What SIgns to Look For Foreshadowing a U.S. Credit Event

Since a U.S. dollar collapse is ranked as the greatest risk to the world, and dollar's fate is largely dependent on if the bond market has faith in Uncle Sam, it might be helpful to add five additional warning signs that the bond market is freaking out (see chart):

• Prices of bonds maturing start falling (i.e., investors start to demand higher interest rates to hold U.S. government debt).
• A narrower spread between rates on Treasury bills and other short-term credit or near substitutes, e.g. LIBOR - This would be a sign of waning faith in the U.S. government.
• A narrower spread between Treasuries and near substitutes - A sign of falling creditworthiness of Uncle Sam.
• Price spikes in U.S. CDS (credit default swaps, insuring against a U.S. debt default) - According to Markit, the most noticeable movement has occurred in 1-year spreads, which have converged closer to 5-year spreads, and is up about 430% since early April, while 5-year CDS also has risen about 46%.
• Higher volatility in the U.S. bond market - Another sign of lost confidence from bond investors.

(Click to enlarge) Chart Source: The Washington Post
So far, out of the 20 signs, there's one that's sending up a red signal flare - U.S. sovereign debt CDS, which is directly linked to the dollar (see chart above).
The U.S. does not have control over many of the indicators listed here, but at least the No. 1 risk factor -- the U.S. dollar -- is influenced by the national debt and by the monetary and fiscal policies set by the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve.
The longer the debt ceiling debate lingers, the more likely the bond market would start reacting and demanding higher interest rates. A sovereign credit downgrade as a result of missing the debt ceiling deadline would just translate into billions more in interest payments, piling on to the existing debt.
The United States is not like Iceland or Argentina, resorting to default as retorted by some could mean calamity not only to its citizens, but also to the rest of the world. Unless the government and this Congress get their act together, there will be no bailout, and instead of one lost generation to the Great Recession, there could be multi-generation missed in the next Grand Depression.
EconMatters.com

France Too?

The big news is France. With sentiment worsening across Europe, France has lost its relative safe haven status – credit default swap spreads on French government debt were up sharply today.

Doubt Prevails In Europe

May 11 (Bloomberg) -- European stocks fell on concern a $1 trillion lending package, which sent the Stoxx Europe 600 Index to the biggest gain in 17 months yesterday, won’t solve the region’s debt crisis. Asian shares and U.S. index futures slid.
Banco Santander SA, Spain’s biggest lender, sank 4.4 percent as banks led declines in Europe. BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s largest mining company, retreated 2.2 percent as accelerating Chinese inflation increased pressure for the government to tighten monetary policy. Solarworld AG slid to the lowest level in almost five years after earnings dropped.
The Stoxx 600 slid 1.6 percent to 250.19 at 11:00 a.m. in London. The benchmark gauge for European shares jumped 7.2 percent yesterday after the European Union and International Monetary Fund unveiled a 750 billion-euro ($954 billion) financial assistance package and the European Central Bank said it will purchase government and private debt. The index is still down 8.1 percent from this year’s high on April 15.
“You cannot resolve the debt crisis by issuing more debt or putting up guarantees,” Christian Blaabjerg, the Hellerup, Denmark-based chief equity strategist at Saxo Bank A/S, said in an interview with Bloomberg Television. “Markets will come back and test the will of the ECB/EU on how to deal with this enormous debt.”
Asian, U.S. Stocks
The MSCI Asia Pacific Index sank 1 percent as China’s inflation accelerated, bank lending exceeded estimates and property prices jumped by a record, increasing pressure on the government to raise interest rates and let the currency appreciate. Futures on the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index dropped 1 percent.
The Stoxx 600 retreated 8.8 percent last week, the biggest slump since November 2008, amid concern that a previously announced 110 billion-euro assistance program for Greece would be insufficient to keep Europe’s most indebted nations from defaulting. Greece may have its credit rating lowered to junk within the next month, Moody’s said late yesterday, citing the country’s “dismal” economic prospects.
Marek Belka, the director of the International Monetary Fund’s European department, yesterday said he doesn’t consider the latest European rescue package a “long-term solution.” ECB council member Axel Weber said the bank’s purchase of government bonds poses “significant” risks, Germany’s Boersen-Zeitung reported.


