12/6/20: American Love Affair with Debt: Part 2: Leverage Risk

I have earlier updated the data on the total real private economic debt in the U.S. as of the end of 1Q 2020 here: https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2020/06/12620-american-love-affair-with-debt.html

So, just how much is the U.S. economic growth dependent on debt? And have this dependency ben rising or falling prior to COVID19 pandemic onset? Well, here is your answer:

Using data through 1Q 2020, U.S. dependency on debt to generate economic growth in the private sector shot through the roof (see dotted red line above). In other words, U.S. corporate sector is leveraged to historical highs when the corporate debt levels are set against corporate value added.

All we need next is to see how 2Q 2020 COVID19 pandemic figures stack against this. A junkie hasn't been to a rehab, and the methadone clinic is closed...

12/6/20: American Love Affair With Debt: Pre-COVID Saga

Latest data for debt levels at the U.S. non-financial businesses and households (including non-profits) is out this week. So here are the charts and some stats:

There has been a bit of rush back in 1Q 2020 (the latest data available) to load up on loans by both private households and private businesses. 

• Non-financial business debt rose 7.86% y/y in that quarter, before COVID19 pandemic fully hit the U.S. economy. For comparison, previous quarter, debt rose *just* 4.81% y/y and 8 quarters annual growth rates average through 4Q 2019 was *only* 6.21%. Not only the U.S. businesses levered up over the last two years at a pace faster than nominal GDP growth, but their reckless abandon went into an overdrive in 1Q 2020.
• U.S. households and non-profit organizations serving them were not far behind the U.S. businesses. Debt levels in the U.S. households & NPOs rose 3.75% y/y in 1Q 2020, up on 3.26% y/y growth rate in 4Q 2019 and on 3.32% average growth rate over the two years through 4Q 2020. Which, in part, probably helps explain how on Earth financially-stretched American households managed to buy up a year worth of toilet paper supplies in one week in April.

Thus, overall, real private economic debt in the U.S. has ballooned in 1Q 2020, rising to USD 33.092 trillion. This marked y/y growth rate of 5.80% in 1Q 2020, up on 4.03% growth in 4Q 2019 and on 4.73% average growth over two years through 4Q 2019:

 

And yes, leverage risks in the private sector have increased as the result of these figures. At the end of 1Q 2020:

• U.S. non-financial businesses debts stood at 78.07% of GDP, an all-time high since the post-WW2 data started;
• U.S. households and NPOs debts stood at 75.6% of GDP, marking an official end to the post-Global Financial Crisis 'deleveraging' period that saw debt/GDP ratio declining to the low of 74.2% in 4Q 2019.
• Total non-financial private real economic debt stood at 153.67%, the highest level since 1Q 2011.

16/4/20: Lessons in Corporate Finance: COVID19

My article summing up some corporate finance lessons from the COVID19 crisis is now available at The Currency: https://www.thecurrency.news/articles/14752/as-we-rebuild-the-economy-we-need-to-escape-the-perilous-spiral-of-corporate-debt.

9/3/20: Beware the Endlessly Inflating Global Debt Bubble

My latest article for Manning Financial on the global debt overload is available here: https://issuu.com/publicationire/docs/mf_spring_2020?fr=sZjI3NzI2MTg4NA. Alternatively, see posted below (click on each image to magnify):

16/10/2019:Corporate Bond Markets are Primed for a Blowout

My this week's column for The Currency is covering the build up of systemic risks in the global corporate bond markets: https://www.thecurrency.news/articles/1962/constantin-gurdgiev-corporate-bond-markets-are-primed-for-a-blowout.

Synopsis: "Individual firms can be sensitive to the periodic repricing of risk by the investors. But collectively, the entire global corporate bond market is sitting on a powder keg of ultra-low government bond yields, with a risk-off fuse lit by the strengthening worries about global economic growth prospects. Currently, over USD 16 trillion worth of government bonds are traded at negative yields. This implies that in the longer run, market pricing is forcing accumulation of significant losses on balance sheets of all institutional investors holding government securities. Even a small correction in these markets can trigger investors to start offloading higher-risk corporate debt to pre-empt contagion from sovereign bonds markets and liquidate liquidity risk exposures."

1/9/19: Priming the Bubble Pump: Extreme Credit Accommodation in the U.S.

Using Chicago Fed National Financial Conditions Credit Subindex (weekly, not seasonally adjusted data), I have plotted credit conditions measurements for expansionary cycles from 1971 through late August 2019. Positive values of the index indicate tightening of credit conditions in the economy, while negative values denote loosening of credit conditions.

