Tag: ECB

Stall Speed

The Fed’s foot is on the gas but the economy is losing altitude

Photo by Richard R Schünemann on Unsplash

Investors have gone all-in on the bet that the Fed and its central banking colleagues abroad will be successful in turning around a slowing global economy. The melt-up in the S&P since early last month is like Wall Street’s version of pushing your chips to the middle of the table. It’s not really surprising seeing that in October the Fed, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank and the People’s Bank of China all expanded their balance sheets for the first time in more than two years, giving the markets a massive shot of adrenaline.

As far as actual economic results, there aren’t many green shoots to be found around the world. Last week the U.S. reported unimpressive Industrial Production and Retail Sales numbers, dragging the Atlanta Fed’s widely watched U.S. GDP tracking model down to just a 0.4% pace for the current quarter. See https://bit.ly/2r3ifvH. China also had poor production and sales results. Japan’s economy is growing at only 0.2% and Germany just barely avoided recession with a 0.1% growth rate. Not an encouraging picture.

Given all the monetary firepower that the central banks have deployed over the past decade, they don’t have much to show for it. But the thing that sticks out to us, and the real threat to the global economy is pictured in the chart below. Despite the appearance of policy success as reflected by rising equity prices, corporate bond defaults are actually increasing. If the policy was working, that wouldn’t be happening.

The Fed can’t stop the deterioration in credit. Chart courtesy S&P.

We have written extensively on the danger that a deteriorating credit sector poses for policymakers. (See Time to BBBe Careful). Recently the IMF raised a red flag on the state of U.S. corporate risk-taking and declining leveraged loan quality. See https://bit.ly/35m9DPL. They ominously predict that in the event of an economic downturn “corporate debt at risk of default would rise to $19 trillion, or nearly 40 percent of the total debt in eight major economies.” Yes, that’s trillion with a ‘T’. The IMF also noted that “surges in financial risk-taking usually precede economic downturns.”

To say that this is potentially a massive problem is the understatement of the year. The market, in this case the corporate bond market, has officially become the economy. An explosion in global debt pushed by extreme central bank policies since the 2008 recession is a burden that steals from future growth, meaning that a simple economic slowdown carries not just cyclical but systemic risks of default. It is the Fed’s greatest nightmare. And they can’t allow it to happen.

Rather than seeing the Fed’s actions for what they are, an act of disaster prevention for the credit markets, many investors are taking the dynamic of falling rates as a cue to pile into riskier trades. There’s an unshakable faith that the Fed will allow no harm to come to them. It seems like a misreading of macro conditions to us, and an unwise strategy after a 10 year-long bull run, but for now the market obviously disagrees.

It’s gotten so crazy that even one of the world’s largest mutual fund companies is urging baby-boomers to lay off the stocks. According to Fidelity Investments, more than one-third of boomers (born 1944-1964, and entering retirement) have a greater than 70% allocation to equities, and one-in-ten were invested entirely in stocks. See https://bloom.bg/2pxjvXu. This has disaster written all over it when the market eventually turns.

We’ve long said that some enormous trading opportunities will present themselves at that point when the markets lose faith in the Fed and realize that current policies will fail to stop the rot. We’re not there yet, but it’s getting close. In the meantime take the market rally as a gift to raise cash, and stay long the front end rate complex.

Enjoy the Party but Dance Near the Door

Reason to be skeptical of the latest central bank reflation trade

Photo by Filios Sazeides on Unsplash

The title of this piece refers to an old cautionary Wall Street cliche that describes a trader’s dilemma where the price action says one thing but his gut warns him that something is not quite right, and to not get too complacent. This is an apt description of the current state of play over the past few days. Markets are reacting optimistically to a potential trade deal with China and the prospect of supportive policy intervention by the major central banks, most of which involves creating more debt. Besides possible rate cuts by the Fed, BOJ, and ECB, China unleashed another huge credit impulse, see https://bit.ly/2kAGnTz, South Korea has enacted a massive fiscal spending program, see https://on.ft.com/2ZBihGx and the Germans are exploring ways to circumvent current limits on debt issuance, see https://reut.rs/2kDcsKl. That’s a lot of stimuli. No wonder the markets like it.

However, this collective panic among the policy crowd in the face of slowing economic growth doesn’t offer any new ideas other than to throw more money at a situation that previous waves of cash have failed to fix. Most investors now realize that after a decade of extreme monetary policies, excessive debt is becoming the problem, not the answer. It’s the reason why large parts of the world are trapped in a deflationary malaise. Not only will piling on more debt not work, but it will also make the eventual reckoning even more painful.