May 11 (Bloomberg) -- Money markets and the cost of protecting bank bonds from losses show investors are concerned the almost $1 trillion rescue plan announced by European leaders may not be enough to contain the region’s sovereign debt crisis.
The Markit iTraxx Financial Index of credit-default swaps on European banks was last at 146 basis points compared with 107 basis points for the Markit iTraxx Europe Index of 125 investment-grade companies, a benchmark it traded an average 10 basis points below for three years, according to CMA DataVision. The three-month Libor-OIS spread, which widens as banks’ willingness to lend decreases, advanced to 19.09 basis points from 18.92 yesterday and 6 basis points on March 15.
The loan package for debt-laden nations including Greece is part of an attempt to stem a decline in the euro, which fell to a 14-month low last week, and stave off a sovereign default that would threaten recovery from the worst global recession since the 1930s. Banks’ potential losses stemming from the crisis are under scrutiny by investors concerned financial institutions are owed too much by Europe’s most-indebted countries.
“Sovereign risk hasn’t gone away in the slightest,” said Jim Reid, head of fundamental strategy in London for Deutsche Bank AG, Germany’s biggest bank. “What this package has done is massively reduced the tail risk in European markets without necessarily changing the medium- to long-term dynamics of financial markets.”
Investor ‘Euphoria’
Elsewhere in credit markets, the extra yield investors demand to own corporate debt instead of government securities fell 8 basis points to 169 basis points, or 1.69 percentage point, after soaring 28 basis points last week, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Global Broad Market Corporate Index. It peaked at 511 basis points on March 30, 2009, and dropped to as low as 142 on April 21. Average yields fell 0.5 basis point to 4 percent.
The cost of protecting Asia-Pacific bonds from default rose today as investor “euphoria” at the European measures abated, according to Fumihito Gotoh, head of Japan credit research for UBS AG in Tokyo.

Default Swaps Soar to Lehman Levels

May 7 (Bloomberg) -- The cost of insuring against losses on European bank bonds soared to a record, surpassing levels triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., as the sovereign debt crisis deepened.
The Markit iTraxx Financial Index of credit-default swaps on 25 banks and insurers soared as much as 40 basis points to 223, according to JPMorgan Chase & Co. The index closed at 212 basis points March 9, 2009. Swaps on Greece, Portugal, Spain and Italy rose to or near all-time high levels.
Credit risk rose for a sixth day on concern the Greek debt crisis is spiraling out of control and triggering concern banks may face losses on their sovereign bond holdings. The Group of Seven plans to hold a conference call today to discuss the turmoil, after a global stock rout that briefly erased more than $1 trillion in U.S. market value.
“Financials are caught in a really bad place right now,” said Aziz Sunderji, a London-based credit strategist at Barclays Capital. “Investors are selling bonds, not just hedging with CDS. It shows investors are repositioning portfolios and there’s a more long-term repricing of peripheral risk.”
Pacific Investment Management Co.’s Mohamed El-Erian and Loomis Sayles & Co.’s Dan Fuss said Europe’s crisis may spread across the globe because of investor concern that governments have borrowed too much to revive their economies.
Portugal, Spain
Markit’s financial gauge was trading at 198 basis points at 2:30 p.m. in London, according to JPMorgan. Contracts on Spanish and Portuguese banks rose to records, according to CMA DataVision prices. Portugal’s Banco Comercial Portugues SA increased 53 basis points to 579 and Spain’s Banco Santander SA rose 12 basis points to 253.
In the U.K., swaps on Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc jumped 41 to 229 after Britain’s biggest government-owned bank posted the only first-quarter loss among British rivals.
The spread between the three-month dollar London interbank offered rate and the overnight indexed swap rate, a barometer of the reluctance of banks to lend that’s known as the Libor-OIS spread, is at 18 basis points, up from 6 basis points on March 15 and near the highest level in more than five months. It’s still far from the record 364 basis points in October 2008, almost a month after Lehman’s bankruptcy.
Swaps on Greece surged 75 basis points to 1,008 before the advance was pared to 950. Portugal climbed 42 to 502 before falling to 430 and Italy rose 24 to 255.5 before dropping to 227 and Spain increased 14 to 288 before trading at 246, CMA prices show.
British Swaps
Contracts on the U.K. rose 8 basis points to 99, according to CMA. Britain’s election produced a parliament without a majority for the first time since 1974, stoking concern the new government will be too weak to rein in its record budget deficit.
European policy makers are under mounting pressure from investors and foreign officials to broaden their response to the Greek fiscal crisis after a 110 billion euro ($140 billion) bailout package failed to ease concerns.
“We do not see a clear sign that markets will calm down in the absence of decisive action by authorities, which so far have ignored the opportunity to convince investors that they are capable of battling the European sovereign debt crisis,” Markus Ernst, a credit strategist at UniCredit SpA in Munich, wrote in a note to investors.
Merkel Meeting
German lawmakers approved their nation’s share of loans to Greece worth as much as 22.4 billion euros before Chancellor Angela Merkel and other euro region governments meet in Brussels to review the bailout and look for ways to stop the burgeoning crisis. The leaders arrive in Brussels about 6:15 p.m. local time and the final press conference is slated for 10 p.m.
The cost of insuring against losses on corporate bonds also rose. Contracts on the Markit iTraxx Crossover Index linked to 50 companies with mostly high-yield credit ratings increased as much as 74 basis points to 625, JPMorgan prices show, the highest since September. The index pared its advance to 611.
The Markit iTraxx Europe Index of 125 companies with investment-grade ratings climbed as much as 29.5 basis points to 152.5, JPMorgan prices show, the highest since April 2009. It was trading at 139.
A basis point on a credit-default swap contract protecting 10 million euros of debt from default for five years is equivalent to 1,000 euros a year.
Credit-default swaps pay the buyer face value in exchange for the underlying securities or the cash equivalent should a company fail to adhere to its debt agreements. An increase signals deterioration in perceptions of credit quality.
The extra yield investors demand to own investment grade corporate bonds rather than government debt jumped 21 basis points from last week to 174, the largest weekly rise in a year, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch index data. The gauge has also increased 10 basis points from yesterday, the biggest one-day increase since October 2008.

