Credit - Pascal's Wager

"One person with a belief is equal to ninety-nine who have only interests." - John Stuart Mill

Watching with interest the results of the ECB's AQR (Asset Quality Review), we reminded ourselves of our July 2012 title "No test, no stress, no stress no test..." given the lack of deflationary scenario in the ECB's assessment. We also followed the minutes of the FOMC from the Fed in conjunction with the end of QE in the US while Japan launched another huge round of QE, which will no doubt export somewhat a "deflationary impulse" to the rest of the world in the process rest assured.

When it came to choosing this week's title, we decided to veer towards philosophy this time around with the end of QE in the US (which we think is temporary) and with the Bank of Japan adding 80 trillion yen ($720 billion) of QE (given core inflation dropped to 1% from 1.1% in October). Once again central bankers are challenging investors' belief in their "omnipotence" which we touched in our conversation the "Omnipotence Paradox" in November 2012 where we discussed central bankers and the market's perception of their "omnipotence" in sustaining asset price levels.

In fact, in our conversation "Perpetual Motion" we mused around the notion of "perpetual motion" and its physical impossibility. As far as deities and omnipotence go:

"1. A deity is able to do absolutely anything, even the logically impossible, i.e., pure agency.

2. A deity is able to do anything that it chooses to do.

3. A deity is able to do anything that is in accord with its own nature (thus, for instance, if it is a logical consequence of a deity's nature that what it speaks is truth, then it is not able to lie).

4. Hold that it is part of a deity's nature to be consistent and that it would be inconsistent for said deity to go against its own laws unless there was a reason to do so.

5. A deity is able to do anything that corresponds with its omniscience and therefore with its worldplan." - source Wikipedia.

So you might be already wondering why we chose Pascal's Wager as our title in this week's conversation. 

Pascal's wager was devised by 17th century French philosopher, mathematician and physicist Blaise Pascal (1623-1662). It posits that humans all bet with their lives either that God exists or not. In the investment world, we think investors are betting with their "life savings" that central bankers are either gods or not. 

Pascals Wager is of great importance and was groundbreaking at the time because it charted new territory in probability theory, making the first use of decision theory.

Pascal's Wager in the form of a decision matrix:

"Given these values, the option of living as if God exists (B) dominates the option of living as if God does not exist (~B), as long as one assumes a positive probability that God exists. In other words, the expected value gained by choosing B is greater than or equal to that of choosing ~B.

In fact, according to decision theory, the only value that matters in the above matrix is the +∞ (infinitely positive). Any matrix of the following type (where f₁, f₂, and f₃ are all finite positive or negative numbers) results in (B) as being the only rational decision" - source Wikipedia

In similar fashion since 2009 investors have followed somewhat a similar decision matrix which we have tweaked for further explanation relating to our current choice as a title:

Therefore the only "rational" explanation coming from the impressive surge in stock prices courtesy of QEs and monetary base expansion has been to choose (B), belief that indeed, our central bankers are "Gods". 

Central bankers' omnipotence and balance sheet expansion:

- source Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Rest assured that at some point in time "belief" that "Central Bankers are not Gods" will ensure finite loss and in the end it might be the pagans who could have the final laugh in their "belief" in gold, this "relic of barbarism" to paraphrase Charles M Howell author of the book "Civilized Money "(1895) but that's another story...

In the meantime, the "barbaric relic" has indeed taken the proverbial spanking as illustrated by the sell-off in the ETF GDX - 1 year graph source Bloomberg:

ETF GDX from 31st of October 2007 until 31st of October 2014 - graph source Bloomberg:

In this week's conversation we will again focus our attention on central banks and the impact of their diverging monetary policies as well as the implications.

When it comes to stock prices, QEs, as displayed by a chart from Bank of America Merrill Lynch Thundering Word note entitled "The QE is Dead, Long Live the E!" from the 30th of October 2014 have been great propellers in conjunction with US corporate earnings:

"QE ends with deflation fear not inflation

As has been well-documented here and elsewhere, the Fed's QE has been the key driver of higher financial asset prices in the past 5-6 years (Chart 3). A recent US Treasury paper calculated that between Jan'09 and Apr'13 the S&P500 index rose 570 points in the weeks the Fed bought $5bn or more securities, 141 points in the weeks it bought up to $5bn, and fell 51 points in the weeks the Fed sold securities.