Since early this year we have focused on several trends: slowing global growth, falling rates, and a stronger dollar. A continuation of these generally-bearish themes, along with the pressure that it exerts on the vulnerable corporate credit and emerging market sectors, is still our base scenario.

Nevertheless stocks, yields, credit, and commodities have all caught a bid in recent days. The dollar is offered. With good reason, investors still strongly believe that the central banks can affect outcomes and that a safety net is firmly in place under the markets. One of our favorite risk sentiment canaries, the Canadian dollar, impressively held support at USDCAD 1.3400 (see chart below.) This is a sign that a broader recovery in the marketplace in the near-term is not only possible but likely.

Longer-term, the prospect of a global economy that is weakened by over-indebtedness and unable to maintain sustainable growth without the repeated intervention of central banks is a frightening prospect, and remains our primary concern. The big danger in our future will come at that point when investors lose faith in central bankers’ ability to keep the markets propped up. We’re not there yet but that re-set in valuations will be the trade of a lifetime…and not in a good way. Will it be next month, or next year, or five years from now? Nobody knows. So in the meantime enjoy this latest bull party but remember to dance near the door.

USD/CAD. The Canadian dollar (CAD) is a reliable indicator of global risk sentiment. Stronger CAD is bullish for asset prices.
US dollar index (DXY). Fails to break out higher, also bullish for asset prices, especially emerging markets.
Benchmark US 10yr Yield. Bottom in for now as broad risk sentiment recovers.

Fed Set to Join Race to The Bottom on Rates

Increasingly negative yields in Europe and Japan weigh heavily on Fed policy

June 19, 2019

Photo by Braden Collum on Unsplash

Five years ago this month the European Central Bank made the desperate move of imposing negative interest rates in an attempt to spur growth and generate price inflation. It didn’t work. Economic activity on the continent now is barely noticeable, the banks are teetering and market-based inflation expectations are the weakest on record.

European bond yields are literally collapsing in a panic after European Central Bank president Mario Draghi revealed his latest prescription for growth: do more of the same. Because current policy obviously isn’t extreme enough the ECB thinks even deeper negative rates will certainly do the trick. Genius. Yesterday the benchmark 10yr German bund traded at -0.32 bps and similar yields in Poland, Sweden and France hit zero for the first time in history. Negative yielding bonds worldwide, mostly in Europe, now total about $12 trillion. What’s the goal here? How are banks ever supposed to profitably lend money with such a distorted yield structure? It has long been suspected, but today’s events confirmed that Draghi and the ECB are officially out of ideas. Europe is toast.

A similar experiment in Japan also failed miserably. The widely touted “shock and awe” scheme by the Bank of Japan in January 2016 also included a move to negative rates, which in theory was supposed to boost the economy by discouraging saving and encouraging spending. It didn’t turn out that way and the country remains trapped in a decades-long deflationary decline. A recent Reuters report claims that BOJ insiders knew immediately that the move to negative rates was a mistake. Despite the fact that they have nothing to show for it after three and a half years, the policy is still in place. See https://reut.rs/2Il0Sww .

This should be a lesson to all investors as the Fed stands poised to begin another rate cutting program of its own, possibly as soon as next month. While it’s becoming apparent that what ails the economy is moving beyond the reach of traditional policy remedies, central bankers like Mr. Draghi and Mr. Kuroda (of the Bank of Japan) are still fighting the last war. We assume that the Fed would never follow their lead and take US rates negative but who knows? The Japanese and the Europeans probably never thought they’d end up in their current predicaments either.

The last Fed easing cycle started in 2006 with an overnight rate of 5.25% before falling to 0% by 2008. This time around, if rates are eased again, the starting point will be less than half that, at only 2.4%. If the Fed feels compelled to ease policy every time the equity market gets in trouble, we’ll be at that zero threshold soon enough. In fact, some astute Fed observers think that chairman Powell’s recent reference to the downside limit on policy as being defined by the “effective lower bound” rather than a “zero lower bound” cracks the door for rates below zero. We’ll see.

Predictably, stocks are loving the possibility of lower rates but are we somehow supposed to feel good about all of this? It ignores the reason why an easier policy is back on the table in the first place. How long can we play the “bad news is good news” game before bad news actually becomes bad news?

As I wrote last week in Aussie-Yen: Currency Canary Keels Over, either growth needs to accelerate or there has to be a reset lower in the financial markets. The contrasting messages coming from the bond and equity sectors are as stretched as at any time in recent memory (see chart below.) One side will ultimately win out, but the waning influence of the central banks definitely poses a risk for growth.

Massive divergence: The S&P and the benchmark US 10yr Yield
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