchor) loses control of its bankinsg system. Reference "As The French Bank Runs....": 

Saturday, 23 July 2011 The Anatomy Of A European Bank Run: Look At The Banking Situation BEFORE The Run Occurs!: I detail how I see modern bank runs unfolding

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Thursday, 28 July 2011  The Mechanics Behind Setting Up A Potential European Bank Run Trade and European Bank Run Trading Supplement

I identify specific bank run candidates and offer illustrative trade setups to capture alpha from such an event. The options quoted were unfortunately unavailable to American investors, and enjoyed a literal explosion in gamma and implied volatility. Not to fear, fruits of those juicy premiums were able to be tasted elsewhere as plain vanilla shorts and even single stock futures threw off insane profits.

Wednesday, 03 August 2011 France, As Most Susceptble To Contagion, Will See Its Banks Suffer

In case the hint was strong enough, I explicitly state that although the sell side and the media are looking at Greece sparking Italy, it is France and french banks in particular that risk bringing the Franco-Italia make-believe capitalism session, aka the French leveraged Italian sector of the Euro ponzi scheme down, on its head.

I then provide a deep dive of the French bank we feel is most at risk. Let it be known that every banked remotely referenced by this research has been halved (at a mininal) in share price! Most are down ~10% of more today, alone!

•  French Bank Run Forensic Thoughts - Retail Valuation Note - For retail subscribers
•  Bank Run Liquidity Candidate Forensic Opinion - A full forensic note for professional and institutional subscribers

I also provided a very informative document for public consumption which clearly detailed exactly how this French bank collapse thing is likely to go down:  French Bank Run Forensic Thoughts - pubic preview for Blog - A freebie, to illustrate what all of you non-subscribers are missing!

So, What's the Next Shoe To Drop? Read on...

For those who claim I may be Euro bashing, rest assured - I am not. Just a week or two later, I released research on a big US bank that will quite possibly catch Franco-Italiano Ponzi Collapse fever, with the pro document containing all types of juicy details. This is the next big thing, for when (not if, but when) European banks blow up, it WILL affect us stateside! Subscribers, be sure to be prepared. Puts are already quite costly, but there are other methods if you haven't taken your positions when the research was first released. For those who wish to subscribe, click here.

•  Contagion Forensic Review - Retail
•  Contagion Forensic Review - Professional

So, in today's news we have Greek bank runs (again), remnants of JP Morgan yield grab gone bananas, and European Banks Battered As Reality Sets In. I know there has to be at at least a small contingent of you who truly don't want to hear me say "I told you so". Well, guess what I have to say to that small contingent...

Better yet guess what very popular American bank has their fingers in all three of the fires fanning above? You see, I not only warned of a European bank collapse nearly three years ago, I actually went on a European banking collapse tour throughout, of all places, Europe!

 The bank run thingy was actually a foregone conclusion. Greece is only step one, albeit a very obvious step one, but still the first step nonetheless - reference How Greece Killed Its Own Banks!, written exactly TWO years ago - Tuesday, 27 April 2010. The MSM should stop harping on Greece, its done. The real story is what will Greece's bust bring about. Well, there are quite a few banks in much 'allegedly" stronger domiciles primed to do the 'ole accelerated one-two step (that's bank run for those without a sense of humor), reference "How to Prevent Bailouts, Bank Runs and Other Fun Things To Do With Your Hard Earned Dollars". 

Now, the question for the truly big boys is what happens after the inevitable Pan-European bank runs get started. Well, the answer to that is already stored in the BoomBustBlog archives. Come on, y'all, where the strategists, the chess players, those who are able to look more than two moves ahead. I made this post so, now others may start "Hunting the Squid", looking at JPM Morgan as the sovereign entity that it wants to be and DB as the leveraged powder keg that it appears. Then there's BNP, HSBC and BofA. You heard it all here first. Despite that, the MSM has put analysts in the consistent spotlight who I feel (without intending to disrespect them, of course) have been serially incorrect on banks. I have addressed this in my blog posts, namely Question the Quality Of BoomBustBlog Bank Research, Will You? Bove and Fitch Follow "The Blog"! and CNBC Favorite Dick Bove Admits To Being Wrong On Banks, But For The Right Reasons, But Those Reasons Are Still Wrong!!!

