Il contagio da Atene a Parigi passando per Madrid

L'ultimo commento settimanale di John Mauldin non lascia molto spazio all'ottimismo sugli sbocchi dell'eurocrisi: secondo l'analista americano Spanish banks will require an estimated 100 billion-250 billion euros in recapitalization

later this year to reach this capital ratio target – a significant percentage of which will have to be

shouldered by Madrid. (source: Stratfor) con un innalzamento del rapporto debito/GDP del 25% solo nel 2012. Aggiungendo le garanzie implicite nei vari fondi creati per il bailout della Grecia e il sostegno di Irlanda e Portogallo il rapporto debito/GDP spagnolo raddoppia: As near as I can tell, Spain is guaranteeing about $20 billion of the new IMF funds that will be used for a European bailout. Spain already has $332 billion of liabilities to the ECB, $125 billion to the stabilization fund, another $99 billion for something called the Macro Financial Asset Fund, and various guarantees for other bank and European funds, all of which totals over $600 billion, give or take. Their public debt-to-GDP ratio is only 69%, but add in these other guarantees and commitments and you get over 130% debt-to-GDP. And that is before they start bailing out their banks, and before any additional debt from their fiscal deficit, which is running at 8%.

La situazione della Francia, quando si tiene conto degli impegni presi, non è molto migliore: France’s acknowledged, official debt to-GDP is 86%; but when you include their various commitments to the ECB, the ESFS, ESM, EIB, etc., the number rises to about 146%. Not all of that requires France to make the interest payments, but just to cover any losses in case of a default. But that 86% number is rising rather rapidly. Ed è un paese che non pareggia il bilancio dal 1974 (vedi sopra) e le banche, anche se in condizioni migliori di quelle spagnole, hanno un peso molto forte sull'economia, e un'esposizione ai PIIGS non trascurabile: A default by Spain would push them (and a lot of other European banks) over the edge. Which is one reason that Sarkozy was so loudly insistent that any bank problems should be treated as a European problem and not the problem of the host country. (Interesting idea if you are Irish!) France simply cannot afford to deal with any problems in its banks while it is running such large deficits. And not while it is guaranteeing all sorts of European debt, which is at the heart of the problem. Germany needs France to help shoulder the financial burdens of Europe. And as long as France can keep its AAA rating, Germany has a partner. But if France loses that rating, then any European debt it guarantees clearly loses that rating as well. (e i mercati da tempo hanno tolto la AAA alla Francia, almeno se si guarda alla dinamica dei CDS e dello spread OTA-Bund, più dettagli sulla questione in un post nel futuro prossimo, ispirato da un articoletto sul quale sto lavorando insieme a un paio di colleghi).

S&P has already taken France down one notch to AA+ and still has a negative outlook. Moody’s has warned of a possible downgrade to France. Italy now has a BBB+ rating, just below that of Spain. When you look at the actual balance sheet and total debt, France is not all that far from further downgrades, unless it embraces a new budget ethic, which is precisely what Hollande has said he will not do.

That would be a real crisis for the eurozone. German voters might not be willing to  shoulder the European burden without a full partner in France. And if France had to guarantee a great deal more pan-European debt, while it continued to run deficits and, God forbid, had a crisis in one or more of its banks, it would be putting its credit rating at risk.

Comunque voi la pensiate, mi sembra difficile non trovarsi d'accordo con le conclusioni di Mauldin: la Grecia uscirà dall'euro, forse accompagnata dal Portogallo, chissà cosa accadrà all'Irlanda ma la Spagna, beh è un po' diverso... Spain is too big to save and too big to fail. The only way for Spanish debt to remain at 6% is for the ECB to basically buy it (or lend to Spanish banks so they can buy it, or whatever creative new program Draghi and team can think up). When Spain goes, it is just a matter of time before we lose Italy and then, yes, even France. The line must be drawn with Spain. And the only outfit with a balance sheet big enough that can also do it in a politically acceptable manner is the ECB, and the only way they can do it is with a printing press.

Ora c'è solo da sperare che non ci si mettano le banche americane (e magari anche tedesche o inglesi) con le loro operazioni di trading - scusate intendevo dire hedging, naturalmente - a rendere le cose ancora peggiori...

All currencies are doomed! Il timore del contagio dalla Grecia al Giappone.

Secondo Marc Faber all currencies are doomed ma in questo momento la più debole è l'euro. Inoltre si preparano tempi duri anche per la Cina e l'unico investimento ragionevole sono i metalli preziosi..,






Intrade ha un contratto sulla probabilità che almeno un paese abbandoni l'euro come moneta nazionale entro il 31 dicembre 2010. In questo momento la probabilità stimata dal mercato è circa il 15%. Qui accanto trovate le probabilità stimate sulle scadenze più lunghe, fino al 31 dicembre 2014.


