I took the weekend off and all types of nonsense occurs in my wake. Well, I'm back with some fresh research. Subscribers, we have found another bank at risk (and you know how well the other banks that we targeted fared in the past - Bear, Lehman, the entire French banking system, etc.) and will be releasing the research in the next 24 hours. In the meantime, I would like to address the massive bear market rally/short squeeze that probably created many a draw down. First, a little misdirection and disinformation as reported by CNBC: Greek 'Haircut' No Threat to French Banks: Noyer 

French banks could cope with a significant Greek "haircut"—a private sector writedown of Greek bonds—but it is still possible that the country's financial institutions may have to be recapitalized, Christian Noyer, governor of the Bank of France, told CNBC.

"Greece is not a problem for the French banks," Noyer said. "The total (exposure) of the French banks to Greek sovereign debt is significantly smaller than the first half of profits for the French banking system."

That exposure amounts to roughly 8 billion euros, while French banks' first-half profits totaled about 11 billion euros.

Still, Noyer would not rule out recapitalization for banks in France, given that all of Europe's banks' could face mandatory increases to their required capital base, depending on a decision by the European Bank Authority (EBA), the European Union's banking regulator.

Where shall I begin? Well, Reuters reports German Finance Minister Insists Greek Debt Haircut Should Be At Least 50-60%, as excerpted:

Greece's debt crisis cannot be solved without larger write downs on Greek debt and governments are trying to persuade banks to accept this, German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Sunday, just days ahead of a key EU summit.

Asked in the interview with ARD whether there could be a Greek debt write-down of as much as 50-60 percent, Schaeuble said: "A lasting solution for Greece is not possible without a debt write-down, and this will likely have to be higher than that considered in the summer."

In July, private creditors agreed to a voluntary write-down of 21 percent on their Greek debt, a figure which now looks insufficient. Euro zone officials said last week losses are now likely to be between 30 and 50 percent.

"Of course we would like, if possible, to agree together with the banks. That is why we will be discussing things with them. But it is clear, there must be a level of participation which is enough to bring about a lasting solution for Greece. That is enormously difficult," Schaeuble said.

The market has an even higher implied actual haircut! Analysis - Greek debt enters Argentina-style twilight zone

I also explained the situation in public, and for free, early in 2010: Lies, Damn Lies, and Sovereign Truths: Why the Euro is Destined to Collapse! The situation with the Greek banks is the same situation with the French, German, etc. banks. Leverage piled upon depreciating assets simply wipes out equity. Period! How Greece Killed Its Own Banks!

...These downgrades are going to cause people to increase their risk weightings,” Yelvington said.

Well, the answer is.... Insolvency! The gorging on quickly to be devalued debt was the absolutely last thing the Greek banks needed as they were suffering from a classic run on the bank due to deposits being pulled out at a record pace. So assuming the aforementioned drain on liquidity from a bank run (mitigated in part or in full by support from the ECB), imagine what happens when a very significant portion of your bond portfolio performs as follows (please note that these numbers were drawn before the bond market route of the 27th)...

image001

The same hypothetical leveraged positions expressed as a percentage gain or loss...

I even went so far as to compare Greece to Argentina, complete with online models. No matter which way you slice it, a 50% haircut would be akin to a snowy Christmas in the summer of a devout Muslim country - highly unlikely! A Comparison of Our Greek Bond Restructuring Analysis to that of Argentina

Now, referencing the bond price charts below as well as the spreadsheet data containing sovereign debt restructuring in Argentina, we get...

Price of the bond that went under restructuring and was exchanged for the Par bond in 2005

Price of the bond that went under restructuring and was exchanged for the Discount bond

On that note, ZeroHedge has come out with a blockbuster explanatory article: Credit Suisse Buries European Banks, Sees Deutsche Bank And 65 Other Bank Failing Latest Stress Test, €400 Billion Capital Shortfall

A day after Credit Suisse killed the Chinese bank sector saying that the equity of virtually the entire space may be worthless if NPLs double, as they expect they will to about 10%, the Swiss bank proceeds to kill European banks next. Based on the latest farce out of Europe in the form of the third stress test, which is supposed to restore some confidence, it appears that what it will do is simply accelerate the flight out of everything bank related, but certainly out of anything RBS, Deutsche Bank, BNP, SocGen and Barclays related.

