Friday, April 15, 2016

15/4/16: Corporate Finance, S&P500 and Bubble Trouble...


Classical corporate finance tells us that companies should be valued on their earnings with past earnings being indicative of future earnings (predictive component). Which is tosh. In today's world that is.

Q4 2016 saw highest payouts to shareholders (combined cash dividends and share repurchases) in over 10 years (couple of slides from my course presentation):

And yet... yet... earnings have hit the brick wall back in Q3 2014 and have been trending down ever since:

You really can't call S&P500 anything but a sail-in-the-Fed-wind. There are no fundamentals sustaining it above 1600-1650 range. At least, not corporate fundamentals.

Unless, of course, one expects the recent extraordinary payout performance to remain indefinitely present in the future. Which only a sell-side analyst or a lunatic can...

15/4/16: Slovakia v France: Risk Divergence


I love it when the good guys lead: "Slovakia leaps ahead of France, reveals country risk survey

Full article available here: http://www.euromoney.com/Article/3545875/Slovakia-leaps-ahead-of-France-reveals-country-risk-survey.html?copyrightInfo=true

My full comment on the matter:

"From macroeconomic perspective the two economies appear to be heading in the opposite direction.

While France is experiencing weakening growth momentum with forecast real GDP growth rates for 2016-2017 at around 1.55 percent on average and declining (1H 2015 compared to current, a forecast swing of around 0.05 percentage points), Slovakian economy is gaining speed, with current forecast growth rate at around 3.57 percent for 2016-2017, representing an upgrade of around 0.3 percentage points.

Much of this is accounted for by differences in investment (rising in Slovakia, as a share of GDP, while relatively stagnant in France), as well as growth in exports of goods and services (with Slovakia expected to outperform France in terms of growth in exports in both 2016 and 2017 - a reversal on 2015 outrun).

In fiscal policy terms, both countries are expected to post modest reduction in total burden of Government in the economy, reflected in the declining ratio of Government revenues to GDP over 2016-2017. However, in France, this forecast is less certain due to political cycle and ongoing lack of progress on both structural reforms and fiscal targets. In contrast, Slovakia already runs relatively lean, strongly value-for-money focused public spending policies. As the result, even under relatively rosy projections, France will continue to post greater Government deficits than Slovakia through 2017. Crucially, even with negative Government yields on French debt, France is currently running deeper primary deficits than Slovakia, which suggests that the French fiscal space is much thinner than headline difference between the two countries suggest.

The above dynamics also point to continued divergence between the two countries' paths in terms of external balances. Slovakia's current account surplus in 2016-2017 is likely to average at around 0.15 percent of GDP. In contrast, France's current account deficit is expected to be around 0.37 percent of GDP.

In simple terms, diverging macroeconomic and political risks paths do warrant risk repricing in the case of both Slovakia (to the downside of risks) and France (to the upside in terms of risks assessment) into 2016, and possibly into 2017."

The risk trends are indeed showing counter-movement:


15/4/16: Of Breakeven Price of Oil: Russia v ROW


There has been much confusion in recent months as to the 'break-even' price of oil for Russian and other producers. In particular, some analysts have, in the past, claimed that Russian production is bust at oil prices below USD40pb, USD30pb and so on.

This ignores the effects of Ruble valuations on oil production costs. Devalued Ruble results in lower U.S. Dollar break-even pricing of oil production for Russian producers.

It also ignores the capital cost of production (which is not only denominated in Rubles, with exception of smaller share of Dollar and Euro-denominated debt, but is also partially offset by the cross-holdings of Russian corporate debt by affiliated banks and investment funds). It generally ignores capital structuring of various producers, including the values of tax shields and leverage ratios involved.

Third factor driving oil break-even price for Russian (and other) producers is ability to switch some of production across the fields, pursuing lower cost, less mature fields where extraction costs might be lower. This is independent of type of field referenced (conventional vs unconventional oils).

Russian Energy Ministry recently stated that Russian oil production break-even price of Brent for Russian producers is around USD 2 pb, which reflects (more likely than not) top quality fields for conventional oil. Russian shale reserves break-even at USD20 pb. In contrast, Rosneft estimates break-even at USD2.7 pb (February 2016 estimate) down from USD4.0 pb (September 2015 estimate).

Here is a chart mapping international comparatives in terms of break-even prices that more closely resembles the above statements:


Here is another chart (from November 2015) showing more crude averaging, with breakdown between notional capital costs (not separating capital costs that are soft leverage - cross-owned - from hard leverage - carrying hard claims on EBIT):


Another point of contention with the above figures is that they use Brent grade pricing as a benchmark, whereby Russian oil is priced at Urals grade, while U.S. prices oil at WTI (see here: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Will-Russian-Urals-Overtake-Brent-As-The-Worlds-Oil-Benchmark.html). All three benchmarks are moving targets relative to each other, but adjusting for two factors:

  • Historical Brent-Urals spread at around 3.5-4 USD pb and
  • Ongoing increase in Urals-like supply of Iranian oil
we can relatively safely say that Russian break-even production point is probably closer to USD7.5-10 pb Brent benchmark than to USD20pb or USD30pb.

