The overnight session started with broad weakness following last night's downgrade of Spain to BBB- by S&P, once again led by Egan Jones, due to fears that an outright junking by one or all rating agencies is on deck, now that the status quo means business and is hard pressed to advice Mariano Rajoy that the ECB will not be toyed with, and if need be the same tactics used to oust Silvio Berlusconi just under a year ago can be applied to Spain which is now proving very difficult to handle: all Spain needs to do to ensure at least a few more months of banker pay is to demand a bailout. And yet it remains unwilling to stick to the simple script so far. Sure enough, Spanish bond prices tumbled, as did the EURUSD. Yet sometime around 4 am Eastern, a levitation commenced across all risk assets, EURUSD, and US futures, with Spanish bonds retracing the entire earlier loss, showing that the ECB has now once again shot itself in the foot and that any attempt to recreate the same playbook as was used to remove Silvio, will be far more problematic when applied to Spain.
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