Russia Freezes Aid For Ukraine; Urges Respect For Legitimate Government

“We planned to allocate another tranche according to that arrangement. Yet in the current situation we have many questions as to how the money will be used and how it will be paid back,” said Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov, according to ITAR-TASS this morning.

  • *RUSSIA URGES RESPECT FOR UKRAINE SOVEREIGNTY, LEGITIMATE GOVT

 

Via ITAR-TASS,

Russia has suspended another tranche of financial aid for Ukraine because of the current tensions and plans to wait until the situation stabilizes to resume support afterwards, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov told Bloomberg on Friday commenting on the Irish Stock Exchange’s report on Ukraine’s refusal to sell two-year Eurobonds of $2 billion. Russia was to buy bonds under the already approved $15 billion aid package.

 

We planned to allocate another tranche according to that arrangement. Yet in the current situation we have many questions as to how the money will be used and how it will be paid back,” said Siluanov.

 

Conditions for the second tranche were similar to those of the first, namely a two-year loan at a rate of 5 percent per annum, Siluanov added.

 

He also doubted the feasibility of currency interventions to support the hryvnia amid political instability.

 

“The national bank of Ukraine can now make efforts to bolster the hryvnia, but demand for foreign currency amid political uncertainty will remain high,” he said. “Therefore, interventions can prove a waste of gold and currency reserves that will lead to nothing and will not prevent the hryvnia’s devaluation.”

Of course, we suspect the “deal” does nothing to change their minds – especially as it increases the uncertainty of what the Russian aid will be used for.


    



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At Least The Fed Ended The Catastrophic 2008 On A Funny Note

The world may have been crashing and burning, and as Bernanke admitted in March 2008, “At some point, of course, either things will stabilize or there will be some kind of massive governmental intervention, but I just don’t have much confidence about the timing of that” (guess which one it was), but at least the Fed ended the catastrophic 2008 yeat on a high note. The chart below shows the number of the time the FOMC committee had an moment of levity as captured by [Laughter] in the FOMC transcripts. Perhaps not surprisingly, the December 2008 meeting, when the market was in free fall, saw the biggest number of laugh lines in the entire year.

So what was so funny? Below is a choice selection from the December 16 meeting transcript:

MR. DUDLEY. It is possible that we could have default rates greater than those of the Great Depression. I’m just saying that these levels discount that kind of outcome. Obviously, the high-yield debt market today is different from general default rates. Yeah, I think that’s a fair point.
MR. BULLARD. Do we know? Was there something like a junk market in the Great Depression that we can compare this with?
MR. DUDLEY. Well, there were certain leveraged utility companies that you could argue were pretty junky.
MR. FISHER. Corporate grade became junk in the Great Depression.
CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. Michael Milken hadn’t been born yet. [Laughter]

****

CHAIRMAN BERNANKE: … You are all aware of the lending facilities for banks and dealers, the swaps with foreign central banks, the promised purchases of MBS, the various credit facilities for which even I do not know all the acronyms anymore. [Laughter]

****

MR. EVANS. For our policy actions, I think that we should continue to communicate in terms of our objectives.  In my opinion, this strategy covers most of the issues asked of us. The fed funds rate will be low for some time under our forecast.  I don’t think there is much doubt about that, and our forecast helped with that.  Disinflation risks are part of this outlook, and I think that should be well understood. We can communicate that in our speaking.  If our inflation target were explicit and we talked about it more—higher future inflation expectations than just, if it were the case, ½ percent or lower—that would be part of the communication calculus. As things stand, our long-term projections may be adequate here, but more explicitness in general would be helpful.  It is interesting to me that alternative A encompasses all of these in relatively muted language.  Frankly, if we are expecting a big impact from that statement, I think we need to include a bold font typeface, [laughter] because I don’t think it will be picked up necessarily.
 
****

MR. KOHN.  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I want to join the others in thanking the staff for their work.  These are very difficult issues, and I think you have brought to bear a lot of what little information we have on these subjects and have kind of kept me out of trouble for the last week.  My wife thanks you as well.  [Laughter]

****

MR. FISHER. Mr. Chairman, my colleague Harvey Rosenblum made an interesting point the other day that we’re at risk of being perceived as migrating from the patron saints of Milton Friedman and John Taylor to a new patron saint—Rube Goldberg. [Laughter]