Another interesting aspect of the charts above is related to the first chart, which shows clearly that Russian state extracts more in revenues, relative to production costs, from each barrel of oil than the U.S. unconventional oil rate of revenue extraction. Now, you might think that higher burden of taxation (extraction) is bad, except, of course, when it comes to the economic effects of the curse of oil. In normal economic setting, a country producing natural resources should aim to capture more of natural resources revenues into reserve funds to reduce its economic concentration on the extractive sectors. So Russia appears to be doing this. Which, assuming (a tall assumption, of course) Russia can increase efficiency of its fiscal spending, means that Russia can more effectively divert oil-related cash flows toward internal investment and development.

During the boom years, it failed to do so (see here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2016/02/10216-was-resource-boom-boom-for.html) although it was not unique amongst oil producers in its failure. 

Note: WSJ just published some figures on the same topic, which largely align with my analysis above: http://graphics.wsj.com/oil-barrel-breakdown/?mod=e2tw.

Update: Bloomberg summarises impact of low oil prices on U.S. banks' balancesheets: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-04-15/wall-street-s-oil-crash-a-story-told-in-charts.

Update 2: Meanwhile, Daily Reckoning posted this handy chart showing the futility of forecasting oil prices with 'expert' models

15/4/16: Banking Union, Competition and Banking Sector Concentration


One of the key changes in recent years across the entire U.S. economy has been growth in market concentration (lower competition) and regulatory burden increases in a number of sector, including banking. A good summary of the matter is provided here: http://www.americanactionforum.org/research/market-concentration-grew-obama-administration/ .


However, an interesting chart based on the U.S. Fed data, shows that even with these changes U.S. banking sector remains relatively more competitive than in other advanced economies:


Source: @HPSInsight

Interestingly, European banks are also becoming more regional, as opposed to global, players as discussed here: http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/03/the-us-is-beginning-to-dominate-global-investment-banking-implications-for-europe.html

Chart next shows market shares of the European Investment Banking markets accruing to banks originating in the following jurisdictions:


Source: @NakedCapitalism

As an argument goes: “Deutsche Bank and Barclays are the only Europeans left in the top seven for the EMEA market. But they are likely to lose their positions because Deutsche Bank is currently undergoing a major reorganisation and Barclays is in the process of executing the Vickers split. In the investment banking field, the only pan-European banks will all soon be American. This has the corollary, for good or bad, that European national and EU-level authorities, such as the European Commission, will have rather less direct control over them. A key part of the European financial system is slipping out of the grasp of the European authorities.

Which begs two questions:

Does Europe need more regulation-induced consolidation in the sector, aiming to make TBTF European banking giants even bigger and even less diversified globally, as the European Banking Union and European Capital Markets Union, coupled with increasing push toward greater regulatory constraints on Fintech sector are likely to do?

Or does Europe need more disruptive and more agile, as well as risk-diversified, smaller banking systems and more open innovation culture in banking and financial services?


Note: you can see my analysis of the European Capital Markets Union here: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2592918

Tuesday, April 12, 2016

12/4/16: Look, Ma... It's [not] Working: IMF & the R-word


A handy chart from the IMF highlighting changes over the last 12 months in forecast probability of recession 12mo forward across the global economy



Yes, things are getting boomier... as every major region, save Asia and ROW are experiencing higher probability of recession today than in both October 2015 and April 2015, and as probability of a recession in 2016 is now above 30 percent for the Euro area and above 40 percent for Japan.

In that 'repaired' world of Central Banks' activism (described here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2016/04/12416-imf-rip-growth-update-risks.html) we can only dream of more assets purchases and more government debt monetizing, and more public investment on things we all can't live without...

Because, look, it's working:

12/4/16: IMF (RIP) Growth Update: Risks Realism, Policy Idiocy


IMF WORLD ECONOMIC OUTLOOK update out today (we don’t yet have full data set update).

Top line forecasts published confirm what we already knew: global economic growth is going nowhere, fast.  Actually, faster than 3 months ago.