Secondo un commento apparso ieri sul Wall Street Journal 
la situaizone di tensione che si è venuta a creare sui mercati
sarà sufficiente a forzare la mano della Banca Centrale Europea:


Austerity takes time, and the market is in no mood to wait. With euro-zone debt, credit and currency markets now tumbling, investors may force the ECB unwillingly down the road of unconventional measures.
If the banking system is threatened, what are the policy options? Among the least controversial steps, the ECB might reinstate swap lines with the U.S. Federal Reserve to give European banks access to dollars. Or it could decide once again to provide long-term fixed-rate liquidity, in a reversal of its exit policy (...) the ECB may yet be forced, totally against its will, to buy government bonds, in the name of protecting the financial system. This would be disastrous in the long term: (...) the ECB would be monetizing budget deficits that the market had declined to fund. That would be hugely destructive, risking backdoor socialization of losses and inflation, and cause a political firestorm. Debt restructurings in Greece and elsewhere may be the only real way out. But in the near term, this would create a fresh banking crisis. The hope is to delay defaults until they can be afforded, although this is a liquidity bandage for a solvency wound.
The problem for the ECB is that the crisis that it dealt with successfully in 2007 and 2008 was within its domain of expertise: financial stability and the banking system. The government response has moved the crisis into the fiscal sphere, where the ECB has no power beyond continually reminding governments that austerity is needed. The market's need for a swift response may yet force the ECB over the divide.

Il New York Times dedica oggi un articolo al timore di contagio dalla Grecia e dall'Eurozona al Regno Unito, gli USA e il Giappone:

(...) “It’s not just a European problem, it’s the U.S., Japan and the U.K. right now,” said Ian Kelson, a bond fund manager in London with T. Rowe Price. “It’s across the board.”
The crisis is so perilous for Europe that the leaders of the 16 countries that use the euro worked into the early morning Saturday on a proposal to create a so-called stabilization mechanism intended to reassure the markets.
(...) Beyond Europe, the crisis has sent waves of fear through global stock exchanges.
A decade ago, it took more than a year for the chain reaction that began with the devaluation of the Thai currency to spread beyond Asia to Russia, which defaulted on its debt, and eventually caused the near-collapse of a giant American hedge fund, Long-Term Capital Management.
This crisis, by contrast, seemed to ricochet from country to country in seconds, as traders simultaneously abandoned everything from Portuguese bonds to American blue chips. On Wall Street on Thursday afternoon, televised images of rioting in Athens to protest austerity measures only amplified the anxiety as the stock market briefly plunged nearly 1,000 points.
“Up until last week there was this confidence that nothing could upset the apple cart as long as the economy and jobs growth was positive,” said William H. Gross, managing director of Pimco, the bond manager. “Now, fear is back in play.”
While the immediate causes for worry are Greece’s ballooning budget deficit and the risk that other fragile countries like Spain and Portugal might default, the turmoil also exposed deeper fears that government borrowing in bigger nations like Britain, Germany and even the United States is unsustainable.(...)
“Apparently systemic risk is still alive and well,” wrote Alex Roever, a J.P. Morgan credit analyst in a research note published Friday. With so much uncertainty about Europe and the euro, managers of these ultra-safe investment vehicles (money-market and short-term loans) are demanding that European borrowers pay higher rates. These funds provide the lifeblood of the international banking system. If worries about the safety of European banks intensify, they could push up their borrowing costs and push down the value of more than $500 billion in short-term debt held by American money-market funds.
Uncertainty about the stability of assets in money market funds signaled a tipping point that accelerated the downward spiral of the credit crisis in 2008, and ultimately prompted banks to briefly halt lending to one other.
Now, as Europe teeters, the dangers to the American economy — and the broader financial system — are becoming increasingly evident. “It seems like only yesterday that European policy makers were gleefully watching the U.S. get its economic comeuppance, not appreciating the massive tidal wave coming at them across the Atlantic,” said Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard professor of international finance who also served as the chief economist of the International Monetary Fund. “We should not make the same mistake.”

Morningstar dedica due videointerviste al rischio di contagio: secondo Mohamed El-Erian di PIMCO

What's happening today is unambiguously deflationary for Europe. First we're going to see a lot more fiscal tightening in countries around Europe who will want to avoid what has happened to Greece. Second, we should expect banks to go into more of a rehabilitation mode and be less willing to extend credit. And thirdly, the private sector is likely to become more cautious and save more.
So for Europe as a whole this is a deflationary shock, which means that credit, both from the supply side and the demand side, will likely go down in the months ahead.

Secondo Rudolph-Riad Younes, manager at Artio International : 

The key starting point to understand is that there is not just one Greece. The whole planet is Greece. Every government you look at today, and you hide the name, they look like Greece, even worse.
From the U.S. to U.K .to Japan. I mean there are very, very few countries, maybe it could be counted on one hand, who you could say are reasonably solvent as governments. What happened is the market many times tends to ignore fundamental deviations.
Like, for example, valuation-wise you could see Nasdaq going to crazy valuation in the late '90s. Then, finally, people wake up and react to something they should have reacted to many years before.
Likewise, last year the markets rallied despite many fundamentals [that] were very ugly. And today the logic, this year, finally the market is trying to attack the weakest countries.

Today, the weakest countries are not the ones with the worst fundamentals, but are the ones who cannot print their own currencies. That's why you're seeing the pressure on Greece and spreading into the other southern European countries, named the PIGS for their first initial for the country names.
Then the next potential vulnerability is going to be in the U.K. Because today, although they can print their money, they're going to have a hung parliament. Therefore, the government might be very indecisive in the way they're going to tackle their deficit and budget problems. Therefore, we could see weakness there.
Ultimately, Japan could be after that and ultimately it's going to be the U.S. as well. Right now the focus is only on that region. It's not just Greece or southern Europe, it's global governments. That's why gold is the best solution so far.

Ecco perche in questo momento i migliori banchieri centrali sarebbero Totò e Peppino (grazie Antonio per il suggerimento!)