You see, with things crumbling so predictably, I don't have to do much along the lines of new content or writing. This entire mess has already been laid out in my archives, and in rather illustrious detail. Let's start archive grabbing with...

Goldman Sachs

The hardest hitting investment banking research available focusing on Goldman Sachs (the Squid), but before you go on, be sure you have read parts 1.2. and 3: 

1. I'm Hunting Big Game Today:The Squid On A Spear Tip, Part 1 & Introduction
2. Hunting the Squid, Part2: Since When Is Enough Derivative Exposure To Blow Up The World Something To Be Ignored?"
3. Reggie Middleton Serves Up Fried Calamari From Raw Squid: Market Perceptions of Real Risk in Goldman Sachs

So, what else can go wrong with the Squid? 

Plenty! In Hunting the Squid, Part2: Since When Is Enough Derivative Exposure To Blow Up The World Something To Be Ignored?" I included a graphic that illustrated Goldman's raw credit exposure...

So, what is the logical conclusion? More phallic looking charts of blatant, unbridled, and from a realistic perspective, unhedged RISK starring none other than Goldman Sachs...

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And to think, many thought that JPM exposure vs World GDP chart was provocative. I query thee, exactly how will GS put a real workable hedge, a counterparty risk mitigating prophylactic if you will, over that big green stalk that is representative of Total Credit Exposure to Risk Based Capital? Short answer, Goldman may very well be to big for a counterparty condom. If that's truly the case, all of you pretty, brand name Goldman counterparties out there (and yes, there are a lot of y'all - GS really gets around), expect to get burned at the culmination of that French banking party
I've been talking about for the last few quarters. Oh yeah, that perpetually printing clinic also known as the Federal Reserve just might be running a little low on that cheap liquidity antibiotic... Just giving y'all a heads up ahead of time...

And for those who may not be sure of the significance, please review my presentation as the Keynote Speaker at the ING Real Estate Valuation Seminar in Amsterdam, below. After all, for all intents and purposes, Dexia has officially collapsed - [CNBC] France, Belgium Pledge Aid for Struggling Dexia... and its a good chance that it's a matter of time before BNP follows suit - exactly as BoomBustBlog predicted for paying subsccribers way back in July.

A step by step tutorial on exactly how it will happen....

• The Mechanics Behind Setting Up A Potential European Bank Run Trade and European Bank Run Trading Supplement
• What Happens When That Juggler Gets Clumsy?
• Let's Walk The Path Of A Potential Pan-European Bank Run, Then Construct Trades To Profit From Such
• The Anatomy Of A European Bank Run: Look At The Banking Situation BEFORE The Run Occurs!
• The Fuel Behind Institutional “Runs on the Bank” Burns Through Europe, Lehman-Style!
• Multiple Botched and Mismanaged Stress Test Have Created The Makings Of A Pan-European Bank Run 
• France, As Most Susceptible To Contagion, Will See Its Banks Suffer
• Observations Of French Markets From A Trader's Perspective
• On Your Mark, Get Set, (Bank) Run! The D…
• ECB As European Lender Of Last Resort = Institutional Purveyor Of A Pan-European Ponzi Scheme

 The European banking debacle was predicted at the start of 2010, a full year and a half before this has come to a head. If I could have seen it so clearly, why couldn't the banking industry and its regulators?

Now, back to GS, and considering all of the European falllout coming down the pike, of which Goldman is heavily leveraged into, particulary France (say BNP/Dexia/etc.)...

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Let's go over exactly how GS is exposed following the logic outlined in the graphic before this series of videos, as excerpted from subscriber document Goldmans Sachs Derivative Exposure: The Squid in the Coal Mine?, pages 3,4 and 5.

GS__Banks_Derivatives_exposure_temp_work_Page_3

And to think, many thought that JPM exposure vs World GDP chart was provocative. I query thee, exactly how will GS put a real workable hedge, a counterparty risk mitigating prophylactic if you will, over that big green stalk that is representative of Total Credit Exposure to Risk Based Capital? Short answer, Goldman may very well be to big for a counterparty condom. If that's truly the case, all of you pretty, brand name Goldman counterparties out there (and yes, there are a lot of y'all - GS really gets around), expect to get burned at the culmination of that French banking party I've been talking about for the last few quarters. Oh yeah, that perpetually printing clinic also known as the Federal Reserve just might be running a little low on that cheap liquidity antibiotic... Just giving y'all a heads up ahead of time...