Run through top figures:

  • Global growth: In October 2015 (last full data update we had), the forecast for 2016-2017 was 3.6 percent and 3.8 percent. Now, it is 3.2 percent and 3.5 percent. Cumulated loss (over 2016-2017) of 0.725 percentage points in world GDP within a span 6 months.
  • Advanced Economies growth: October 2015 forecast was for 2.2% in 2016 and 2.2% in 2017. Now: 1.9% and 2.0%. Cumulated loss of 0.51 percentage points in 6 months
  • U.S.: October 2015 outlook estimated 2016-2017 annual rate of growth at 2.8 percent. April 2016 forecast is 2.4% and 2.5% respectively, for a cumulative two-years loss in growth terms of 0.72 percentage points
  • Euro area: the comatose of growth were supposed to eek out GDP expansion of 1.6 and 1.7 percent in 2016-2017 under October 2015 forecast. April 2016 forecast suggests growth is expected to be 1.5% and 1.6%. The region remains the weakest advanced economy after Japan
  • Japan is now completely, officially dead-zone for growth. In October 2015, IMF was forecasting growth of 1% in 2016 and 0.4% in 2017. That was bad? Now the forecast is for 0.5% and -0.1% respectively. Cumulated loss in Japan’s real GDP over 2016-2017 is 1.005 percentage points.
  • Brazil: Following 3.8 contraction in 2015 is now expected to produce another 3.8 contraction in real GDP in 2016 before returning to 0.00 percent growth in 2017. Contrast this with October WEO forecast for 2016 growth at -1% and 2017 forecast for growth of +2.3% and you have two-years cumulated loss in real GDP of a whooping 5.08 percentage points.
  • Russia: projections for 2016-2017 growth published in October 2015 were at -0.6% and 1% respectively. New projections are -1.8% and +0.8%, implying a cumulative loss in real GDP outlook for 2016-2017 of 1.41 percentage points.
  • India: The only country covered by today’s update with no revisions to October 2015 forecasts. IMF still expects the country economy to expand 7.5% per annum in both 2016 and 2017
  • China: China is the only country with an upgrade for forecasts for both 2016 and 2017 compared to both January 2016 and October 2016 IMF releases. Chinese economy is now forecast to grow 6.5% and 6.2% in 2016 and 2017, compared to October 2015 forecast of 6.3% and 6.0%.


Beyond growth forecasts, IMF also revised its forecasts for World Trade Volumes. In October 2015, the Fund projected World Growth to expand at 4.1% and 4.6% y/y in 2016 and 2017. April 2016 update sees this growth falling to 3.1% and 3.8%, respectively. And this is without accounting for poor prices performance.

In short, World economy’s trip through the Deadville (that started around 2011) is running swimmingly:





Meanwhile, as IMF notes, “financial risks prominent, together with geopolitical shocks, political discord”. In other words,we are one shock away from a disaster.

IMF response to this is: "The current diminished outlook calls for an immediate, proactive response… To support global growth, …there is a need for a more potent policy mix—a three-pronged policy approach based on structural, fiscal, and monetary policies.” In other words, what IMF thinks the world needs is:

  1. More private & financial debt shoved into the system via Central Banks
  2. More deficit spending to boost Government debt levels for the sake of ‘jobs creation’, and
  3. More tax ‘rebalancing’ to make sure you don’t feel too wealthy from (1) and (2) above, whilst those who do get wealthy from (1) and (2) - aka banks, institutional investors, crony state-connected contractors - can continue to enjoy tax holidays.

In addition, of course, the fabled IMF ‘structural reforms’ are supposed to benefit the World Economy by making sure that labour income does not get any growth any time soon. Because, you know, someone (labour earners) has to suffer if someone (banks & investment markets) were to party a bit harder… for sustainability sake.

IMF grafts this idiocy of an advice onto partially realistic analysis of underlying risks to global growth:

  • “The recovery is hampered by weak demand, partly held down by unresolved crisis legacies, as well as unfavorable demographics and low productivity growth. In the United States, ..domestic demand will be supported by strengthening balance sheets, no further fiscal drag, and an improving housing market. These forces are expected to offset the drag to net exports coming from a strong dollar and weaker manufacturing.” One wonders if the IMF noticed rising debt levels in households (car loans, student loans) or U.S. corporates, or indeed the U.S. Government debt dynamics
  • “In the euro area, low investment, high unemployment, and weak balance sheets weigh on growth…” You can’t but wonder if the IMF actually is capable of seeing households of Europe as still being somewhat economically alive.


But the Fund does see incoming risks rising: “In the current environment of weak growth, risks to the outlook are now more pronounced. These include:

  • A return of financial turmoil, impairing confidence. For instance, an additional bout of exchange rate depreciations in emerging economies could further worsen corporate balance sheets, and a sharp decline in capital inflows could force a rapid compression of domestic demand. [Note: nothing about Western Banks being effectively zombified by capital requirements uncertainty, corporate over-leveraging, still weighted down by poor quality assets, etc]
  • A sharper slowdown in China than currently projected could have strong international spillovers through trade, commodity prices, and confidence, and lead to a more generalized slowdown in the global economy. 
  • Shocks of a noneconomic origin—related to geopolitical conflicts, political discord, terrorism, refugee flows, or global epidemics—loom over some countries and regions and, if left unchecked, could have significant spillovers on global economic activity.”


The key point, however, is that with currently excessively leveraged Central Banks’ balance sheets and with interest rates being effectively at zero, any of the above (and other, unmentioned by the IMF) shocks can derail the entire wedding of the ugly groom with an unsightly bride that politicians around the world call ‘the ongoing recovery’. And that point is only a sub-text to the IMF latest update. It should have been the front page of it.

