JPMorgan Research Note on EU Bail‑in Proposals, Cyprus Crisis, and Commodity Trades (Mar 11, 2016)

outs is politically untenable. This removes the implicit ‘cover’ that senior bonds holders have enjoyed and has increased speculation that implementation of the bail-in proposals under the EU’s Resolution & Recovery Directive (RRD) will be brought forward to 2015 from the current 2018 time-frame. e As such, our colleagues in European Credit have examined the implications of changing recovery rate expectations across the bank capital structure. Assuming that covered bonds remain outside the scope of the proposals, we expect senior bank bond spreads to widen relative to covered bonds and prefer being OW covered bonds vs senior bonds in the periphery, particularly in Spain where covered bonds have first claim over the entire mortgage book of the bank. From a relative value point of view, we also suggest owning subordinated bank bonds vs senior bank bonds in the core as, under the new RRD regime, there is a higher probability than before that senior bank bond holders will lose money and this risk is, in our mind, not yet in the price (Rethinking the capital structure, R. Henriques et al., Mar 27). Foreign Exchange e Today’s research note, Sacrificing Cyprus, examines several presumptions which have arisen over the past two weeks due to the Cyprus crisis, and scores them on a scale of truths, half-truths and falsehoods. There are indeed some right conclusions to draw from this experience, but also some wrong ones. As examples, it is true that capital controls have created a two-tier euro, but very unlikely that Cyprus is exiting EMU. And while it is true that markets deserve a risk premium for policy uncertainty, the size of the premium should be much lower than in previous crises due to backstops like the OMT. e For example, during the first Greek crisis in May 2010 EUR undershot by 10% relative to cyclical conditions at that time, and during Greek elections in May 2012 the currency undershot by 5%. The combination of Italian and Cypriot events have eliminated the euro’s overvaluation from early 2013, when the currency spiked to the high $1.30s on a presumption that LTRO funds would be repaid rapidly, driving European rates higher. The currency is now close to fair value, so carries no risk premium for contagion. The message is similar in vol markets: the 1% premium for 3-mo implied versus realized vol is far less than the 5% premium witnessed during previous crises. e While there is no evidence that the EUR/USD cash or options market carries a risk premium, it is also true that the required premium should probably be far less than in previous crises given that a sovereign funding backstop like the OMT is in place. We are thus reluctant to extrapolate this mini-crisis into a systemic event which triggers broad deleveraging, or to forecast trend euro weakness. The currency could trade down a couple of cents around an ECB rate cut, but assuming that fears around Cyprus contagion pass in a month or two, the currency should reverse its recent decline by the summertime. Commodities e Commodities rallied this week, up almost 2%, led by energy. We went tactically long Brent in last week’s J.P. Morgan View as we believed that the correction in oil markets had brought prices too far below our price forecast of $112/bbl. Since then Brent is up around 1.5%. We stay long and expect further price appreciation over coming months. We are also short gasoline vs. Brent. Gasoline cracks (the premium for gasoline over crude prices) spiked over the first three months of the year due to a combination of low inventories and refinery closures that came during refinery maintenance season. As refinery maintenance comes to a close and demand falls seasonally, gasoline prices should fall relative to Brent. e We went long Soybean time spreads late last year (GMOS, Dec 5) on a view that much higher Brazilian supplies would find it difficult to leave the country due to logistical constraints. Since then we have seen a record number of ships planning to load soybeans in Brazilian ports and this number is still rising. The average waiting time before loading is also rising, now 38 days compared to 26 days a month ago. This has caused the front Soybean contract to rally while longer maturity contracts have been depressed by the much higher than normal supply inside the country. The spread between the May-13 and Jul-13 contracts has doubled since we put the trade on in December. We stay long as we think these logistical issues are unlikely to be resolved anytime soon. Jan Loeys (1-212) 834-5874 [email protected] JPMorgan Chase Bank NA John Normand (44-20) 7134-1816 [email protected] J.P. Morgan Securities plc Nikolaos Panigirtzoglou (44-20) 7134-7815 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_031116