But the end of QE is coinciding with historically low levels of government bond yields and collapsing inflation expectations, rather than a surge in global growth. 10-year US Treasury yields are 50bps lower today than at the start of QE1, French 10-year yields are the lowest they have been in over 250 years (Chart 4),

and economists are cutting inflation forecasts rather than raising growth targets. All of this is great fodder for the Liquidity Bears who see QE as a failure, secular stagnation everywhere and warn of great, imminent bear markets in both credit and equities. For the bears the recent bout of volatility was merely a warning shot, in coming months will reveal unambiguous evidence that QE has failed to eradicate deflation and a loss of credibility in central bank policy will send asset prices into a tailspin in early 2015. "

- source Bank of America Merrill Lynch

For those who have listened to our musings from our last conversation, they should have applied the Pascal's Wager and its decision matrix to Japan. The recent big move by both the GPIF and the Bank of Japan have indeed been handsomely rewarding those short JPY (like ourselves) and long Nikkei FX hedged as indicated by the latest move in both the Japanese Yen and the Nikkei index:

"Given the Nikkei index is particularly more sensitive to away earnings, than by domestic earnings, going long again on the Nikkei currency hedged (Euro hedged) could make sense if ones would like to front-run again the Bank of Japan and their GPIF friends (we admitted in 2013 that we enjoyed being long Nikkei hedged in Euro)." - source Macronomics

In regards to Japan, we will reiterate what we posited in November 2013 in our conversation "Cold Turkey":

"While some recent "trade fatigue" did materialized in recent months on the Japan rocket "lift-off", we think that we are in an early second stage for the Multistage Japan rocket"

When it comes to adding rocket fuel to the Japanese rocket, the latest decisions by the Bank of Japan will accentuate further both the rise of Japanese equities and the fall of the Japanese yen as displayed by the below graph from Barclays displaying the size of the balance sheet expansion of various central banks as a percentage of GDP:

- graph source Barclays.

In terms of the implication for Europe (as discussed in the "Coffin Corner"), the aggressiveness of the Japanese reflationary stance spells indeed more deflation for Europe, unless the ECB of course decides to engage as well in a QE of its own:

"Moving on to Europe, we are unfortunately pretty confident about our deflationary call in Europe, particularly using an analogy of tectonic plates. Europe was facing one tectonic plate, the US, now two with Japan. It spells deflation bust in Europe unless ECB steps in as well we think." - Macronomics - 27th of April 2013.

Japan has already been the subject of numerous posts already on Macronomics, such as "Big in Japan", "Japan - the rise of the Kagemusha", "If at first you don't succeed..." or  "Have Emerging Equities been the victims of currency wars?".

When it comes to the end of the tapering from the Fed and the impact on some asset classes, all "inflation hedge" trades such as Gold, Gold miners and Tips have been impacted as displayed by Bank of America Merrill Lynch Flow Show note entitled "Death of the inflation" trade from the 23rd of October:

"Death of Inflation trade: flows into Gold & TIPS collapsed past 18 months…now Floating Rate outflows (Chart 2)"

- source Bank of America Merrill Lynch

In continuation to European woes, the much vaunted AQR and ECB's support, many pundits believe that the move towards the European Banking Union will enable credit growth to resume and therefore help economic growth in the process. We beg to disagree on this subject. We have long argued that no credit, meant no loan growth and no loan growth meant no economic growth and no reduction of budget deficits. 

The only thing that matters is QE being launched or not in Europe as we have argued in November 2013 in our conversation "In the doldrums" where we discussed the possibility of a credit-less recovery:

"So for us, unless our  "Generous Gambler" aka Mario Draghi goes for the nuclear option, Quantitative Easing that is, and enters fully currency war to depreciate the value of the Euro, there won't be any such thing as a "credit-less" recovery in Europe and we remind ourselves from last week conversation that in the end Germany could defect and refuse QE, the only option left on the table for our poker player at the ECB:

"The crux lies in the movement needed from "implicit" to "explicit" guarantees which would entail a significant increase in German's contingent liabilities. The delaying tactics so far played by Germany seems to validate our stance towards the potential defection of Germany at some point validating in effect the Nash equilibrium concept. We do not see it happening. The German Constitution is more than an "explicit guarantee" it is the "hardest explicit guarantee" between Germany and its citizens. It is hard coded. We have a hard time envisaging that this sacred principle could be broken for the sake of Europe."