****

MR. FISHER. Finally, on the issue of communications, one of my colleagues often says that, if you’re Elton John, you are expected to sing “Bennie and the Jets” every single time and at every single concert. It seems to me that, once we get and hone our message, we must repeat it incessantly and stay on message in order to have it penetrate. In Austin, you gave what I consider to be a hallmark and—not trying to flatter you—for monetary policy a historic speech. What was Bloomberg’s first reaction? The Fed may cut rates further. The message was lost. We all need to stay on message. But I think it’s very important, whether we have press conferences or whether you give speeches, that we need to hammer the theme of the new regime that we are about to embrace over and over and over again. So I didn’t pick “Bennie and the Jets” just because of your name, Mr. Chairman. [Laughter]

****

CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. I’m in awe of a presentation that has Rube Goldberg, the Black Death, “Bennie and the Jets,” and full frontal view all in it. [Laughter]

****

MR. KROSZNER. . Of course, I’m from the University of Chicago, and so Milton Friedman is spinning right now, [laughter] but money demand has not proved to be a very stable function over time, particularly now.

****

MS. AARONSON. The bottom right panel shows a Beveridge curve calculated using the Help-Wanted Index as the measure of job openings.  If there has been a significant increase in structural unemployment, then one would expect that for a given level of the job openings rate, the unemployment rate would be unusually high—that is, to the right of the plotted Beveridge curve. This might occur, for example, if many of the job openings were for nurses but a disproportionate number of the unemployed were bond traders, who are not qualified for the job openings. [Laughter]

****

MR. STOCKTON. The point of constructing this optimal control is to say that, gee, if you weren’t constrained, here is how we thought optimal behavior—the sort of optimal outcome— would be, given the shocks. You’re asking me whether or not there are quantitative policies that you could put in place. I was actually hoping that you folks were going to be able to tell me. [Laughter]

****

MR. FISHER. Nathan, you would probably have been arrested for treason if you had said that in Latvia—literally. The economist who gives a negative forecast is arrested for treason. Stay here. [Laughter]

****

MR. LACKER. In these circumstances with the funds rate around 1/8 percent, it is hard to see a benefit of prolonging any further reduction. I agree with the staff analysis that any potential dislocation in money market institutions is likely to be minor, and I observe that, to the extent that money market institutions provide value to the economy in the form of circumvention of prohibitions on interest and other legal restrictions on financial arrangements, the traditional welfare analysis would count their demise as a benefit rather than a cost. But I have to admit I haven’t tried explaining that to a money market fund manager. [Laughter]

***

MR LACKER. … You have to influence expectations about the future course of the base. This to me is the simple intuition for that. All of this is just to suggest that our ability to communicate is going to be crucial.

MR. KOHN. Including over salad. [Laughter]

****

MS. YELLEN.  I hope that a recovery will begin in the middle of next year, but the risks seem skewed to the downside for several reasons. First, compared with the average recession, we face unusually difficult financial conditions. My contacts complain bitterly that even firms with sterling credit ratings have difficulty securing credit. Some banks appear reluctant to lend because financial markets are skeptical about the quality of their assets and their reported net worth. An accounting joke concerning the balance sheets of many financial institutions is now making the rounds, and it summarizes the situation as follows: On the left-hand side, nothing is right; and on the right-hand side, nothing is left. [Laughter]

****

MR. EVANS.  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As gloomy as our last meeting was, conditions have deteriorated substantially further since then. Practically all of my contacts reported that economic events had turned sharply lower once again in the last three to five weeks.  This goes well beyond the auto sector and other parts of the District that have been struggling for some time.  The most optimistic comment from my directors was this, “At least Iowa is going to hell slower than everywhere else.” [Laughter

****

MR. FISHER. The one ray of sunshine that I was able to find is that one large law firm, Cravath, has announced that it is not increasing its billing rates in 2009, [laughter] and other law firms are actually planning to respond by cutting their billing rates. One woman whom I know summarized it this way:  “This is the divorce from hell. My net worth has been cut in half, but I am still stuck with my husband.” [Laughter]

****

CHAIRMAN BERNANKE: Let me make just a few additional comments, but I won’t add, I think, a great deal of insight to our discussion.  I will just note for the record here that the NBER has finally recognized that a recession began in December 2007.  I said in the Christmas tree lighting ceremony that they also recognized that Christmas was on December 25 last year.  [Laughter]

****

MR. LACKER.  Just a thought in response to Governor Kohn’s comments: Would the phrase “add to” do a better job than “increase the size of” in conveying the sense that these programs are going to make the balance sheet bigger than it otherwise would be, rather than lead to an absolute increase in the size of the balance sheet?
MR. KOHN.  I am not sure those words help me, actually.  “Add to” sounds the same as “increase” to me.  I have missed the subtlety here.
MR. LACKER.  Other things held constant.
MR. KOHN.  Ceteris paribus.  We could put that in there.
CHAIRMAN BERNANKE.  It is already Greek anyway. [Laughter

****

MR. DUDLEY.  It is better than the time I found out I had to discuss a Stiglitz paper in grad school about 12 hours ahead of time. That was harder.  I read the Stiglitz paper three times, and then I started to understand it.  [Laughter] 

****

And so on. Their laughter continues to this day.


