Monday, February 4, 2013

Europe Unfixed Again

Slowly things in Europe are starting to go bump in the night again, with the EURUSD down some 150 pips from Friday's multi-year 1.37 high, Spanish bond yields spiking 20 bps to over 5.41%, back over the declining 50 DMA, Italian BTPs getting slammed up some 10 bps to 4.42%, as both Spanish and Italian stocks are sharply down on the day, by 1.2% and 1.9% respectively, following yet another Monte Paschi halt lower earlier in trading. The reason goalseeked by the media for today's weakness is signs of upcoming "political turmoil", namely the escalating Monte Paschi incident out of Italy, which we have been following closely, as well as the Spanish graft scandal, in which the ruling PP party and Mariano Rajoy have been implicated in massive kickbacks, and which may cost Rajoy his leadership at this pace. Of course, none of the data above is new, and neither is France's Moscivi repeating for the second time in a week that the EUR has risen far too high, and to call it catalytic is very naive, but it merely goes to show how the manipulated market decides when and if to actually follow the newsflow. As a result, US futures are pointing to a mildly lower opening, which however may reverse quickly once today's $2.75-$3.5 billion POMO kicks in. Of course, if the Italian political turmoil drags Draghi further into the mud, all bets are suddenly off about Europe being "fixed."

Read more: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-02-04/europe-unfixed-again

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