When it comes to credit growth in Europe, Citi published an interesting note on the 31st of October entitled "Credit and The Eurozone Malaise":

"Overall, we expect the fall in credit growth to continue to moderate and for credit conditions to gradually improve from restrictive levels, with a modest boost from the end of the CA. However, we expect credit conditions to remain subdued. This is because private sector debt in many Eurozone continues to be very high, business sentiment is falling and the outlook remains very uncertain, which will continue to weigh on credit demand, while some pockets of credit supply constraints will probably persist even after the CA.

Credit availability matters, and particularly so in countries that do not benefit from strong FDI inflows and strong private liquidity positions such as France and Italy. But the relationship between credit growth and GDP growth has weakened in the post-financial crisis period and we therefore caution against using historical and in particular pre-crisis relationships between credit growth and GDP growth as good lead guides in the Eurozone. 

We also stress that the Eurozone malaise is unlikely to be resolved by improving credit conditions alone. Stronger aggregate demand is needed, and fixing credit supply is only one of many required steps. Additional measures required to reinvigorate the Eurozone economy include further monetary easing (including through large-scale asset purchases by the ECB), a looser fiscal stance, a restructuring of the debt of excessively indebted households and businesses as well as structural reforms to boost animal spirits." - source CITI

We have repeatedly highlighted the weakness in aggregate demand in the Eurozone. We argued in the past that the growth divergence between US and Europe were due a difference in credit conditions. This can be further illustrated by the following comments from the same CITI report displaying bank lending growth:

"Across countries, differences in credit growth remain large, with private sector borrowing still falling quite sharply in Greece, Ireland and Spain whereas it is growing at around 3%YY in France (Figure 5). 

Overall, however, credit trends remain very subdued in the Eurozone, both in historical comparison (growth in private sector borrowing in the Eurozone was 9% pa in 2003-07 and 7% pa in real terms) and relative to GDP growth (nominal private credit growth is running at 3pp below nominal GDP growth, whereas it was 4-5pp higher than GDP growth in 2003-07).

The question is why credit growth is so weak? ECB President Draghi has 

highlighted on various occasions that credit growth tends to lag GDP growth in 

recoveries and that the Eurozone’s current experience fits this pattern. By contrast, 

the IMF recently argued in its Global Financial Stability Reports that at least in 

stressed Eurozone countries credit growth is lagging behind the average experience 

in historical countries (see Figure 6). Whether the current experience in the 

Eurozone is in line with the historical evidence or not, that still leaves open the 

question of what holds back credit growth."

Indeed, bank lending standards in the Eurozone have tightened for most of the period between 2007 and 2014. However, there seems to be some light at the end of this tunnel: the ECB’s quarterly Bank Lending Survey published on 29 October showed that Eurozone banks‘ lending standards in Q3 eased for all loan categories for the second survey in a row (see Figure 7). 

Nevertheless, the level of lending standards is probably still very tight, at least in comparison with the pre-crisis period, given that lending standards tightened 26 quarters in a row until Q2 this year. Banks also recorded growing loan demand for all loan categories, for the third survey in a row, and banks expect credit standards to ease further and demand to rise further in the coming three months. But, again, having fallen 10 quarters in a row including Q1, the level of credit demand is probably still very low.

Interest rates are also still high, at least in some countries and in real terms. The 

ECB’s composite cost of bank borrowing measure for Eurozone NFCs was at 2.7% 

in August. This is roughly 150bp below the 2003-07 average in nominal terms and 

100bp lower than in 2011. However, in real (CPI-adjusted) terms, NFC borrowing 

costs are in fact 20bp above the pre-crisis average and have not fallen much at all 

recently, as Eurozone inflation has fallen faster than nominal borrowing rates (see

Figure 8). 

Cross-country divergences in real borrowing costs are also very high, 

with borrowing costs of 0-1% in Austria, Finland or Germany vs 5-6% in Cyprus, 

Greece or Portugal. The ECB’s Coefficient of Cross-Country Variation in bank 

borrowing costs of NFCs across Eurozone countries remains near all-time highs. In the periphery countries, the fall in inflation rates has meant that real borrowing costs have in fact risen in the last 12 months." - source CITI

The disinflationary factor and deflation risk of course have not been taken into account in the AQR. 

As we indicated in our conversation relating to the growth divergence between the United States and Europe ("Growth divergence between US and Europe? It's the credit conditions stupid..."), it is all about Stocks versus Flows:

"We mentioned the problem of stocks and flows and the difference between the ECB and the Fed in our conversation "The European issue of circularity", given that while the Fed has been financing "stocks" (mortgages), while the ECB is financing "flows" (deficits). We do not know when European deficits will end, until a clear reduction of the deficits is seen, therefore the ECB liabilities will have to depreciate."