    



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Austria Demands “Profitable” Bondholders Pay Up Before Bad Bank Bailout

While, for now, depositors at Austria’s Hypo-Alde-Adria-Bank (nationalized in 2009) have not had assets confiscated, Austrian authorities are shifting in an unusual (scary precedent-setting) direction. Amid the resignation of the bank’s CEO, the government is taking aim at ‘speculators’ who dared to buy the bank’s bonds below par – and made money therefore on the back of the taxpayer. “What financial markets expect is not always what you want politically,” Austria’s finance minister warned, “if someone buys today at a lower price, saying ‘shortly, I’ll get 100 back,’ that’s what’s agitating the people.”It seems Europe has a new template.

 

Via Bloomberg,

  • *HYPO ALPE PRESIDENT LIEBSCHER STEPS DOWN: STANDARD
  • *AUSTRIA FINMIN TARGETS CONTRIBUTION FROM HYPO ALPE BONDHOLDERS
  • *AUSTRIA REVIEWING WAYS TO GET HYPO ALPE BONDHOLDER CONTRIBUTION

Austria targets holders of Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank International bonds that have bought below face value, Finance Minister Michael Spindelegger tells reporters in Vienna.

If someone buys today at a lower price, saying ‘shortly, I’ll get 100 back,’ that’s what’s agitating the people,” Spindelegger says. “We need to review if that’s possible to distinguish”

 

“What financial markets expect is not always what you want politically,” Spindelegger says. “We need to find the model that’s the best result for taxpayers. That may not comply with the markets, but it will be necessary.”

Review only affects bonds with guarantee of Carinthia province, federal govt’s guarantee on other bonds will be honored

Plans decision on Hypo Alpe wind-down plan by end of March, necessary legislation by end-June

 

It seems Europe has a new template…


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1nTGRsw Tyler Durden

Austria Demands "Profitable" Bondholders Pay Up Before Bad Bank Bailout

While, for now, depositors at Austria’s Hypo-Alde-Adria-Bank (nationalized in 2009) have not had assets confiscated, Austrian authorities are shifting in an unusual (scary precedent-setting) direction. Amid the resignation of the bank’s CEO, the government is taking aim at ‘speculators’ who dared to buy the bank’s bonds below par – and made money therefore on the back of the taxpayer. “What financial markets expect is not always what you want politically,” Austria’s finance minister warned, “if someone buys today at a lower price, saying ‘shortly, I’ll get 100 back,’ that’s what’s agitating the people.”It seems Europe has a new template.

 

Via Bloomberg,

  • *HYPO ALPE PRESIDENT LIEBSCHER STEPS DOWN: STANDARD
  • *AUSTRIA FINMIN TARGETS CONTRIBUTION FROM HYPO ALPE BONDHOLDERS
  • *AUSTRIA REVIEWING WAYS TO GET HYPO ALPE BONDHOLDER CONTRIBUTION

Austria targets holders of Hypo Alpe-Adria-Bank International bonds that have bought below face value, Finance Minister Michael Spindelegger tells reporters in Vienna.

If someone buys today at a lower price, saying ‘shortly, I’ll get 100 back,’ that’s what’s agitating the people,” Spindelegger says. “We need to review if that’s possible to distinguish”

 

“What financial markets expect is not always what you want politically,” Spindelegger says. “We need to find the model that’s the best result for taxpayers. That may not comply with the markets, but it will be necessary.”

Review only affects bonds with guarantee of Carinthia province, federal govt’s guarantee on other bonds will be honored

Plans decision on Hypo Alpe wind-down plan by end of March, necessary legislation by end-June

 

It seems Europe has a new template…


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1nTGRsw Tyler Durden

With The World Burning Around Them, The Fed Was Debating This Epic Question

"We are not clueless," Kevin Warsh notes in this September 16th 2008 Federal Reserve transcript (as the entire financial system was imploding around them); but it is the final 'debate' in this brief section that sums up what Marc Faber has feared all along. Adjective or Abverb?

 

Via FOMC Transcripts,

MR. WARSH. I think the sentiment we are trying to suggest is watchful waiting. We are not indifferent, we are not clueless, we are paying attention, but we are not predisposed. Hence, Governor Kohn’s suggestion.

