The overnight session has been one of alternative weakness and strength: it started in China where stocks tumbled 2.8% to a two month low following an unexpected warning in the official People's Daily mouthpiece that debt and NPLs are too high, not to expect more easing will come, and that the Chinese Economy’s performance won’t be U- or V-shaped but L-shaped.
As we warned all the way back in 2012, European NPL's are a ticking time bomb. Yesterday Italy announced that it had taken the long-anticipated first step to alleviate investor concerns surrounding the stability of the banking system, namely that Italian banks have roughly €360 billion in non-performing loans. Local banks, insurers, and asset managers have agreed to fund a €5 billion backstop for these troubled loans. Speculation of the imminent deal had sent Italian (and European) bank stocks soaring yesterday.
Nearly a decade since the housing bubble burst the dirty skeletons still emerge from the closet, and still nobody goes to jail.
In the latest example of how criminal Wall Street behavior leads to zero prison time and just more slaps on the wrist, overnight Warren Buffett's favorite bank, Wells Fargo, admitted to "deceiving" the U.S. government into insuring thousands of risky mortgages. Its "punishment" - a $1.2 billion settlement of a U.S. Department of Justice lawsuit, the highest ever levied in a housing-related matter.
Back in October when we first looked at ground zero of the commodity price collapse, we found something striking: as of the end of 2014, one half of China's commodity companies with corporate debt were totally insolvent - based on Macquarie data they were unable to cover even one interest payment (let along debt maturity) with existing cash creation.