So before anyone noticed, almost a 1,000 rate cuts around the world later, and roughly USD20 trillion in various asset purchasing programmes around the globe, trillions in bad assets work-outs and tens of trillions in Government and corporate debt uplifts, we are still where we were: at a point of system fragility being so acute, even the half-blind moles of IMF spotting the shine of the incoming train.

Monday, April 11, 2016

10/4/16: The Real 'Panamas' Of Tax Havens... Are Not In Central America


The story of the Panama Papers leak has brought, on a 3.6 terabyte scale, the issue of money laundering and tax evasion back to the forefront of the mainstream media. However, quietly, and unnoticed by the majority of the punters, tax optimisation and tax evasion have been moving closer and closer to the homesteads of the Governments so keen on reducing it elsewhere, beyond their own borders.

Here are just a couple of links worth checking out on the matter:

  1. The role of Nevada (yes, one of the U.S. states) as an emerging tax haven of choice: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-27/the-world-s-favorite-new-tax-haven-is-the-united-states
  2. The role of the UK (yes, another - alongside the U.S. - leader in BEPS process and the driver of the G20 push to close down ‘other nations’’ tax havens) : http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/london-now-worlds-capital-money-7729809


Of course, the shocker no one wants to highlight when it comes to Panama Papers is that Panama became a tax haven conduit for the world on foot of U.S.-approved and / or U.S.-tolerated policies choices that stretch decades after decades after decades.

Panama’s first dappling with tax haven status was in 1927, when the country accommodated first registrations of foreign ships in a move designed to shield Rockefeller's Standard Oil from U.S. taxmen. The law allowed foreign owners to set up tax-free, anonymous corporations with little disclosures, including no requirement to disclose beneficial owners.

By 1948, the country set up its first ‘free trade zones’. One of these - the Colon FTZ - became the largest free trade zone (or tax free zone) in all of the Americas, a hit spot for trading for narcos and black marketeers.

By 1980s, Panama was saturated with offshore accounts schemes and by 1980s these started to attract large volumes of drug money. By the late 1990s, the former were pushed deeper into secrecy and the top trade became politicians, wealthy individual investors and others.

A good summary of Panama's tax haven history is available here: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/apr/10/panama-canal-president-jp-morgan-tax-haven.

The U.S. always knew this. And the U.S. knew this when in penned and subsequently implemented the 2011 Free Trade Agreement (with both Presidents George W. Bush and Barak Obama being behind that pearl of ‘free trade’ wisdom). One side of the coin was that FTA required Panama to enter into a separate tax information exchange treaty with the U.S., on the surface, implying improved transparency. But behind the scenes, Panama gained effectively an ‘all-clear’ sign from the U.S., making the country officially ‘compliant’. This meant that Panama could operate even more brazenly in the global markets, as long as it satisfied minimal U.S. requirements on disclosures.

Worse, until February 2016, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international body responsible for setting and monitoring anti-money laundering rules, had Panama on its "blacklist" of non-compliant countries. Something the U.S. knew too. It was removed from the list because the Government passed some new laws designed to curb inflows of outright criminal funds into its financial system

In February 2014, the IMF carried out review of Panama’s regulatory and enforcement regimes relating to FATF regulations. Here is the first line conclusion from the IMF: “Panama is vulnerable to money laundering (ML) from a number of sources including drug trafficking and other predicate crimes committed abroad such as fraud, financial and tax crimes” (see full report here: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/scr/2014/cr1454.pdf).

When it comes to money laundering (ML), the IMF states that “According to the [Panamanian] authorities, the largest source of ML is drug trafficking. Other significant but less important predicate offenses and sources of ML are cited to include: arms trafficking, financial crimes, human trafficking, kidnapping, corruption of public officials and illicit enrichment. With respect to predicate crimes committed outside of Panama, the authorities indicate that these would include activities related to financial crimes, tax crimes (tax evasion is not a predicate crime for ML in Panama) and fraud. These foreign offenses are likely to be linked with Panama’s position as an offshore jurisdiction. It is believed that ML related to these crimes is conducted electronically through the use of computers and the internet using new banking instruments and systems both in Panama and internationally. The authorities indicated that the diversity of foreign predicate crimes has been increasing in recent times.”

Overall, Panama laws still do not cover, even under the U.S. ‘enhanced transparency’ regime actions of lawyers, accountants, insurance companies, notaries, real estate agents or brokers dealing in precious metals and stones.

This all is now coming as a shocker for the U.S. and UK and European authorities in the wake of the Panama Papers leak? Give me a break!

The co-founder of Mossack Fonseca, Ramon Fonseca, recently accused the BEPS-leading countries, the U.S. and UK of hypocrisy. "I assure you there is more dirty money in New York, Miami and London than there is in Panama," he told the New York Times (see: http://www.bbc.com/news/business-35998801). And just in case you wonder, here are top 30 countries in terms of financial secrecy laws:

Yep. USA - Number 3... and so on...