 Falling_Angels

And now that BoomBustBlog foretold reality comes to bite UK ass, as reported by Reuters/CNBC: Inflation-Wary Bank of England to Halt Money-Printing Press

The Bank of England looks set to call a halt to its asset-buying program, despite the economy having slipped into recession and renewed risks rising from the euro zone debt crisis, as UK inflation remains stubbornly high. 

Uh Oh!!! In case the gravity of this situation is not weighing on any of you blokes yet, the UK has to step back into a gun fight but cannot fire any more shots due to the fact that it has already hit too many innocent bystanders...

Ending its program of quantitative easing, or QE, may make life more difficult for Britain's Conservative-led ruling coalition, which was battered in local elections last week and relies on loose monetary policy to soften the pain of austerity measures aimed at cutting the country's huge public borrowing.

Therein lies the problem, no? Did they truly try to stimulate the eonomy or did they attempt to overdose on cheap, irresponsible liquidity to save the extant oligarchy?

But after buying 325 billion pounds of government debt with newly created money, 50 billion pounds of which has been purchased in the last three months, the bank is likely to judge that its policy stance is already supportive enough.

You don't need to be an economist to understand the utter foolishness, the circular logic supported folly of the aforementioned statement - "But after buying 325 billion pounds of government debt with newly created money, 50 billion pounds of which has been purchased in the last three months".  So, an allegedly fiscally responsible regime leading one of the most powerful countries in the world lends money to itself in order to get some money (What the f@ck!!!), but must print fresh new money in order to afford to buy the money that it just lent itself in order to use the money it just let itself to pay some important bills, you know the thing that it needed the money for in the first place.

Well, what the hell are you staring at your screen for?  Don't you get it? Apparently, you must either be a politician or a economist to get it, actually. The UK obviously have the best suited guys for the job leading the way!

Policymakers, most prominently deputy BoE governor Paul Tucker, have also indicated that inflation may not fall as fast as forecast below the bank's 2 percent target after it rose for the first time in six months in March, touching 3.5 percent, the highest rate in the Group of Seven major advanced economies.

Only five of the 58 economists polled by Reuters expect the central bank to announce further asset buying when it publishes its decision at 11:00 a.m. GMT.

The minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee's (MPC) April meeting showed that inflation worries had become more dominant, and that long-standing quantitative easing advocate Adam Posen had dropped his vote for more QE.

Bank of England Governor Mervyn King has also said that the economy looks set to recover slowly and steadily later this year while inflation is too high.

 As clearly stated in the BoomBustBlog susbscriber document:  UK Public Finances March 2010

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UK_Public_Finance_Analysis_2.0_Page_02

• UK_Public_Finance_Analysis_2.0_Page_03

Vulture_Fights_Jackle_in_bubbleBelieve it or not, we actually have a mini-bubble within this bubble crash as vulture investors fight for the scraps disgorged by indebted sovereigns and over-leveraged banks. The time is not ripe just yet and I plan to allow the carrion feeders to price destruct amongst themselves as I await the coming interest rate storm which will truly bring about a once in a lifetime wealth creation opportunity.

Arguably, more millionaire money was made during the Great Depression than at any time in history. Well, if that's true then it looks as if history may be poised to repeat itself. The question is, who will be ready? I will discuss this live on RT's Capital Account show today at 4:30. 

Executive Summary

Asset sales by European sovereign nations, central and private banks have made global investors and speculators scour for cheap assets that have the potential to yield higher than average risk adjusted. However, the search process is not that easy, as sellers are adopting a ‘wait and see’ policy assisted by the European Central Bank’s facilitation of (extremely) cheap financing and liquidity measures. The market now witnesses by too many buyers chasing too few distressed assets. Hence the speculation about future returns has actually caused a mini-bubble in distressed asset prices. Professional subscribers should download the full version 

Asset sale by sovereigns is can be seen in the sale of stakes in government owned infrastructure assets and corporations. However, the approach adopted to dispose of these assets is to make partial sales in tranches in order to participate in any benefits of valuation recovery.

