Italian Banks Collapse, Short Sales Banned As Loan Loss Fears Mount

 

Italian bank stocks are crashing (with BMPS down 40% year-to-date) as Reuters reports that investors are growing increasingly nervous about how the sector will cope with lower interest rates and a 200 billion euro ($218 billion) pile of loans that are unlikely to be repaid. The broad banking sector is down 4% with stocks suspended, and in light of this bloodbath, Italian regulators have decided in their wisdom, to ban short-selling of some bank stocks (which has driven hedgers into the CDS market, spking BMPS credit risk).

The Fed is Now Cornered

As you know, I’ve been calling for a bond market crisis for months now. That crisis has officially begun in Greece, a situation that we addressed at length other articles.This crisis will be spreading in the coming months. Currently it’s focused in countries that cannot print their own currencies (the PIIGS in Europe, particularly Greece).

However, China and Japan are also showing signs of trouble and ultimately the bond crisis will be coming to the US’s shores.

China Destroyed Its Stock Market in Order to Save It

When you run out of magical intervention tricks in your bag the best way to handle the inevitable is a controlled demolition. Although the crisis is far from over, it alleviates the pain for the short-term time being. You know the situation is dire when the Communist Capitalists force investors to stay in by banning all selling of stocks for months, forcing you to shoulder the loss, in order to stem the tide.

 

Last week, China destroyed its stock market in order to save it. Faced with a crash in share prices from a bubble of its own making, the Chinese government intervened ruthlessly, and recklessly, to turn those prices around. Its heavy-handed approach seemed to work, for the moment, but only by severely damaging far more important goals and ambitions.Prior to the crash, China’s stock market had enjoyed a blissful disconnect from reality. As China’s economy slowed and corporate profits declined, share prices soared, nearly tripling in just 12 months. By the peak, half the companies listed on the Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges were priced above a preposterous 85-times earnings. It was a clear warning flag — one that Chinese regulators encouraged people to ignore. Then reality caught up.

At first, when prices began to fall, the central bank responded by cutting interest rates and bank reserve requirements — measures to inject more money that had never failed to juice the market. But prices continued to fall. Then the government rallied the major brokerages to form a $19 billion fund to buy shares and waded directly into the market to buy stocks too. A few stocks rose, but most fell even further.

70% of Greek mortgages aren’t being paid

The economy in Greece is so bad that Greeks have stopped paying their personal and consumer debts and are raising cash by selling family heirlooms, according to an astonishing article in the Financial Times.

Defiant Greeks force Europe to negotiating table as time-bomb ticks

EMU creditors have Greece’s Alexis Tsipras by the scruff of the neck, but he has a knife to their throats

Europe’s creditor powers have started to wobble. Berlin, Paris and Brussels are coming to the grim conclusion that Greece may not capitulate as expected, and time is running out fast.

Athens is now warning openly that the “moment of truth” will come on June 5, when the country faces default on a €300m payment to the International Monetary Fund, unless the EU authorities hand over the next tranche of bail-out cash.

Banks in Moldova lend $1 billion to mysterious beneficiaries and cripple economy

THE disappearance of more than $1 billion from three Moldavian banks has nearly crippled the tiny former Soviet country’s economy, and its people wants answers.

The huge sum of money accounts for nearly 20 per cent of Moldova’s banking system in terms of assets, and represents an eighth of its entire gross domestic product, according to Reuters.

The case of the missing money only came to light after the Central Bank of Moldova found that three banks had given out loans totalling more than $1 billion.

Experts Are Warning That The 76 Trillion Dollar Global Bond Bubble Is About To Explode

Warren Buffett believes “that bonds are very overvalued“, and a recent survey of fund managers found that 80 percent of them are convinced that bonds have become “badly overvalued“.  The most famous bond expert on the planet, Bill Gross, recently confessed that he has a sense that the 35 year bull market in bonds is “ending” and he admitted that he is feeling “great unrest”.  Nobel Prize–winning economist Robert Shiller has added a new chapter to his bestselling book in which he argues that bond prices are “irrationally high”.  The global bond bubble has ballooned to more than 76 trillion dollars, and interest rates have never been lower in modern history.  In fact, 25 percent of all government bonds in Europe actually have a negative rate of return at this point.  There is literally nowhere for the bond market to go except for the other direction, and when this bull market turns into a bear it will create chaos and financial devastation all over the planet.

No democracy without political union

Moderates have to recognise that the European Union is built in a way that has allowed France and Germany to put Greece into difficulty in order to protect their own interests, argues Italian economist Luigi Zingales in Il Sole 24 Ore. Failing to do so leaves the truth to radicals like Syriza, because “in its claims against Europe, Syriza is right. Europe has mistreated Greece and it did so because Germany and France have protected their interests at Greece’s expense.”

How Many More “Saves” Are Left in the Central Bank Bazookas?

The master narrative of the global economy shifted six years ago from “China will push global growth for decades to come” to “the central banks can push global growth for decades to come.”

Time after time we’ve witnessed enfeebled global markets jolted out of terminal declines by central bank pronouncements and new money-printing policies. Never mind that the European Central Bank’s (ECB) Mario Draghi had no concrete proposals in hand when he announced the ECB would “do whatever it takes” to save the European Union from the financial consequences of its reckless abandonment of risk management; the mere announcement was enough to trigger a massive reversal in global markets.

Swiss Franc ‘Nuclear Explosion’ Spreading, Credit Suisse, Saxo Hurt

Credit Suisse Group AG (CSGN) and Saxo Bank A/S joined an increasing number of European financial companies warning that the Swiss central bank’s surprise decision to abolish its currency ceiling may dent earnings.

Credit Suisse, Switzerland’s second-biggest bank, indicated Monday that currency swings may hurt profit. Denmark’s Saxo Bank said some clients might not be able to settle unsecured amounts, which might cause undisclosed losses.

The full force of the decision won’t be known for months and is “closer to a nuclear explosion than a 1,000-kilogram conventional bomb,” Javier Paz, senior analyst in wealth management at Aite Group, said in an e-mail Tuesday. “The aftermath is like a black hole that can suck massive amounts of credit from currency trading as we have known it.”

Fitch says China credit bubble unprecedented in modern world history

China’s shadow banking system is out of control and under mounting stress as borrowers struggle to roll over short-term debts, Fitch Ratings has warned.

The agency said the scale of credit was so extreme that the country would find it very hard to grow its way out of the excesses as in past episodes, implying tougher times ahead.

“The credit-driven growth model is clearly falling apart. This could feed into a massive over-capacity problem, and potentially into a Japanese-style deflation,” said Charlene Chu, the agency’s senior director in Beijing.

“There is no transparency in the shadow banking system, and systemic risk is rising. We have no idea who the borrowers are, who the lenders are, and what the quality of assets is, and this undermines signalling,” she told The Daily Telegraph.

Risk of Bank Failures Is Rising in Europe, E.C.B. Warns

The European Central Bank warned on Wednesday that the euro zone’s slumping economy and a surge in problem loans were raising the risk of a renewed banking crisis, even as overall stress in the region’s financial markets had receded.