A Closer Look At Today’s German Stock Market Flash Crash; Egan-Jones Downgrades Germany From A+ To A, Outlook Negative

April 18, 2013 Leave a comment

A Closer Look At Today’s German Stock Market Flash Crash

Tyler Durden on 04/17/2013 19:46 -0400

While most of the US was in deep REM sleep, the Germany stock index, the DAX, had a flashback to May 2010: starting at 3:44 am EDT, in the span of 6 minutes or much faster than the gradual drop that led to the US flash crash from three years ago, the DAX went from well and solidly-bid to having zero liquidity… and dumping nearly 200 points in the process. Whether it was rumors of a (subsequently validated) rating agency downgrade, or just an algo testing its quote stuffing ability, the moves showed vividly that when the current rosy paradigm shifts abruptly and violently, all those hoping to be the first out of the door and hit the sell button, simply won’t be able to do so. Because sadly there is no such thing as a free “4 year long zero volume levitation” – one must always pay the piper in the end.

Charts below from Nanex: June 2013 DAX Futures Depth of Book. Shouldn’t demand increase as prices drop? Only if it is demand for physical gold it seems.

20130417.fDAX_.M13_0

Egan-Jones Downgrades Germany From A+ To A, Outlook Negative

Tyler Durden on 04/17/2013 15:41 -0400

4/17/2013: Federal Republic Of Germany: EJR lowered A+ to A (Neg.) (S&P: AAA) (3413Z GR)

Although Germany’s credit metrics are respectable, the country has exposure to its banks and the weaker EU members. Deutche Bank has adjusted shareholders’ equity to asset near 2% and might need EUR 100B of support. Via the ECB’s Target 2, Germany is owed EUR700B of which perhaps 50% is collectible and then there is the banks’ southern EMU exposures. Germany’s debt to GDP was 80.6% as of 2011. However, increasing Germany’s debt by EUR500B raises the adjusted debt to GDP to 100%. The deficit to GDP of .8% is reasonably strong. Unemployment is 6.9% but will probably rise as global economies continue to show weakness. The positive (EUR16.8B) balance of trade (per GFSO) and the positive EUR5.59B current account (per the OECD) help. Inflation has been moderate at 1.4% (per GFSO). Chancellor Merkel continues to resist calls for EU bonds (shared liabs.) and money printing and is pushing for fiscal controls and the seniority of bailout funding. Germany is likely to be outvoted by other ECB members and therefore will have greater prospective exposure. Watch for the EFSF and the ESM morphing into banks (thereby depressing eventual recoveries) and a rise in the number of euros. Watch progress on the EU banking union. We used the IMF’s data for Germany’s debt which is greater than Eurostat’s data.Downgrading.

Filed under Macro Trends

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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