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Daily Shot: Europe Is Not Too Worried About A Grexit

Published 06/30/2015, 07:08 AM
Updated 07/09/2023, 06:31 AM

The situation in Greece remains fluid. Here is what we know so far:
1. Yesterday we had a promise of no capital controls. Twitter

However, the ECB left the ELA limit unchanged (refused to increase it), which means there is no way to replace the deposits that leave the country. With little choice in the matter, Greece proceeded to impose capital controls. The promise of the day now is "your deposits are secure".

Twitter 2

Banks are shut through (and including) next Monday. €60 per day is the limit on withdrawals, except for pensions. Electronic transactions are only permitted within Greece. This was a shocker to the Greek people who are used to lengthy negotiations and last minute compromises - they simply expected more of the same.
Bitcoin jumped on the news.

Bitcoin

2. While there is debate around this, the referendum is likely to result in Greek citizens voting to accept the creditors' demand. If anything, such vote would be out of fear. The alternative is ugly - the deposits would not be "secure" as Tsipras had promised. Without the ECB turning on the spigot, the banking system will crumble instantly.

3. A "yes" vote will mean the current government is out, which will open the door for another round of negotiations.

4. It's unclear what the IMF default on Tuesday would mean. However a "yes" vote would go a long way in getting the IMF to show some flexibility.

Let's talk about market reaction, starting with Greek assets.

1. 2yr Greek government bond yield:

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2 yr Greek bonds

2. Greek equities ETF (GREK):

Greek equities

4. European blue chip shares gave up some 4%.

5. In the US the S&P500 gave up 2% - effectively erasing all the gains for the year.
But while the media continued to hype the crisis, except maybe for China, markets looked fairly orderly outside of Greece. Let's put the international markets in perspective.

6. The euro recovered.

7. Periphery bond yields rose, but the impact was extremely limited.

8. Portuguese 10 yr government bond yield rose back above 3%. Clearly this is not pricing in much contagion risk - helped of course by the ECB.

9. VDAX (German VIX-equivalent) rose to a 3-year high, but is nowhere near the Eurozone crisis levels.

DAX Volatility

10. Moreover, the S&P500 futures are up (after hours), VIX futures are falling, and Nikkei 225 is higher. Greece is fairly isolated in its crisis.

Switching to China, the market panic continued at the open. Shanghai Composite fell another 3.82% and Chinext Composite was down 6.63%. However even this market seems to be stabilizing as of 1AM EST.

We had a slew of economic data out on Monday. Here are some key trends across some Asian economies:

1. Japan's real wages have been declining for 25 straight months. This needs to change in order for Abenomics to have any chance of working.

2. New Zealand's business confidence took a serious hit recently. And with it went the New Zealand dollar.New Zealand

3. South Korea's large manufacturers' sentiment fell to multi-year lows. Reasons include strong currency relative to trading partners, weakness in China, etc.

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In Europe we also had a number of key economic reports:

1. It's hard to see much of a Greek contagion in this Portuguese business confidence data. Portugese business confidence

2. UK consumer confidence jumped sharply. I don't care much for GFK's survey methods, but this is hard to ignore. UK GfK

3. Norway's retail sales saw the largest monthly decline in recent years. Suppressed energy prices finally taking their toll?

Norwegian retail sales

We also had some mixed inflation data from the Eurozone:

Belgian and Spanish deflationary pressures seem to be abating. Germany on the other hand had a surprisingly weak CPI print. This tells me that the ECB will stay the course.

German CPI

The United States is having its own miniature version of the Greek crisis. Puerto Rico is defaulting on its debt. Puerto Rican muni bonds plummeted.

Puerto Rico bonds

And with it went the shares of muni bond insurers. There will be some spectacular losses across the muni universe due to this. Moreover, the question of contagion exists in the US as well. Are the markets properly pricing the risk of other vulnerable state and local governments - Illinois for example?

Here are some recently updated economic trends in the US:

1. US pending home sales were below estimates but still managed to hit the highest level since April 2006.
US monthly pending sales

2. The Atlanta Fed wage growth tracker shows a substantial improvement. This is likely to get the Fed's attention, with a September hike remaining the consensus among economists.

Atlanta Fed wage growth

3. The ISM Chicago PMI shows that a strong dollar is still pressuring US manufacturing.

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ISM Chicago PMI

Now some food for thought - 1 item:

People in the United States are often told that we are a nation of freelancers. Apparently that's a myth. Self-employment and working multiple jobs are both on a decline as a percentage of the total employed workforce. Americans increasingly prefer their one job.

US Self-employment

Multiple jobs

Disclosure: Originally published at Saxo Bank TradingFloor.com

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