Credit Writedowns

Moody’s issued the following press release yesterday in relation to Argentina’s foreign-law sovereign obligations.

The shareholders and subordinated bond holders of SNS Reaal are now fighting an alleged expropriation at the Dutch Council of State. In addition, these stakeholders are contesting the Dutch government’s position that shareholders and subordinated debt holders cannot sue for compensation against the bank due to mismanagement at SNS Reaal. Clearly, the Dutch government, as the sole owner is looking to limit its liabilities.

Yesterday, I wrote why a US fiscal standoff should mean recession in Q2. As an adjunct to that, I wanted to add a few words about the political process on how we get the standoff to a government shutdown and recession.

Last Tuesday I said then that the debt ceiling fight would come first but that default on US public debt would be a step too far – and so Republicans would capitulate, forcing them to put their efforts into the sequester cuts. The biggest change since then is that default looks to be off the table, making cuts during the debt ceiling standoff more likely.

As we face another brutal fight over the federal debt ceiling at a time when the economy still remains fragile, the stock market is oddly complacent. Even if the debt ceiling crisis is resolved, the result would be some combination of spending cuts and tax increases that would weaken the economy in 2013. A settlement, however, is far from a done deal as both sides remain far apart and determined to defend their positions. Far worse, if the debt limit is not raised or eliminated, the effect on the economy and markets could be disastrous.

Last year, I started my weekly newsletter out with Ten Surprises for 2012. The goal was to give you a list of things that investors only assigned one in three odds of occuring that I believed had a fifty percent or better chance of occurring. So if I was right, then I should get 5 out of ten predictions correct, while 3 to 4 out of ten should have been expected by investors. Let’s see how I did.

I just wanted to follow up on Randy Wray’s last post to look at this Trillion Dollar Coin idea from an investing perspective. I believe the coin would be bullish for Treasuries because it lowers average Treasury duration and alters private portfolio preferences in a manner similar to quantitative easing. Otherwise, it has no real economy effects.

The explosive market rally following the fiscal cliff agreement was based more on what didn’t happen than what did. What didn’t happen was the implementation of automatic tax increases and spending cuts that would have shaved about 5% off GDP and cause a recession. What did happen was an agreement that would still reduce GDP by about 1.5%, an amount that still looms as significant in light of an economy that is only slogging along at a growth rate of about 2%. Even more important is the potential mess that lies ahead. The Treasury Department’s extraordinary measures to extend the debt ceiling runs out at the end of February or the beginning of March. The sequester requiring automatic across-the-board spending cuts of $110 billion for 2013 goes into effect on March 1st. The federal government’s spending authority for the current budget expires on March 27th.

As the New Year begins, there are four events that are creating significant headwinds for the US economy. There has been a lot of talk about the fiscal cliff in the press but behind this is the debate over the US debt ceiling, which will be breached by 31 December. In addition, there are two strikes that threaten to hurt [...]

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is a brilliant political tactician. After the latest EU Summit, it seemed she had capitulated after being rounded on by France’s Hollande in an effort by Italy’s Monti and Spain’s Rajoy to prevent the market for their government debt from collapsing. The talk was of a Spanish bank bailout with practically no strings attached. Understandably, Mariano Rajoy was speaking of the summit as a clear victory for Spain while Angela Merkel was pilloried in the German press. But in the days since that summit, Angela Merkel has somehow forced Rajoy into a corner and he has now capitulated, completely reversing himself on taxes and adding a heap of new austerity measures as a pre-condition for bank bailout money that will still be guaranteed by the Spanish sovereign. This is an unmitigated disaster for the Spanish economy and will likely mean default unless Spain is somehow bailed out.