When it comes to Europe and Pascal's Wager, we have to mention once more the issue of circularity as pointed out previously by our friend Martin Sibileau (who used to blog on "A View From The Trenches"), here is a reminder from his work which we quoted in our conversation "The law of unintended consequences" in Macronomics on the 25th of January 2012:

"With a more expensive Euro, Germany is less able to export to sustain the rest of the Union and growth prospects wane. At the same time, the private sector of the EU looks for cheaper funding in the US dollar zone, which will eventually force the Fed to not be able to exit its loose monetary stance."  - Martin Sibileau

And as indicated by Martin Sibileau:

"The circular reasoning therefore resides in that the recapitalization of banks by their sovereigns increases the sovereign deficits, lowering the value of their liabilities, generating further losses to the same banks, which would again need more capital."

While the depreciation of the Euro is a welcome respite for European companies, the latest merry go round of Japanese QE risk offsetting an already precarious economic situation which has been aggravated by the sanctions taken against Russia and impacting particularly German exports in the process.

We are therefore coming back in full circle towards the need for QE in Europe as posited as well by our friend Martin Sibileau (which we quoted on numerous occasions in our posts):

"What would be a solution for the EU? We have repeatedly said it: Either full fiscal union or monetization of the sovereign debts. Anything in between is an intellectual exercise of dubious utility." - Martin Sibileau

By tying itself to Europe via swap lines, the FED has increased its credit risk and exposure to Europe:
"If the ECB does not embark in Quantitative Easing, the Fed will bear the burden, because the worse the private sector of the EU performs, the more dependent it will become of US dollar funding and the more coupled the United States will be to the EU." - Martin Sibileau

Back in November 2013, in our conversation "Squaring the Circle" we argued:

"Markets being extremely feeble creatures in the face of uncertainty will obviously react "rationally" when it comes to being provided with "explicit guarantees".

Obviously the lack of German Constitutional support could indeed prevent the whole "whatever it takes" European moment from moving from the "implicit guarantees" towards more "explicit guarantees" we would argue.

As pointed out by Bloomberg editors in their column from the 6th of November 2013 entitled "Europe's unfinished business threatens another recession",the European Banking Union is a must have. For us Europe is just trying to "Square the Circle:

"The most important stalled reform is in banking. Another round of bank “stress tests” has just been announced -- and this time, the ECB says, it’s serious. But there’s still no agreement on what happens to the banks that fail the tests. It’s universally agreed that the euro area needs not just a single bank supervisor -- which it now has in the form of the ECB --but also a single bank-resolution mechanism. That won’t fly, because Germany and like-minded countries won’t hear of bailing out failing banks or their financially stressed national governments.

This reluctance is understandable. But without a single bank-resolution mechanism, the euro project remains fatally flawed. The toxic link between distressed banks and distressed governments will remain. So long as that’s true, recovery will be held back and the euro area’s supposedly integrated capital market will be at risk of further splintering into separate zones. If the euro is to survive and its member countries prosper, a real banking union is indispensable." - source Bloomberg

To illustrate further the horrible issue of circularity and European banking woes, we think the failing of Banca Monte dei Paschi in the AQR will be a proxy of what happen to a European bank that fail sthe test as well as the application of "bail-in" for bondholders.

Since the AQR MPS stock price has been down by more than 35%. MPS's capital shortfall is put at €2.1 billion and has until November 10 to deliver its solution to the ECB. MPS's market capitalization is now €3.1 billion compared to the €5 billion raised in right issues this year. Placing Contingent Convertible notes (CoCos) also called AT1 to cover the capital shortfall is impossible. On this specific issue we read with interest Bank of America Merrill Lynch's note entitled "Numbers do actually matter" published on the 31st of October:

"€38.4bn

This is the level of impaired assets that Monte Paschi was carrying in its balance sheet at the end of June. At the end of 2012, it was €29.5bn so in the last year and a half it has gone up by 30%. These impaired loans account for 25.8% of the loan book. With such a vast portfolio of impairments, it doesn’t surprise us that there was scope for extra provisioning. The large portfolio of impaired positions undermines MPS’ viability, in our view.