MR. KOHN. My suggestion was to substitute “carefully” for “closely.” I agree that “monitor closely” had this other connotation, but I think we should be seen as paying more attention than usual. There might be another alternative.

MR. DUDLEY. “The Committee will carefully evaluate economic and financial market developments.” That means you are on the case.

CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. Well, it is not an analytical thing we are doing. We are just watching closely.

MR. WARSH. Keenly? Carefully?

MR. LACKER. Mr. Chairman?

CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. Yes. President Lacker.

MR. LACKER. Including “closely,” what does that imply about the opposite? I mean, are we going to be able to take that out?

MR. WARSH. Well, we have done things like “in a timely manner” and other kinds of phraseology.

MR. LACKER. Yes, but this is an adjective.

CHAIRMAN BERNANKE. No, it’s an adverb.

MR. LACKER. There goes my credibility. [Laughter]

 

(h/t@Not_Jim_Cramer)

 

Perhaps that's why they get paid the big bucks (or not as it appears)


    



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Spot The Weather’s Impact On Existing Home Sales

While it’s useful to keep the dream alive (and blame the weather for any weakness that ruins the “sustainable recovery” meme) the data (once again) does not support that “common knowledge” whatsoever…

 

 

The Northeast – decimated by home-sales-destroying cold weather – saw the smallest drop in sales

The West – supported by the driest and most home-sales-encouraging warm weather – saw the biggest drop in sales of all regions

 

So what does that do to the “recovery” meme?

Can we finally put to death the “it’s the weather’s fault” meme?

We anxiously await Joe Lavorgna’s clarification of the weather effect.


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/NicsJc Tyler Durden

Spot The Weather's Impact On Existing Home Sales

While it’s useful to keep the dream alive (and blame the weather for any weakness that ruins the “sustainable recovery” meme) the data (once again) does not support that “common knowledge” whatsoever…

 

 

The Northeast – decimated by home-sales-destroying cold weather – saw the smallest drop in sales

The West – supported by the driest and most home-sales-encouraging warm weather – saw the biggest drop in sales of all regions

 

So what does that do to the “recovery” meme?

Can we finally put to death the “it’s the weather’s fault” meme?

We anxiously await Joe Lavorgna’s clarification of the weather effect.


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/NicsJc Tyler Durden

The Number Of Days In Which JPM Lost Money In All Of 2013 Is…

 

….

 

0

 

….

 

Well, what did you expect.

However, there's more.

First, the reason why the familiar histogram showing the trading days profits (we would say losses but TBTFs don't lose money in the New Normal) such as the one seen here is no longer present, is because JPM has decided to no longer show it as of this quarter.

Prior to the fourth quarter of 2013, the Firm disclosed a histogram which presented the results of daily backtesting against its daily market risk-related gains and losses for positions included in the Firm’s Risk Management VaR calculation. Under this previous presentation, the market risk related revenue was defined as the change in value of: principal transactions revenue for CIB, and Treasury and CIO; trading-related net interest income for CIB, Treasury and CIO, and Mortgage Production and Mortgage Servicing in CCB; CIB brokerage commissions, underwriting fees or  other revenue; revenue from syndicated lending facilities that the Firm intends to distribute; mortgage fees and related income for the Firm’s mortgage pipeline and warehouse loans, MSRs, and all related hedges; and market-risk related revenue from Asset Management hedges; gains and losses from DVA were excluded.

If JPM had used this old methodology, JPM would have shown the following: "Under this prior measure there were no VaR band breaks nor any trading loss days for the year ended December 31, 2013."

Needless to say, this has never happened before.

So what's wrong with no trading losses: after all a bank works mostly on a flow basis, right, so the customers take on principal risk, right? Wrong.

We already know for a fact that JPM's primary business model until the beaching of the London Whale was abusing excess deposits and using them precisely as prop trading capital. However, for the best picture of the firm's Old Normal trading day win/loss distribution, we go back to JPM's trading day histogram for 2008. This is what it should look like.

 

Perhaps it is out of shame that JPM did not want to disclose the fact that based on an apples to apples methodology the firm no longer loses money. Any money. Ever. So what did JPM do? Why it introduced oranges of course. From the just released 10-K:

Effective during the fourth quarter of 2013, the Firm revised its definition of market risk-related gains and losses to be consistent with the definition used by the banking regulators under Basel 2.5. Under this definition market risk-related gains and losses are defined as: profits and losses on the Firm’s Risk Management positions, excluding fees, commissions, fair value adjustments, net interest income, and gains and losses arising from intraday trading. The following chart compares the daily market risk-related gains and losses on the Firm’s Risk Management positions for the year ended December 31, 2013, under the revised definition. As the chart presents market risk-related gains and losses related to those positions included in the Firm’s Risk Management VaR, the results in the table below differ from the results of backtesting disclosed in the Firm’s Basel 2.5 report, which are based on Regulatory VaR. The chart shows that for the year ended December 31, 2013, the Firm observed two VaR band breaks and posted gains on 177 of the 260 days in this period.