Sunday, April 10, 2016

10/4/16: Russian Bonds Issuance: Some Recent Points of Pressure


Catching up with some data from past few weeks over a number of post and starting with some Russian data.

First, March issue of Russian bonds. The interesting bit relating RUB22.8 billion issuance was less the numbers, but the trend on issuance and issuance underwriting.

First, bid cover was more than four times the amount of August 2021 bonds on offer, raising RUB22.8 billion ($337 million) across
  • fixed-rate notes (bids amounted to RUB47 billion on RUB11.5 billion of August 2021 bonds on offer)
  • floating-rate notes (bids amounted to RUB25 billion on issuance of RUB9.33 billion of December 2017 floating coupon paper) and 
  • inflation-linked securities (amounting to RUB2.01 billion)
This meant that Russia covered in one go 90 percent of its planned issuance for 1Q 2016, as noted by Bloomberg at the time - the highest coverage since 2011. With this, the Finance Ministry will aim to sell RUB270 billion in the 2Q 2016.

Bloomberg provided a handy chart showing as much:


Now, in 2011, Russian economy was still at the very beginning of a structural slowdown period and well ahead of any visibility of sanctions.

Sanctions are not directly impacting sales of Russian Government bonds, but the U.S. has consistently applied pressure on American and European banks attempting to prevent them from underwriting Moscow's Government issues (http://www.wsj.com/articles/u-s-warns-banks-off-russian-bonds-1456362124). Prior to the auction, Moscow invited 25 Western banks and 3 domestic banks to bid for USD3 billion worth of Eurobonds (the first issuance of Eurobonds by Russia since 2013). Despite the EU official statement that current sanctions regime does not prohibit purchases or sales of Government bonds, Western banks took to the hills (at least officially).

The point of the U.S. pressure on the European banks is a simple threat: in recent years, the U.S. regulators have aggressively pursued European banks for infringements on sanctions against Iran and other activities. In effect, U.S. regulatory enforcement has been used to establish Washington's power point over European banking institutions. And the end game was that, despite being legal, sale of Eurobonds was off limits for BNP Paribas, Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and UBS, not to mention U.S.-based Bank of America, Citi, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo.

Another dimension of pressure is the denomination of the Eurobond. Moscow wanted Eurobond issued in dollars. However, dollar-issuance requires settlement via the U.S., enhancing U.S. authorities power to exercise arbitrary restriction on a deal that is legal under the U.S. laws (as not being officially covered by sanctions).

Beyond underwriters, even buy-side for Russian Government bonds is being pressured, primarily by the U.S., with a range of European and American investment funds getting hammered: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-24/russia-loses-buyside-support-for-eurobond-after-banks-balk.

Russian Government bonds (10 year benchmark) are trading at around 9.26-9.3 percent yield range, well down on December 2014 peak of over 14.09 percent, but still massively above bonds for countries with comparable macroeconomic performance statistics.



Interestingly, there is a huge demand in the market for Russian Eurobonds, as witnessed by mid-March issuance by Gazprom of bonds denominated in CHF (see: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-16/gazprom-taps-switzerland-with-russia-s-first-eurobond-this-year).

It is worth noting again that Russian Government bonds are not covered by any sanctions and are completely legal to underwrite and transact in.

Beyond this, the Western sanctions were explicitly designed to avoid placing financial pressures on ordinary Russians. Government bonds are used to fund general Government deficits arising from all lines of Government expenditure, including healthcare, social welfare, education etc, but also including military spending, while excluding supports for sanctioned enterprises and banks (the latter line of expenditure is linked to funds being sourced from the SWF reserves). Given this, the U.S. position on bonds issuance represents a potential departure from the U.S.-stated objective of sanctions and can be interpreted as an attempt to directly induce pain on ordinary Russians (the more vulnerable segments of the population, such as the elderly, children and those in need of healthcare, or as they are termed in Russian - budgetniki - those whose incomes depend on the Budgetary allocations).

This is a sad turn of events from markets and U.S. policy perspectives - placing arbitrary and extra-legal restrictions on transactions that are perfectly legal is not a good policy basis, unless the U.S. objective is to fully politicise financial markets in general. Neither is the U.S. position consistent with the ethical stance de jure adopted under the sanctions regime.

Thursday, April 7, 2016

7/4/16: Globalization and the Future of Work


As promised, my slides deck from Tuesday's CXC Global event on the Future of Work and Contingent Workforce











6/4/16: Apps, Contingent Workforce and U.S. Employment Trends


Here is an interesting chart from the WSJ on the scale of the apps platforms-related Gig-economy employment and the underlying trends in growth on other contingent workforce:

Yes, overall app platform employment is low, as I mentioned in my presentation at the CXC forum on the future of workforce in San Francisco yesterday, but...