Professional and institutional subscribers should download the full version of this document ( The BoomBustBlog Pan-European Distressed Asset Acquisition Initiative) which outlines investment opportunities in the following nation/banks: UK, Portugal, Italy, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland and Spain.  Our initiative runs the gamut from whole companies and equities, to real estate, infrastructure assets, rare earth and hard tangible assets to IP.

Dispositions by Europeans banks have consisted mostly of foreign assets outside of Europe. Most of these assets had the potential for high returns but are being offered at prices reflecting the perception that future investment performance would be robust. This is why there is so much interest in the private equity and asset management space in scanning for strong deals among those assets. However, the competition among these entities to buy quality assets at reasonable valuations has created a micro bubble of sorts, the type that make profitable vulture investing a very difficult proposition.

Sale of Sovereign Assets

Faced with mounting debt burdens, many European nations are under tremendous pressure to cut fiscal deficits

by establishing and expanding austerity measures and reducing interest expenses. These nations include not only those faced with accelerating debt repayment obligations such as Greece, Italy, Spain, etc., but also some of the relatively better positioned countries – namely the United Kingdom and France.

In a bid to reduce accelerating debt burdens, many of these nations are selling their sovereign assets. We will probably see an even greater pool of sovereign asset sales as the futility of serially forced austerity drives the EU into a deep recession.

Even the Greek situation is just getting started, contrary to popular belief and the upcoming distress is not just CRE and RE assets that are available via fire sale, as clearly outlined two years ago in our subscriber (click here to subscribe) report 

 Greece Public Finances Projections see pages 5 and 6 following... (click to enlarge)

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As a matter of fact, I warn those who do not subscribe to the BoomBust, this song is far, far from over... Beware The Overly Optimistic Greek Speculators As Icarus Comes Crashing Down To Earth!

Greece_Primary_balance

Greece is virtually guaranteed to re-default, with a structural imbalance that literally forbids the country from being able to service its debt, thereby chasing investors and bondholders with even remote access to a spreadsheet or calculator into the hills… Ne’er to return before the 720^th fortnight!

It’s not just in the periphery either. The core states have some stress coming their way.

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Investors seeking safety in Germany, the UK and France may truly be in for a rude awakening!

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Interest rate volatility, at a bare minimum, is a given – with the potential for stagflation being the base case scenario…

Those who wish to download the full article in PDF format can do so here: Reggie Middleton on Stagflation, Sovereign Debt and the Potential for bank Failure at the ING ACADEMY-v2.

Interestingly, Chinese corporations are increasingly interested in European assets. There have already been a number of indicators to prove that while China is not as attracted to European sovereign bonds, there’s material interest in buying infrastructure assets; and interest in perceived attractively valued corporations has increased over the recent past. Seeing profitable investment opportunities, private equity firms and global leading funds have also joined in. This has created a kind of rush to search for attractively valued assets that could yield attractive returns in the years ahead. The current scenarios, as such, have been of  a kind wherein too many buyers are chasing too few assets up for sale, particularly in view of the fact that countries like Italy, the United Kingdom and to a lesser extent Spain, can bargain with time - unlike Greece, to wait for fair valuation of assets before their disposal. This has created a market of buyers and sellers wherein prices for distressed assets are not being determined by fundamental valuation, but are influenced by speculation and demand-supply gap. In essence, what we have amidst this bursting of the sovereign credit bubble is a mini-distressed asset bubble.

Professional and institutional subscibers should download the full version of this document ( The BoomBustBlog Pan-European Distressed Asset Acquisition Initiative) which outlines investment opportunities in the following nation/banks: UK, Portigal, Italy, Cyprus, Greece, Ireland and Spain.  Our initiative runs the gamut from whole companies and eqiuities, to real estate, infrastructure assets, rare earth and hard tangible assets to IP.

Any who are interested in hearing more about this initiative can reach me via email or phone. All others are urged to follow me through my various social media assets:

All over the MSM today, we here Jobless Claims in U.S. Fall More Than Forecast, presented as good news. Of course, a little digging finds that not only was the jobless rate from last month adjusted upward retroactively (as it nearly always is), but "Too-Sick-to-Work Americans Shrink U.S. Labor Force". In other words “With a rising number of disability beneficiaries, there are both lower unemployment rates and lower participation rates.” As reported by Bloomberg, and to wit:

The number of workers receiving SSDI jumped 22 percent to 8.7 million in April from 7.1 million in December 2007, Social Security data show. That helps explain as much as one quarter of the decline in the U.S. labor-force participation rate during the period, according to economists at JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Morgan Stanley.

