Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

What Blows Up First, Deutsche Bank?

Companies / Credit Crisis 2016 Sep 26, 2016 - 06:23 PM GMT

By: John_Rubino

Companies

Calling Wall Street’s banks stupid and dangerous is like calling the sun “big and warm.” It’s a clear understatement of an obvious fact. The same goes for calling Japan and China economically clueless. Their actions pretty much guarantee that they’ll ultimately enter some sort of death spiral.


Germany, meanwhile, is many things, but clueless and stupid aren’t normally on the list. So why is that country’s biggest bank causing nightmares for global policy makers and investors? Because – in a sign of just how close we are to the end of the fiat currency/fractional reserve banking era – Deutsche Bank is behaving in ways that would make executives at Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns step back in alarm. It seems, for example, to have become a derivatives junkie. Like a Vegas high-roller who can’t stop raising his bets, DB’s exposure to this unregulated, largely off-balance-sheet market now exceeds not just its host country’s GDP, but that of its entire continent:

And it recently joined its Wall Street cousins-in-crime by attracting a $14 billion fine for mortgage fraud. This amount seems puny next to a trillions-with-a-T derivatives book, but it’s enough to force DB to raise capital at an extremely inauspicious time. Here’s an excerpt from a Bloomberg article on the bank’s — and Germany’s — plight:

Deutsche Bank’s Pain Is Germany’s Too

Berlin is trying to distance itself from Deutsche Bank and the threat of a $14 billion U.S. fine that would likely force the bank to raise capital.

This makes sense politically ahead of an election year. It also, effectively, calls the U.S. authorities’ bluff: if the fine is too big, German taxpayers won’t step in to help.

But the danger is that deepening investor concerns over the health of the country’s No. 1 bank spiral out of control — and circle right back to Berlin.

As unpalatable as it may be politically, the market sees Germany and Deutsche as joined at the hip.

You can see it in Deutsche Bank’s share price: it plumbed a record low on Monday after Focus magazine has reported Chancellor Angela Merkel ruled out state aid for the lender ahead of next year’s elections.

Deutsche Bank said it’s determined to manage on its own and a capital increase isn’t currently on its agenda. Merkel’s government is attempting to stay out of the fray. On Monday, her chief spokesman said there were “no grounds” for speculation over state funding.

This last sentence illustrates the severity of the problem: When a government has to deny its intention to bail out a bank, a bail-out is not just possible but highly likely.

Zero Hedge has had some fun over the past year with a chart comparing DB’s share price with that of Lehman Brothers, a Wall Street bank that eventually collapsed, setting off the 2008-2009 conflagration. Here’s the chart from this summer:

And here it is after the most recent set of horrendous headlines:

DB’s saga seems to be nearing some kind of resolution, with exactly zero potential happy endings. Either it crashes, taking the European and maybe global financial system down with it, or Germany nationalizes it, potentially tipping the euro, dollar and yen into chaos.

Germany at the center of a global crisis, who would’ve thought it?

By John Rubino

dollarcollapse.com

Copyright 2016 © John Rubino - All Rights Reserved

Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in