The big 'but' here is that overall app platforms-related employment growth is most likely contributing to the weakening of the quality of contingent workforce (in terms of skills, value added and sustainability), not strengthening it, and thus requires more systemic supports and changes in this workforce management and enablement.

More on this later, so stay tuned.

Sunday, April 3, 2016

2/4/16: Tsipras: Europe's Cross of Forest Gump and Donald Trump


The tragedy of Europe is the comedy of Europe. And it is best illustrated in the case of Greece, or by Greece, where the latest debt-related scandal is telling us more about the infinite degree of European leaders' tupidity and outright lack of duty of care for their own citizens and societies than anything Kafka could have contrived.

The basis for the scandal is the following:

Act 1: IMF staff had a conference call discussing their engagement with the European Institutions in renewing the Greek bailout deal that is due to be renewed (from IMF side) in April. Now, as a precondition to this conversation we have:

  • Greece is carrying to much debt after the 'breakthrough' deal 'achieved' last summer and it cannot repay all this debt. 
  • IMF knows as much and said as much officially
  • IMF also knows, and has publicly declared this before, that Greek debt can only be made sustainable by European authorities engaging in debt restructuring for Greece that introduces real haircuts on debt.
  • Thus, IMF position going into April is to support Greek economy's objective of attaining debt relief from European 'partners'
  • IMF are the good guys for Greek economy (as far as anyone in the game can be a good guy, of course).
Act 2: At the call, details of which were leaked, IMF officials discussed between themselves a possibility for the Fund taking a hardline position with respect to European Institutions in an attempt to influence them to give Greece debt relief. Which means that:
  • IMF was considering strong-arming Europe into doing the right thing for Greece; and
  • Greece would have benefited socially and economically if IMF were successful in what was discussed
Act 3: Enter 'Forest Gump Grafted on Donald Trump' of European politics - Greek PM Alexis Tsipras. Tsipras goes apoplectic with two things IMF conference call leak did:
  • One, Tsipras is livid with the IMF discussing the tactic that could help Greek people by reducing the unsustainable debt burden they are forced to carry courtesy of the EU. The PM of an excessively indebted nation forced onto its knees by collapsed economy and debts is actively fighting against an idea of giving help to that economy.  And he is doing so despite the fact that this debt relief was his own  electoral platform! The lad is certifiable.
  • Two, Tsipras if livid that someone leaked the transcript of the conversation, because, presumably in Europe, when a tree falls in a forest no one cares - out of sight = out of mind. It is the public embarrassment for a PM who barked at the IMF all along despite the fact that the IMF was all along his only friend in the entire EU-led fiasco of debasing the Greek economy. The embarrassment of being shown publicly to be damaging to his own society and economy. The lad is venal.
This latest three-acts Greek drama is beyond any comparative I can think of in modern history. If the Greek people ever wanted a PM who can throughly destroy the entire Greek society whilst shedding crocodile tears at the loss, they could not have invented a protagonist villain functional enough to match Tsipras.


Details of the drama are conveyed here: http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN0WZ0J6.

Sunday, March 20, 2016

20/3/16: Economic Reality v Central Banking: Vegas-styled Showdown


What’s going wrong with the global monetary policy? Nothing, really, except for the economic reality.

Let me explain. In a forthcoming article I will be highlighting the channels through which monetary policy deployed in recent years (a combination of extremely low lending rates, negative in many cases deposit rates, massive asset purchases or QE) have contributed to increasing markets and economic volatility, whilst achieving preciously nothing in terms of lifting up economic growth.

Here, let’s consider what I shall term the ‘extreme impotency’ of monetary policy in the age of a structural debt crisis.


Lessons from the ECB

Earlier this month, ECB did something remarkable. Prior to its March meeting, the ECB has hyped markets expectations for a dramatic monetary expansion (as pre-flagged here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2016/02/28216-ecb-in-march-thaw-or-spring.html). On the day of the announcement, the ECB actually exceeded markets expectation as I noted here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2016/03/14316-t-rex-v-paper-clip-of-draghi-and.html and de facto threw in the entire kitchen sink of monetary policies at the fire. This had no real effect.

The ECB forced through extraordinary measures:

  1. Already negative interest rate on ECB’s main deposit facility were pushed down from -30 to -40 basis points. 

  2. ECB’s monthly bond purchases (the so-called QE programme) were expanded by 1/3rd from EUR60 to EUR80 billion a month, and the time frame for QE was not cut shorter, staying at March 2017 end-date. Better yet (or rather worse), Mario Draghi said the deadline might be extended, if required. 
  3. ECB expanded the range of assets it is buying to include “investment-grade, non-bank corporate bonds” - a measure that will be deployed from June on, reflective of tightening supply in sovereign bond markets and of the ‘kitchen sink’ approach to policy. 
  4. Then, there is an expansion of the T-LTROs universe to introduction of four new targeted long-term refinancing  operation facilities with a maturity of four years. The TLTROs are ECB loans to banks designed - so it says on the tin - to help them increase liquidity. Which is, as pure bullshit goes, pure bullshit - there is no shortage of liquidity in the banking system. If there was one - ECB will not be having negative deposit rates. Instead, there is a perceived shortage of lending from that liquidity. Or in simple terms: not enough debt is being issued. So to help banks lend, the ECB promised that those banks where net lending exceeded a benchmark, the interest rate charged by the ECB on TLTRO loans can be set as low as the ECB deposit rate facility rate of -0.4%. In other words the ECB will actually pay banks to issue the loans. 