Since the start of the 1982 expansionary cycle, every consecutive cycle was associated with sustained, long term loosening of credit conditions, which means the Fed and the regulatory authorities have effectively pumped up credit in the economy during economic expansions - a mark of a pro-cyclical approach to financial policies. This trend became extreme in the last three expansionary cycles, including the current one. In simple terms, credit conditions from the end of the 1990s recession, through today, have been exceptionally accommodating. Not surprisingly, all three expansionary cycles in question have been associated with massive increases in leverage and financialization of the economy, as well as resulting asset bubbles (dot.com bubble in the 1990s, property bubble in the 2000s, and financial assets bubbles in the 2010s).

The current cycle, however, takes this broader trend toward pro-cyclical financial policies to a new level in terms of the duration of accommodation and the fact that it lacks any significant indication of moderation.

23/8/19: Counting Trillions: The Unrelenting March of Debt

The never-ending march of leverage:

Between 2001 and 2008, Big 4 Non-Financial Sector Debt rose USD 30.04 trillion or 96.5 percent from trough to peak. Since 1Q 2009 financial crisis trough through 2Q 2019, the same is up USD 37.35 trillion or 62.7 percent.

16/5/19: Identifying Debt Bubble 4.0

Having just posted on the debt supercycle-related comments from Gundlach (https://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2019/05/16519-gundlach-on-us-economy-and-debt.html), here is a chart identifying these super-cycles in the U.S. economy:

The periods of significant leverage in the U.S. economy have been identified as follows:

• First, I took nominal GDP growth rates (q/q) snd nominal total non-financial debt growth rates (also q/q) for the entire period of data coverage for which all data points are available (since 1Q 1966). 
• Second, I adjusted nominal non-financial debt growth rates to reflect the evolving ratio of debt to U.S. GDP.
• Third, I subtracted adjusted debt growth rates from nominal GDP growth rates to arrive at change in leverage risk direction. This is the difference figure shown in the chart below. Positive numbers reflect quarters when GDP growth rate exceeded growth in GDP-ratio-adjusted debt and are periods of deleveraging in the economy, and negative periods correspond to the situation where GDP growth rate was exceeded by GDP-ratio-adjusted growth rate in debt.
• Fourth, I calculated 99% confidence interval for historical average difference (shown in the chart below).
• Fifth, I identified three regimes of debt evolution: Regime 1 = "Deleveraging" corresponds to the Difference variable being non-negative (periods where the gap between growth rate in GDP and growth rate in debt is non-negative); Regime 2 = "Non-significant leveraging up" corresponds to periods where the gap (difference) between GDP growth rate and debt growth rate is between zero and the lower bound of the confidence interval for historical average difference; and Regime 3 = "Significant Leveraging up" corresponds to the periods where statistically-speaking, the negative gap between growth in GDP and growth in debt is statistically significantly below the historical average.

I highlighted in the above chart four periods of significant, persistent leveraging up, identified as Debt Bubbles 1-4. There is absolutely zero (statistical) doubt that the current period of economic recovery is yet another manifestation of a Debt Bubble. And, given the composition of the debt increases since the end of the Global Financial Crisis, this latest Bubble is evident across all three components of non-financial debt: the households, corporates and the U.S. Federal Government. 

16/5/19: Gundlach on the U.S. Economy and Debt Super-cycle

U.S. growth over the past five years is based “exclusively” on government, corporate and household debt, according to Jeffrey Gundlach, chief executive of DoubleLine Capital, as reported by Reuters (link below). This is hardly surprising. In my forthcoming article for Manning Financial (in print since last week), I am covering the shaky statistical nature of the U.S. GDP growth figures, and the readers of this blog would know my view on the role of leverage (debt) in the real economy as a drug of choice for boosting superficial medium term growth prospects in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere around the world. What is interesting in Gundlach's musings is that we now see mainstream WallStreet admitting the same.

Per Gundlach, the U.S. economy would have contracted in nominal GDP terms (excluding inflation effects) three out five last years if the United States had not added trillions in new government debt. Just government debt alone. “One thing everybody seems to miss when they look at these GDP numbers ... they seem to not understand that the growth in the GDP it looks pretty good on the screen is really based exclusively on debt - government debt, also corporate debt and even now some growth in mortgage debt.”