Note that the NPE ratio used by the ECB is the much more benign 18.1% on which there is apparently 40.1% coverage. The sample analysed by the ECB, on which they found such severe provisioning needs, is in fact a smaller one that what we would consider to be the full portfolio of impairments. However, it does extrapolate, to a degree, in an attempt to cover the whole book.

€4.2bn

€4.2bn is the ECB’s assessment of the gross impact on capital from risk in Monte’s credit portfolio. The adjustments come from large corporate (an adjustment of €711m), real estate (€1.6bn) and large SMEs (€1.9bn) in Italy. Recall that, for the Italian banks in particular, we’d always thought that the stress test wasn’t even that stressful – so this is a poor result arguably for the bank.

In our view, it ends once and for all the idea, recently propagated in some quarters, that Italian banks’ NPL numbers are ‘optically’ worse only because they are more strictly classified vis-à-vis other European banks. We have never subscribed to that view and neither does the ECB, it appears. Italian NPLs are not more strictly classified. In fact the ECB exercise has found that they are consistently under-recognised.

€1.4bn

€1,394.8m is, apparently, the offsetting tax impact at Monte Paschi, which reduces the capital needs to €2.9bn in the ECB’s analysis. It’s equivalent to a large (33%) ‘benefit’ to the bank. We’ve heard doubts expressed about its reliability, because it is a large offset.

€4.2bn

Coincidentally, €4.2bn is the gross aggregated capital shortfall that the ECB has identified in the adverse scenario for Monte dei Paschi.

€2.1bn

The Bank of Italy has put MPS’s capital shortfall, including all capital strengthening measures, at €2.1bn. This seems to us to be a minimum number – for a large bank such as Monte’s solvency to be supportive of economic growth, we’d imagine that its capital would have to be much higher than this basic shortfall would suggest. The difference between this number and the previous number is the €2bn rights issue that was retained in the bank.

-0.09%

This is the adjusted capital ratio for MPS in the adverse scenario under the EBA analysis.

-3.5%

The EBA discloses the fully phased CET1 of MPS as -3.5%. The market will judge the robustness of the capital of the bank on a fully phased basis, so we’d argue that any capital actions taken need to be robust and credible, not papering over the (rather large) cracks.

These two negative ratios together underline the work that needs to be done to ensure MPS is robust to get through a reasonable stress scenario.

€5bn, €3bn and €1bn

€3bn is the amount of capital that the bank returned to the Italian Government this year after the €5bn capital raise. Had it not done so, we would be writing a different note about MPS now. However, €3bn was the amount that was in the repayment schedule for 2014 for the state aid, so the bank had to repay it. 

There is still €1bn or so of state aid outstanding and the Italian Government, as a first step, could convert this into equity now. However, we believe it is reluctant to do so, and the State may instead sell on the Monti bond to a third party that could trigger the conversion and own 30% of the bank on the cheap, potentially. Perhaps there is a certain reluctance to do this, because of the dilution of the investors that provided €5bn to the bank earlier this year.

More likely, we are mindful that the state aid approvals relied on the repayment of the New Financial Instruments according to the following schedule (see Table). Whilst conversion of the state aid to equity is foreseen, it would be a major derogation from the agreement between Italy and the EC and we think could potentially necessitate the re-opening of the MPS file by the EC. See for example, paragraph 134 of the state aid approval which reads:

If MPS is unable to repay the new instruments, MPS commits to re-notify a modified restructuring plan with additional measures. The Commission welcomes that commitment as it underlines the credibility of the repayment plan.

The original plan was premised on the return of MPS to viability and seems to explain the problems of the bank in terms of its over-exposure to Italian sovereign debt, which was having a bit of confidence problem at the time. This is now obviously not the case – it is the significant amount of impairments that is causing the bank’s solvency problems, and the Bank of Italy has itself acknowledged a €2.1bn capital gap at the bank. Obviously the current plan as approved does not restore MPS to long-term viability because it focused on the wrong areas. Given the work that the ECB has now done, we think the opening of the file would necessitate some significant changes to MPS, perhaps quite drastic ones, with far reaching implications for the bank. We can quite understand the reluctance to re-open the file; yet we struggle to see how else it could be if there is a desire that MPS should survive in anything resembling its current form.

Zero

Zero is apparently the amount of capital that the Italian Government wants to give 

the banking sector to help it overcome the deficiencies that have been elucidated 

in the stress test – hence its insistence on a private solution. This reminds us of 

the Portuguese authorities’ hopes for a private solution in the recent restructuring 

of Banco Espirito Santo." - source Bank of America Merrill Lynch

As we argued in our conversation - "Peripheral Banks, Kneecap Recap"

"We believe debt to equity swaps will likely happen for weaker banks as well as full nationalization for some."
As our good credit friend said in November 2011:
"The path will be very painful for both shareholders and bondholders."