Notice one simple regularity: all measures deployed by the ECB in March and indeed all measures deployed by the ECB across the entire QE are designed to do one thing and one thing only. They are designed to create more debt in the system that has been imploding from too much debt ever since the start of 2008. The ECB is, therefore, curing drug addiction by massively increasing supplies of more pure grade cocaine. If before the ECB started acting the system was sloshing around privately intermediated debt with higher associated costs, now it is being primed by low cost liquidity from the ECB.

The monetary party should have turned into a total rave by now. It did not. Primarily because the financial drug addicts have already over-dosed, so new shipments of the monetarists’ white gold are simply no longer capable of doing much. Just how bad things are? Amidst announcing its most recent ‘blanket bombing with cash’ approach to monetary policy, ECB also lowered its growth projections for the euro area, from 1.7% y/y real GDP growth to 1.4% for 2016. You really can’t make it up: as Mario Draghi bragged about ECB’s valiant efforts to boost economic growth, and as he promised even more of the same, his own forecasters were telling us that none of it is working.


No one in the markets is actually believing anything the Central Bankers say anymore

Bonds investors are refusing to sell bonds (something that should have happened if anyone trusted Central Banks on their promises to deliver higher inflation). Banks shares remain in the same pattern of volatile trading with no one having a faintest idea as to profitability of the paper they are shifting. Asset prices are rising, but they are not rising for real assets (hedges against potential inflation). Banks lending, meanwhile, is getting more questionable. Larger corporate borrowings are funding increasingly higher volumes of shares buybacks (see post here http://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2016/03/19316-shares-buy-backs-horror-show-of.html). While ECB prints cash, households and SMEs continue to struggle with legacy debts, so that demand for new loans is simply not there no matter how low the interest rates get.

In the U.S., subprime auto loans are now in a securitisation squeeze (see here http://www.wsj.com/articles/subprime-flashback-early-defaults-are-a-warning-sign-for-auto-sales-1457862187). While student loans defaults eased somewhat (down form 2.5% of all loans in 4Q 2014 to 2.3% in 4Q 2015) much of the decline is accounted for by softer loans covenants (see here: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2016/03/17/Report-Student-loan-delinquencies-decline-repayment-on-the-rise/9181458240922/). The 'deleveraged' U.S. households are about to be whacked with healthcare loans markets resting on securitisation model because new debt is good debt until it becomes the unrepayable old debt (http://www.institutionalinvestor.com/article/3538890/banking-and-capital-markets-banking/health-care-loans-offer-possible-remedy-for-high-us-drug-costs.html#/.Vu8pOBIrL_8).

The UK household debt is heading for new highs (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/03/17/household-debt-binge-has-no-end-in-sight-says-obr/).  Canadian household debt is already there (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/economy/canadians-debt-burden-still-growing-hits-record-in-fourth-quarter/article29172712/). In the U.S., borrowing is rising across virtually all categories (https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/credit-cards/household-debt-edged-upward-at-end-of-2015/). In Europe, Finland, Spain, Portugal, UK, Sweden, Ireland, Norway, Cyprus, Netherlands and Denmark all have household debt in excess of 100% of GDP.

Meanwhile, negative deposit rates for the banks holding funds with the central banks are hurting banking profitability, costing bank services users in higher fees and higher cost of loans, and dis-incentivising more conservative banks' reserves accumulation.

The real problem, of course, is that the Central Banks are unwilling to face the music. Again, consider the euro area. Here, sluggish demand and weak growth are the key drivers for low inflation. And these drivers themselves are determined by the well-known factors, such as, structural decline in labour and TFP productivity growth, lack of serious competition and free trade across much of services, legacy of pre-crisis debt overhang in household sectors and over-leveraging that has  gone on in corporate sector since 2010. Both of these now require restricting legacy debts and/or their partial repayment funded by the ECB. There are also bottlenecks in labour markets, including in areas relating to labour costs, but also in areas relating to skills, workplace practices, wages growth, hours of work demanded, labour force participation, etc.

All of which means that the ECB has been targeting wrong policy objectives using wrong policy tools. And the result is utter and total failure to deliver on its targets. A failure that is equally present for Bank of Japan, and in the longer run - potentially for the U.S. Fed. Let me put this simply: the only functional tool that central banks like ECB and Bank of Japan have is the tool of directly injecting liquidity into debt-burdened companies and households, targeting such injections to either repayments of legacy debts or to building up functional pensions and capex savings buffers. This is much more nuanced than Friedman’s ‘helicopter drop of money’, but it is similar to it in so far as the ‘drop’ must not target debt underwriting intermediaries (banks) and it should not aim to increase issuance of new debt. Instead, it should target balance sheets of households and companies.