Expiring Benefits

The participation rate -- the share of working-age people holding a job or seeking one -- was 63.8 percent in March after falling to a three-decade low of 63.7 percent in January. Disability recipients may account for as much as 0.5 percentage point of the more than 2 point drop since the end of 2007, the economists calculate, and that contribution couldgrow when some extended unemployment benefits expire at the end of this year.

“How we measure and understand what’s going on in the economy can be influenced by the degree to which various public- support programs are available and being used,” said Michael Feroli, chief U.S. economist at JPMorgan in New York. “With a rising number of disability beneficiaries, there are both lower unemployment rates and lower participation rates.”

Bloomberg also reports U.S. Productivity Falls, but I must say non-sequitur... It simply does not follow...

The productivity of U.S. workers fell in the first quarter, indicating businesses are reaching the limit of how much efficiency they can wring from the workforce.

The measure of employee output per hour declined at a 0.5 percent annual rate after a 1.2 percent gain in the prior three months, figures from the Labor Department showed today in Washington. Expenses per worker increased at a 2 percent rate, less than estimated.

Employers had to take on more staff at the start of the year even as growth slowed, signaling they can no longer count on existing staff to meet demand. A government report tomorrow may show payrolls increased again in April, according to the median forecast of economists surveyed by Bloomberg News.

Okay, so growth slowed after 4 years of the deepest, widest, most global fiscal stimulation exercise in the history of... well... The globe! One would assume this slowing growth trend will accelerate as the stimulus is unwound due to a variety of common sense reasons, starting with...

1. It just didn't work, and following up with...
2. the potential to incite the inflationary fires, and ending up with...
3. many countries simply can't afford the Ponzi scheme, trashy asset merry-go-round game thingy anyomore.

Even if stimulus is not lessened, we still can't ignore the plain and simple fact - it ain't working. Growth has slowed any way and quite a few developed nations who shepherded the global stimular cartel are now stating they're back in recession - depsite the fact that I made clear to my subscribers that they never left recession in the first place. Now, as growth continues to slow, what exactly does the astute pontificator think will happen to employment demand???????????????????????????????? Well, it's a positive omen as long as you only live your life a fiscal quarter at a time. Just don't look past 2 or 3 months or so, and you're straight, right????????????????

“This slowdown in productivity is a positive omen for the labor market,” Joseph LaVorgna, chief U.S. economist at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. in New York, said in a research note. He correctly projected the drop in productivity. “It suggests that additional increases in output will necessitate a faster pace of hiring than what has occurred thus far.”

Now reference my comments from exactly this time last year, in "On Employment and Real Estate Recovery":

A regular commentator on BoomBustBlog has been attempting to make the case for a housing recovery based upon rising employment metrics. He has, particularly, pointed out rising hourly earnings. I thought I would take this time to point out that average hourly earnings can rise due to the fact that less people are working. The aggregate employment in the US has literally fell off of a cliff. Since you know that I love pictures, let's do this graphically...

Below you have a chart of total hours worked in the US with the average hourly earnings superimposed on top. As you can see, two and a half years and trillions of dollars of stimulus and QE later, we have barely budged. There was no multiplier effect. In essence, what you had was a divisor effect, and the money would have shown up more on a dollar for dollar basis if it was simply given to the populace! Of course, that wouldn't have kicked the inevitably deflation of the banking system down the road, now would it have?

Notice that despite the severe drop in total hours worked, average hourly earnings have increased. This can easily mislead someone who is not paying attention. Read more on this topic here: Inflation + Deflation = Stagflation ~ Lower Real Estate Values! 

It's all HOPIUM, which is a tad bit stronger than that typical sticky sesimilia many are used to...

Reggie Middleton ON CNBC's Fast Money Discussing Hopium in Real Estate

Now that I have (quite honestly) issued my most sincerest thanks, let's attempt to remedy the shortcoming of the limited amounted of time that I had. You see, after the 3 minute hit ended there was a brief discussion of commercial real estate in which I didn't get to participate, thus I will take the liberty of doing so through this medium.