When it comes to MPS, for us it is the most likely option to happen. From the same Bank of America Merrill Lynch note:

"€5.4bn

We estimate that MPS has about €5.4bn of Tier 2 subordinated debt outstanding, about €2.6bn of LT2 and €2.8bn of UT2 (dated). It also looks like there was a further €406m of Tier 1 securities in circulation, though this may be even harder to track down and there’s the issue that they are deferring at the present time. Equitizing or part-equitizing these bonds in some way would resolve the capital problems of the bank, we think, but it doesn’t appear to be on the agenda at the moment. The old Tier 1 bonds (the old 7.99% ISIN XS0121342827) appear to have dropped 20 points from their summer highs though – and appear to trade rarely.

We believe the base of the problem is the undertakings given by the Italian Government to the European Commission at the time that the State Aid for the MPS restructuring was approved just over a year ago. These would have to be revisited, which could be embarrassing. In particular, amongst the commitments given by Italy to the EC, we read that:

BMPS will not undertake any Liability Management Exercise (including calls) unless it is implemented at conditions by which it occurs at a […] discount in percentage points from nominal value and at no more than […]% above the market price. Any Liability Management Exercise will be timely submitted to the Commission services for approval. (Commitment #11 from the State Aid approval, November 2013) " 

This commitment effectively limits the ability of the bank to do a generous debt-for-equity swap, we think. It appears it would have to be punitive. Our assessment is that there is also effective lobbying from a major holder of the UT2 bonds – remember that the EC, very exceptionally, allowed an UT2 coupon when it should have been deferred if precedent had been followed?

This seems more powerful to us than the argument that perhaps some of the 

bonds are held by retail and there are fears of contagion. But if the Government 

doesn’t want to put extra cash into the banks, perhaps this should be revisited, as 

options look very limited outside the subordinated debt to us. And it is not as if 

this hasn’t been a well-trodden path to help bank with limited capital options to 

recapitalize throughout the rest of Europe. However, reopening the MPS state aid 

file, which would effectively be what they would have to do to get a generous LME 

away, may not be considered appetizing.

The sub bonds usually have large minimum denominations which don’t 

necessarily suggest a big retail presence, we’d argue, with the possible exception 

of the €2.16bn issue of UT2 bonds which does appear to have been placed 

directly to retail.

Moody’s downgraded the senior subordinated bonds of MPS to Ca on Thursday 

evening. 

According to the agency:

"In addition, MPS's senior subordinated ratings were downgraded and placed on review for further downgrade. This reflects an increased likelihood that the bank may require public support, in Moody's opinion, which would trigger state aid rules and bail-in of subordinated debt. Further, given the repeated instances of bailouts using state aid over the past years, the rating agency does not rule out the imposition of more extensive restructuring measures for MPS which could affect all creditors of the bank."

-34%

Since the AQR/stress test, MPS stock has fallen about 34%, from €1.03 to €0.68 on Thursday evening.

Credit has been more measured, mostly because the technicals are more favourable, we think. Monte senior cash bonds were still trading well above par (3.625% bonds at €101.3), in spite of the fact that this is quite a distressed bank, though spreads do look to have widened 15-20bps today. It is one thing not to believe that anything too nasty can happen to senior bonds in Italy, quite another to look at these levels and believe we are seeing anything like fair value. Also, Moody’s talked, in their review for downgrade, of the imposition of more extensive restructuring measures for MPS which could affect all creditors of the bank."  - source Bank of America Merrill Lynch

We believe that the path will be very painful for both shareholders and bondholders of MPS and that not only subordinated bondholders but seniors as well will face the music in the case of MPS, making MPS the precedent for future bail-in processes in the European banking landscape.

On a final note we leave you with a graph from Nomura from their recent report entitled "The coming cycle of higher volatilities" displaying the need for investors for a higher rate of return in their "Pascal Wager" making it most likely that if US productivity cannot deliver, then there is indeed room for disappointment and price decline:

"While the current cycle is not too different from past secular bull markets, investors are requiring a higher rate of return (i.e. earnings yield)"

- source Nomura

"The risk of a wrong decision is preferable to the terror of indecision."- Maimonides, Spanish philosopher

Stay tuned!