Cost to Insure U.S. Government Debt Through the Roof

From Oxbury Publishing:

“While the Bernanke hearings were underway, CNBC decided to take a break in the coverage and shoot over to America’s most recent gladiator for free markets: Rick Santelli; the bringer of truth (only in the past couple of weeks) and tea parties.
“Santelli had an interesting bit of news to share with the world’s viewers of cable television. He reported that for the first time the cost to insure U.S. debt with credit default swaps had risen to 100 BP. In other words, it will now cost you $100,000 to insure $10 million worth of Treasury debt for 5 years against default. That figure has increased 5-fold since shoes started dropping in September of 2008. Prior to financial markets going from beauty to beast after the collapse of Bear Stearns, the cost to insure government debt against default was near 1 BP; what can you say about a 10,000% increase in a few short years?”

Here is the full story.

Congress Drafts Legislation to Restrict CDS Futures

Congress has drafted legislation today to begin to restrict credit default swap futures only to those who plan to take delivery. If this goes very far, it could panic the market. This is only the first shot from the Democrat-controlled Congress. Will they do the same in the grain, crude oil, and other futures markets as well? They've threatened to! This will dry up liquidity and drive capital to overseas markets. It will literally amplify the very conditions that Congress hopes to prevent.

By restricting the capital markets in this way, Congress risks the following:

1. Capital will flow out of the United States to futures exchanges in other countries. This, in turn will drive the Dollar lower, and commodities prices will move higher. Money and commodities flow to places where they are welcome. If Congress creates an unwelcome environment in the United States, both the capital and the commodities will go elsewhere. Can the U.S. afford to create long lines at gas pumps by creating a fuel shortage here? Can the U.S. afford to see capital flight to other countries, collapsing the Dollar and run the risk of the Dollar being dumped as the world's primary reserve currency?
   
2. Liquidity will dry up, giving greater power to large market participants to control prices and manipulate the markets. George Soros is a master at manipulating small, illiquid financial markets. Remember the Hunt Brothers and their manipulation of the silver market? As prices rose, more and more participants entered the market, until the Hunt Brothers lost control and they could no longer manipulate the small silver market. Liquidity brought an end to their manipulations. Strong liquidity in any futures market is critical to prevent any market participant from exercising too much control.
   
   One reason for the current crisis is that derivatives products were created for which there was no market. A market without liquidity exacerbates the wild price swings when a single market participant need to change positions or exit the market and can't find a willing buyer or seller. Liquidity prevents this. This is precisely what has caused the current crisis. The absence of a liquid market eventually caused the government to step in and buy toxic assets for which no liquid market existed.
   
3. It will make price discovery more difficult and constrained. One of the reasons that this financial crisis occurred is because so many derivatives products were created without price transparency. This action will reduce transparency, and amplify the very problem that created the crisis in the first place.

If they were wise, Congress would, instead, take action that would encourage greater transparency and liquidity. This will have a negative and destructive effect on the futures markets. It won't improve conditions. It will amplify the very conditions that created this imbroglio in the first place.

We are now beginning to see signs of over-regulation that harms financial markets. We are seeing signs of a brewing trade war and trade sanctions. These are precisely the conditions that multiplied and deepened the Great Depression. Congress must have the wisdom to resist the temptation to engage in populist actions that will make matters worse. If they don't, everyone will pay the price for their stupidity!

Congress Passes Housing Bail-Out

While the stock market seems oblivious to the idea, the mounting debt burden of the U.S. shows some ominous signs. The credit default swaps indicate that U.S. Government debt is no longer the ultra-safe investment that it had been previously. In fact, the cost to buy credit default swaps for debt of the German government is now half the cost of that of the U.S. Government. This is significant, because interest rates must rise to compensate investors for the rising risk.

Credit Default Swap Futures Continue to Rise

This daily chart for credit default swaps futures suggests that concern continues to rise that defaults on debt will occur with greater frequency and intensity in the future. CDS's are used as a way to hedge against the possible default on debt. The higher cost of insuring debt against default continues to rise, which appears to suggest that investors are still worried, despite this week's latest government bail-out of Indymac, Freddie, and Fannie. For me, I pay more attention to these financial vehicles rather than to the lip service of government officials, because they represent the collective wisdom of many companies and individuals in the marketplace, all actively taking independent but collective actions in their own best interests. A word to the wise is sufficient.