A Highly Levered Player, In a Highly Levered Industry, Tied to a Highly Levered China

Full Report: Download pdf - - 8 Pages

We have felt since the announcement by the US Federal Reserve of its "TAPER" program that an inevitable collapsing commodity market in Emerging Economies would be the catalyst for the next crisis. We concluded in our Thesis paper "The Globalization Trap" that a good proxy for a slowing China would initially be commodity prices and in turn the levered players behind the massive commodity run-up.

Make no mistake about it, China is in the process of a hard landing which is being once again temporarily camouflaged by credit expansion! However, few appreciate fully that the global credit cycle has turned! It is always the first to turn with the catalyst being falling corporate free cash flows.

Buying the Credit Default Swaps of Commodity Trading Giant Glencore, had been an ideal way to trade the Chinese hard landing and there is a lot we can learn from Glencore about how the changing financial landscape will unfold.

Presently Glencore is the commodity trading firm getting most of the press because

It is a Highly Levered Player, in a Highly Levered Industry, Tied to a Highly Levered China

Be aware however, that it could just as easily have been the Vitol Group, Trafigura, Gunvor Group Ltd Mercuria Energy Group, Louis Dreyfus Commodities or Noble Agri. and there are more.

This group alone has recently raised at least $125 billion of debt . Why?? What is the panic?

A Trading Desk - The Counterparty Risk

We must appreciate that Glencore is first and foremost a trading desk which serves as a counterparty with trillions in derivatives notional exposure to virtually every other commodity using and trading entity in the world. It is then easy to appreciate why Glencore's IG (Investment Grade) rating is so critical.

Glencore is really not so much the Lehman as the AIG of the commodity world: without an investment grade rating, a self-reinforcing collapse will begin that could ultimately terminate Glencore's trading desk, in the process liquidating one of the world's biggest commodity trading counterparties.

Stay tuned, it is only beginning!

Read Full Report - A "Glencore" Was Easy to See Coming!