I'd like to add that I've ridiculed all of these stress tests, US and European, although the European stress tests were by far the biggest joke. Dexia passed with a grade of A (or so), and will be nationalized momentarily. 'Nuff said!

To wit: "In our estimation of what could be the “new EBA stress test” there would be 66 failures, with RBS, Deutsche Bank, and BNP needing the most capital – at €19bn, €14bn and €14bn respectively. Among the banks with the highest capital shortfalls, SocGen and Barclays would need roughly €13bn with Unicredit and Commerzbank respectively at €12bn and €11bn. In the figure below we present the stated results. We note RBS appears to be the most vulnerable although the company has said that the methodology, especially the calculation of trading income, is especially harsh for them, negatively impacting the results by c.80bps." Oops. Perhaps it is not too late for the EBA to back out of this latest process and say they were only kidding. And it gets even worse: "We present in this section an overview of the analysis which we published in our report ‘The lost decade’ – 15-Sep 2011. One of our conclusions was that the overall European banking sector is facing a €400bn capital shortfall which compares to a current market cap of €541bn." Said otherwise, we can now see why the FT reported yesterday that banks will be forced to go ahead and proceed with asset firesales: the mere thought of European banks raising new cash amounting to 75% of the entire industry's market cap, is beyond ridiculous. So good luck with those sales: just remember - he who sells first, sells best.

And the scary charts:

1. Capital Shortfalls under Stress Test part Trois (9% min. CET1 ratio)

If anyone over there has two synapses to spark together, I would fully expect them to take my research over much of the anecdotal drivel passed around the Street as research. For instance, from the outside looking in, the Greek writedowns (yes, even the mark to myth Greek writedowns) will most likely wipe RBS profit for the year. Now, try applying what the real losses will be... Okay, after you do that, try realizing that no Greek default will occur in a vacuum and all peripheral assets will suffer in solidarity, not to mention their own solvency issues. Then add to that that RBS is an insolvent ward of the state to begin with, after passing stress tests itself then being nationalized. Okay, now that we've dispensed with the most of the optimism and good news (I'm going to skip over DB, since much of the market appears to be doing in assuming that Germany cannot be touched despite the fact that it is already very much "touched") and head on to the bank that I warned my paying subscribers about in late August - in time to see its share price halved despite not a damn peep of a warning from the sell side of the pop media. May I please be allowed reminisce, as excerpted from Small Independent, Bombastic Financial News Show Dramatically Scoops the Financial Times On French Bank Run Story :

 Post Note: BNP management is now shopping around for capital investment.

On that note, let's review my post last week, "BoomBust BNP Paribas?" (it is strongly recommended that you review this article if you haven't read it already) I started releasing snippets and tidbits of the proprietary research that led to the BNP short, namely  Bank Run Liquidity Candidate Forensic Opinion - A full forensic note for professional and institutional subscribers. It outlined some very telling reasons why BNP's share price appears to be spillunking, namely:

1. 1. Management is lying being less than forthcoming with the valuation of toxic assets on its books.
   2. The sheer amount of these assets on the books and the leverage employed to attain them are devastating
   3. BNP has employed the proven self destructive financing methodology of borrow short, invest in depreciating assets long!
   4. BNP management lying being less than forthcoming about reliance on said funding maturity mismatch, despite the fact it handily dispatched Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers in less than a weekend!

      ---

Another BIG Reason Why BNP Paribas Is Still Ripe For Implosion!

As excerpted from our professional series  Bank Run Liquidity Candidate Forensic Opinion:

BNP_Paribus_First_Thoughts_4_Page_01

This is how that document started off. Even if we were to disregard BNP's most serious liquidity and ALM mismatch issues, we still need to address the topic above. Now, if you were to employ the free BNP bank run models that I made available in the post "The BoomBustBlog BNP Paribas "Run On The Bank" Model Available for Download"" (click the link to download your own copy of the bank run model, whether your a simple BoomBustBlog follower or a paid subscriber) you would know that the odds are that BNP's bond portfolio would probably take a much bigger hit than that conservatively quoted above.  Here I demonstrated what more realistic numbers would look like in said model... image008

To note page 9 of that very same document addresses how this train of thought can not only be accelerated, but taken much further...