The markets know that the Central Banks are out of options, out of depth and out of understanding of what is really wrong with the economy. And, thus, markets are no longer listening to what the Central Bankers say, resting upon the knowledge that the extraordinary policies of the recent past are not a cure of the disease, but the symptom of it: the stronger the Central Bank's signalled commitment to easing, the weaker is the underlying economy, the less likely is the Central Bank's announced policies to have an effect.


Lessons from Japan

Back on January 29th, Bank of Japan announced a convoluted program of differential negative interest rates on deposits.

After the initially positive reaction, the entire game was up: yen rose (instead of falling), and Japan’s terms of trade deteriorated instead of improving. With the negative rates sitting on top of a USD700 billion annual money printing QE programme, yen appreciation was concentrated in two currencies (both the USD and renminbi) which account for most of the Japanese exports. What is more amazing is that following the announcement, Japanese bond yields collapsed (predictably), only to subsequently rise again. The whole market for Japanese Government paper was oscillating like a precarious bubble ready to pop. In this environment, as U.S. is heading for a Fed-declared ‘monetary normalisation’, Government bond yields continue to fall. Meanwhile, in the monetary expansion-minded Europe, German yields are rising, then falling, then rising again. Ditto for Japan. In other words, there is no longer any real connection between monetary policy and markets pricing of Government bonds.

The Central Banks no longer have signalling power left, as the markets have largely stopped listening to the monetary authorities pronouncements. While the Fed has de facto destroyed monetary policy credibility by the way it prepared for, carried out and followed upon its December 15 rate hike, Bank of Japan and the ECB have finished the same off by their kitchen sink efforts at stimulating inflation.

Bill Gross has a neat summary of the state of play: “Instead of historically generating economic growth via a wealth effect and its trickledown effect on the real economy, negative investment rates and the expansion of central bank balance sheets via quantitative easing are creating negative effects… Negative yields threaten bank profit margins as yield curves flatten worldwide and bank NIM’s (net interest rate margins) narrow. The recent collapse in worldwide bank stock prices can be explained not so much by potential defaults in the energy/commodity complex, as by investor recognition that banks are now not only being more tightly regulated, but that future ROE’s will be much akin to a utility stock. Observe the collapse in bank stock prices – not just in the last few months but post Lehman. I’ll help you: Citibank priced at $500 in 2007, now $38 as shown in Chart I. BAC $50/now $12. Credit Suisse $70/now $13. Deutsche $130/now $16. Goldman Sachs $250/now $146. Banking/finance seems to be either a screaming sector ready to be bought or a permanently damaged victim of writeoffs, tighter regulation and significantly lower future margins. I’ll vote for the latter.” (Bill Gross Investment Outlook March 2016)


More of the same v much much much more of the same

Which brings us about to the key question: with monetary policy becoming completely impotent, what can be done to provide a meaningful stimulus to the economies staring at a de facto stagnation (Japan and the Euro area) or the risk of structurally slower growth (the U.S. and much of the rest of the advanced economies)?

The answer depends on what your monetary ideology is.

In the camp of traditional Central Bankers, it is ‘doing more of the same’ with ever widening scope of instruments: when printing money via QE is not enough, go to negative deposit rates and expand QE to all sorts of corporate debt papers. The key premise here is that issuing more debt is the only solution to the debt crisis. The problem with this approach is apparent. There is too much debt in the system already and our (companies and households) capacity to absorb more of it is exhausted.

In the other camp (and I must disclose personal interest here), the view is that given we are faced with the debt crisis, the only answer is to reduce debt or deleverage. This can be done destructively (by engaging in bleeding the economy dry by forcing debt foreclosures and bankruptcies, while simultaneously reducing the cost of debt carry through lower interest rates), or constructively (via structured write-offs of debt and through QE that injects funds directly into companies and households accounts for the purpose of debt write downs). The former approach requires sustained economic contraction over the period of forced deleveraging. The latter approach implies actually healthier balance sheets across the entire economy.

The first camp of ‘traditionalists’ is only now starting to realise that the only way their approach might work is if the Central Banks de facto commit to a perpetual easing (as opposed to temporary). Narayana Kocherlakota thinks same should apply to the negative deposit rates, although one is hard pressed to imagine what quality of assets and capital does he think the banks will hold in the medium term with negative deposit rates.

The problem, however, is that the ‘traditionalists’ - who dominate Central Banks and Government advisory - are still refusing, some 9 years into the crisis, to acknowledge the debt overhang nature of the crisis. Until they do, Central Banks will continue throwing good money at the wrong targets, delivering neither a relief for the real economy nor a momentum for real growth.