 

In other words when one excludes such trivial things as "f,ees, commissions, fair value adjustments, net interest income, and gains and losses arising from intraday trading" and why one would exclude gains and losses from intraday trading when the bulk of JPM's revenue comes precisely from this is beyond us, JPM did in fact lose money. It just didn't lose money when everything is included.

And that, among all the other well-known reasons, is why Jamie Dimon is once again richer than you.


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1oVULxM Tyler Durden

Non-Existing Home Sales Miss Expectations, Plunge 14% From Highs, Drop To 18 Month Low

Existing home sales plunged 5.1% (considerably worse than the 4.1% drop expected) to its lowest level in 18 months. This extends the string of missed expectations to 5 months as even the ever-credible NAR chief economist said it was not the weather but “we can’t ignore the ongoing headwinds of tight credit, limited inventory, higher prices and higher mortgage interest rates.” First-time homebuyers plunged to a mere 26% of the total – the lowest share on record as all-cash (and spec) investors rose to a record 53% share of sales.

 

Key highlights from the report:

NAR President Steve Brown, co-owner of Irongate, Inc., Realtors® in Dayton, Ohio, said that in addition to disruptive weather, higher flood insurance rates are impacting the market in areas designated as flood zones, which account for roughly 8 to 9 percent of sales. “Thirty percent of transactions in flood zones were cancelled or delayed in January as a result of sharply higher flood insurance rates,” he said. “Since going into effect on October 1, 2013, about 40,000 home sales were either delayed or canceled because of increases and confusion over significantly higher flood insurance rates. The volume could accelerate as the market picks up this spring.”

 

The median time on market for all homes was 67 days in January, down from 72 days in December and 71 days on market in December 2013. Short sales were on the market for a median of 150 days in January, while foreclosures typically sold in 58 days and non-distressed homes took 66 days. Thirty-one percent of homes sold in January were on the market for less than a month.

No first-time homebuying. Anywhere:

First-time buyers accounted for 26 percent of purchases in January, down from 27 percent in December and 30 percent in January 2013. This is the lowest market share for first-time buyers since NAR began monthly measurement in October 2008; normally, they should be closer to 40 percent.

And your bubble full-frontal: 53% of all sales were either to “all cash” or investors “flippers”:

All-cash sales comprised 33 percent of transactions in January, up from 32 percent in December and 28 percent in January 2013. Individual investors, who account for many cash sales, purchased 20 percent of homes in January, compared with 21 percent in December and 19 percent in January 2013. Seven out of 10 investors paid cash in January.

Goodbye housing recovery, snow or no snow.


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1daqWB6 Tyler Durden

Hedge Funds Declare Buyer’s (And Seller’s) Strike: Q4 Position Turnover Drops To Record Low

In a world in which there is no risk, only return (thank you Federal Reserve Risk Management LLC), hedge funds – used to generating Profits just by sitting on legacy positions – see no need to reallocate their portfolios. Nowhere was this more evident than in the position turnover in Q4. As Goldman calculates, total asset turnover in Q4 dropped to 28% – a new all time low. In fact, the only increase in turnover, either buying or selling, was in the tech and infotech spaces. Everything else saw an unprecedented buyers and sellers strike.

 

Needless to say, this explains the epic, and ongoing, collapse in trading volumes: since nobody is repositioning their portfolios, there is virtually no trading volume, and as a result stocks move, higher of course, on ever lower and lower trading block size. Which means that if and when the current regime fails, and the real block size re-emerges, watch out below. It also means that banks which are reliant on flow trading commission for revenues, are out of luck again, as there is virtually no flow to speak of.

Finally, for those curious what diversification means for hedge funds, the following chart shold explain it:

What it means is that Hedge fund returns are highly dependent on the performance of a few key stocks. The typical hedge fund has an average of 63% of its long-equity assets invested in its 10 largest positions compared with 31% for the typical large-cap mutual fund, 22% for the average small-cap mutual fund, 18% for the S&P 500 and just 3% for the Russell 2000 Index.

This is good when said 10 largest positions perform well. Naturally, once the Fed’s all too visible hand is pulled from under the market, it may be time to consider other options.


    



via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1gRqcpc Tyler Durden