BNP_Paribus_First_Thoughts_4_Page_09

So, how bad could this faux accounting thing be? You know, there were two American banks that abused this FAS 157 cum Topic 820 loophole as well. There names were Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers. I warned my readers well ahead of time with them as well - well before anybody else apparently had a clue (Is this the Breaking of the Bear? and Is Lehman really a lemming in disguise?). Well, at least in the case of BNP, it's a potential tangible equity wipe out, or is it? On to page 10 of said subscription document...

BNP_Paribus_First_Thoughts_4_Page_10

Yo, watch those level 2s! Of course there is more to BNP besides overpriced, over leveraged sovereign debt, liquidity issues and ALM mismatch, and lying about stretching Topic 820 rules, but I think that's enough for right now. Is all of this already priced into the free falling stock? Are these the ingredients for a European bank run? I'll let you decide, but BoomBustBloggers Saw this coming midsummer when this stock was at $50. Those who wish to subscribe to my research and services should click here. Those who don't subscribe can still benefit from the chronology that led up to the BIG BNP short (at least those who have come across my research for the first time)...

Thursday, 28 July 2011  The Mechanics Behind Setting Up A Potential European Bank Run Trastde 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

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

Now, let's refresh the output from And The European Bank Run Continues...and more importantly BoomBustBlog BNP Paribas "Run On The Bank" Models (they range from free up to institutional, I strongly urge those who haven't to click upon said link and download your intellectual weapon of choice!) where I modeled Greek losses on BNP.  Below is sample output from the professional level model (BNP Exposures - Professional Subscriber Download Version) that simulates the bank run that the news clippings below appear to be describing in detail...(Click to enlarge to printer quality)This scenario was run BEFORE the Greek bonds dropped even further in price...

Using more recent market inputs (you know, assuming this stuff was Level 1), we get the following...

Notice here the base case TEC impairment is now approaching the adverse case from just a few weeks ago - and this is using market pricing, not some pie in the sky model!

I have not recalculated the adverse scenario in this example, but you can simply use your imagination, or download the model and run it for yourself.

A Greek default with haircuts somewhat inline with market prices will wipe out 13% of BNP TEC, with a more severe cut (quite likely) taking out nearly 20%. This is not even glancing upon the many problems we discussed in our forensice reports ( 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).

Now, if the ZH referenced report above is accurate (and I believe it is) the banks are going to try to delever by selling assets in the open markets (all at the same time, selling the same assets to the same pool of potential buyers at the same bad times). This means that the prices used to populate this model are probably still too optmistic. Even if they weren't, look at the capital short fall the Greek default will leave BNP with assuming our institutional bank run thesis holds true and they see a slight withdrawal of liquidity of 10% this year and 15% next (knowing full well the numbers for Lehmand and Bear were much, much higher than that before they collapsed). First, a refesher on our European bank run theory expoused 5 months ago...

1. Let's Walk The Path Of A Potential Pan-European Bank Run, Then Construct Trades To Profit From Such
2. Greece Is Fulfilling Our Predictions Of Default Precisely As Predicted This Time Last Year
3. The Anatomy Of A European Bank Run: Look At The Banking Situation BEFORE The Run Occurs!
4. The Fuel Behind Institutional “Runs on the Bank” Burns Through Europe, Lehman-Style!

And the BNP results????

Half trillion euros here, half trillion euros there... Sooner or later, we'll be talking about some real money! Since the problems have not been cured, they're literally guaranteed to come back and bite ass. Guaranteed! So, as suggested earlier on, download your appropriate BoomBustBlog BNP Paribas "Run On The Bank" Models (they range from free up to institutional).

My next post should also include research on the next bank that we have found that has been (again) overlooked by the market, the media and the sell side. Can we expect the same that we saw in BNP, Bear, Lehman, etc.? Well, paying subscribers shall find out forthwith.

I can be reached via the following channels, or directly via email:

I will be releasing the date (probably this week), location and time of the NYC meet and greet within the next 24 hours or so, so we can chat, drink, debate, argue and fraternize with pretty woman together in a trendy spot in the Meat Packing District or the Bowery (I apologize in advance to all of my female readers/subscribers). Those who are interested in attending should email customer support. There has been strong interest in the London meeting, enough to warrant the venue - I simply need to get the travel and venue organized due to a change of plans.

For those that are new to the blog, these are pics of previous meet and greets...