Official Swiss Bank Denials Of SNB/Fed Dollar Swap Line Usage Sends Gold To New Record

[dkf]

"When we first presented yesterday that the SNB had used $200 million in FX swaps with the New York Fed, we speculated that this "means that it is not some usual PIIGS suspect, but one of the two "big ones." Obviously by this we meant Credit Suisse or UBS. It took the banks about 12 hours to come out and deny officially that it had been either of them. Well, it simply it is someone else, and hence someone with far less in deposit-based capital buffers. And then, of course, you know what they say about official denials... Anyway, whoever it was, Europe is not waiting to find out: this morning most European bourses are down between 2 and 4%, Dax down 3.7%, CAC down 2.8% and the FTSE down 2.8% at last check, as the specter of a pan-European bank run is back. The net result: spam continues to be a drag in the gold-canned food pair trade, hitting a new old time high of $1878 in the spot market minutes ago, and just $122 away from $2000. Should the market rout persist, we may well see $2000 in the next 48 market hours."

From Reuters:

Switzerland's biggest bank UBS (UBSN.VX) (UBS.N) said on Friday it had not made use of the Federal Reserve's swap facility via the Swiss National Bank.
 
There had been speculation that a Swiss bank had accessed the U.S. liquidity facility via a $200 million repurchase transaction with the SNB the previous week.
 
"UBS has not made use of the Fed facility through the SNB," it said in a statement.
 
The Federal Reserve provided $200 million of liquidity to the Swiss National Bank in the latest week via its swap lines for foreign central banks, the New York Fed said on Thursday.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/official-swiss-bank-denials-snbfed-dollar-swap-line-usage-sends-gold-new-record-just-120-away-2

[lapfog_1]

1. $200 million is not enough to do much of anything... - n/t

[dkf]

2. Funny he addresses that in a subsequent post

SNB Refuses To Identify Bank Using FX Swaps, Says "Repo Already Unwound"
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 08/19/2011 - 08:54

More on the biggest market moving story from last night. According to a blast from Bloomberg, minutes ago SNB spokesman Werner Abegg announced that a bank sought USD through the SNB FX swap with the FRBNY, via a repo operation. Abegg added that the repo has already been unwound. But, but, it was only $200 million so what's the big deal? There is no stigmata to micro amounts... Oh wait there is stigmata to any amounts. And sorry, this is just the first of many times that not only the SNB but all other central banks will very soon be scrambling to the Fed to bail out their dollar collateral short banks. Unfortunately, the 2008 redux is only just starting.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/snb-refuses-identify-bank-using-fx-swaps-says-repo-already-unwound

[lapfog_1]

3. yes, if they are attempting to hide the seriousness

of such swaps by making $200 million swaps every day... but to get to real money, that might take 100s of such transactions. If it was a order of magnitude larger ($2B) and they were doing it on a daily basis, there would be a real story here (and impending doom of the world economy).

[dkf]

4. What made everyone nervous was not knowing who needed the funds.

If we knew who, we would know the potential fallout. With rampant speculation, everyone gets tagged.