Yes, commercial real estate has shown some marginal increases in the last quarter, and REITs have been on fire. The issue is, many publicly traded equities have detached from their underlying fundamentals. Let's reference “A Granular Look Into a $6 Billion REIT: Is This the Next GGP?” The following are excerpts from it:

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You have to factor in non-market factors that have gone into supporting CRE prices. We have government bubble blowing where you can see where property prices were in a massive bubble, they rose and that bubble popped, and they were artificially supported and that bubble was partially reblown. Yes, the bubble was purposefully reblown, reference Buried Deep Within The Files That The Federal Reserve Released On Thier MBS Purchase Program, We Found TARP 2.0!!! More Taxpayer Money To The Banks!:

We have conducted analysis on all MBS sale and purchase transactions conducted by the Fed whose data was recently released. Of the total 10,058 MBS transactions, 72% were done at a yield of less than 5% (5% below yield of 4.0%, 32% between 4.0%-4.5%, 35% between 4.5-5.0%) with an average yield of 4.75% on all MBS transaction. The table below presents the number of transactions under their respective yield category.

We have also analyzed the yield on MBS purchased and MBS sold, looking for price discrepancies between MBS purchased and MBS sold. The data points out that the average yield on MBS purchased was 4.71%, 29bps lower than average yield for MBS sold, thus implying MBS purchased were at a higher price than MBS sold. You know that old government adage, buy high and sell low!

Yield on sale: 5.00%
Yield on purchase: 4.71%
Difference in bps: 29.1

Now, imagine this artificial suppression, both in the form of MBS purchases (which are supposed to be over) and QE in the form of Treasury Ponzi purchases, are overpowered by the market driven rate storm brewing ahead. You also have the government looking the other way at depreciating asset values, see FASB Appears to Have Bent Over For The Final Time & Accuracy In Financial Reporting Dies An Ignominious Death!!!:

ZeroHedge reports: S&P Cuts Spain to BBB+, Outlook Negative :

Adding insult to Bayern Munich injury, we just got S&P which did the impossible and cut Spain to BBB+ from A (outlook negative) not on Friday after hours. Kneejerk reaction is a 30 pip drop in EURUSD. Oh, and most amusing, those witches among men, Egan Jones, downgraded Spain from BBB to BBB-.... a week ago. Crush them, destroy them... How dare they be ahead of the pack as usual: after all their NRSRO application was missing a god damn comma.

Full release:

• • We believe that the Kingdom of Spain's budget trajectory will likely deteriorate against a background of economic contraction in contrast withour previous projections.
  • At the same time, we see an increasing likelihood that Spain's government will need to provide further fiscal support to the banking sector.
  • As a consequence, we believe there are heightened risks that Spain's net general government debt could rise further.
  • We are therefore lowering our long- and short-term sovereign credit ratings on Spain to 'BBB+/A-2' from 'A/A-1'.
  • The negative outlook on the long-term rating reflects our view of the significant risks to Spain's economic growth and budgetary performance, and the impact we believe this will likely have on the sovereign's creditworthiness.

As was clearly stated last Monday and warned two years ago on BoomBustBlog...

The Spain Pain Will Not Wane: Continuing the Contagion Saga:

In the general our analysis Spain public finances projections_033010, the first four (of 12) pages basically outline the gist of the Spanish problem today, to wit here are the first two:

Spain_public_finances_projections_033010_Page_02

About those rating agencies... 

Of course, we all know how reliable and timely the rating agencies are, right? See Rating Agencies vs Reggie Middleton, Part 3 and the Interesting Documentary on the Power of Rating Agencies, with Reggie Middleton Excerpts

I am having my analysts work on the Spanish and Italian default/ bailout scenario now (we have worked up a scenario two years ago, but things are much worse now). Even a Citi analyst has chimed in to that effect. Let' not forget the Portuguese Liquidity Trap: Prime from the actions of Greece. As a matter of fact, it's evident that Greece Is Trying To Convince Portugal To Make FIRE Hot, hence I answered the inevitable question, So, What's The Next Step Towards The Eurocalypse???