And if private sector debt did not expand, U.S. "GDP would have been very negative.” Per Reuters report, nominal GDP rose by 4.3%, but total public debt rose by 4.7% over the past five years, Gundlach noted. "Against this debt backdrop and financial markets “addicted to Federal Reserve stimulus,” these are “very, very dangerous times” for the next U.S. recession, Gundlach ...said."

Per CMBC report on the same speech, Gundlach said that “Any thoughtful person would be concerned... It’s sounding like a pretty bad cocktail of economic risk, and risk to the long end of the bond market.”

As reported by Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-funds-doubleline-gundlach/u-s-growth-would-have-contracted-without-trillions-in-government-consumer-debt-gundlach-idUSKCN1SK2KW and by CNBC https://www.cnbc.com/2019/05/14/doublelines-gundlach-warns-of-recession-cocktail-of-economic-risk.html

As the charts below show, Gundlach is correct: we are in a continued leverage risk super-cycle. While nominal debt to nominal GDP ratio remains below pre-GFC peak, nominal levels of debt are worrying and debt dynamics are showing sharpest or second sharpest speed of leveraging during the current recovery phase. Worse, since the start of the 1990s, all three non-financial debt sources, households, corporates and the Government, are drawing increasing leverage. 

22/4/19: At the end of QE line... there is nothing but QE left...

Monetary policy 'normalization' is over, folks. The idea that the Central Banks can end - cautiously or not - the spread of negative or ultra-low (near-zero) interest rates is about as balmy as the idea that the said negative or near-zero rates do anything materially distinct from simply inflating the assets bubbles.

Behold the numbers: the stock of negative yielding Government bonds traded in the markets is now in excess of USD10 trillion, once again, for the first time since September 2017

Over the last three months, the number of European economies with negative Government yields out to 2 years maturity has ranged between 15 and 16:

More than 20 percent of total outstanding Sovereign debt traded on the global Government bond markets is now yielding less than zero.

I have covered the signals that are being sent to us by the bond markets in my most recent column at the Cayman Financial Review (https://www.caymanfinancialreview.com/2019/02/04/leveraging-up-the-global-economy/).

5/4/19: Does Government Debt Matter? The Reality of Fiscal Multipliers

There has always been a lot of debate in economics about the effects of debt (especially sovereign debt) on growth and fiscal dynamics. And, despite numerous papers on the subject, the debate is far from settled.

Here is an interesting new study that looks at the effect high levels of government indebtedness have on the effectiveness of fiscal policy stimulus. The reason this topic is important is simple: fiscal policy can and is used to offset or smooth out recessionary shocks. The extent to which fiscal policy is effective in doing so (the impact expansionary fiscal policy may have on unemployment and output) can be varied across different economies and under different crises conditions. But, does this extent vary under different debt conditions?

In theory, the debt levels carried by a given sovereign can impact the size of fiscal multipliers (the effectiveness of fiscal policy) through two main channels:

1. The so-called Ricardian channel: a government with a weak fiscal position (high debt) deploying fiscal stimulus (an increase in public spending) can cause households to expect future tax increases. The result is that in economies with high public debt levels, deploying fiscal stimulus can trigger increased savings by households, reducing consumption, and lowering the size of fiscal policy multiplier.
2. An interest rate channel: when the government debt is high, so that the government fiscal position is weak, fiscal stimulus can increase concerns about sovereign credit risk amongst government bond holders and buyers. This can increase bond yields, raise borrowing costs, lower liquidity of bonds for the sovereign, but also increase cost of capital across the private sector. The result is the crowding out effect, whereby public spending crowds out private investment and credit-finance consumption.

In theory, both channels imply that fiscal policy is less effective when fiscal stimulus is implemented from a weak initial fiscal position (position of high starting government debt levels).

A new World Bank paper, authored by Huidrom, Raju and Kose, M. Ayhan and Lim, Jamus Jerome and Ohnsorge, Franziska, and titled "Why Do Fiscal Multipliers Depend on Fiscal Positions?" (March 2019, World Bank Policy Research Working Paper No. 8784: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3360142) considers the two theoretical channels operating simultaneously. Using data for 34 countries (19 advanced economies and 15 developing economies),  over 1Q 1980 through 1Q 2014, the authors show that "the fiscal position helps determine the size of the fiscal multipliers: estimated multipliers are systematically smaller when the fiscal position is weak (i.e. government debt is high).

Looking at the longer run panel in the chart above, fiscal multipliers rapidly reach into negative territory as Government debt rises to around 37-40 percent of GDP. Over a medium term horizon, of 2 years, multipliers hit negative values for debt levels above 75 percent of GDP.

Similar dynamics are confirmed in the chart below:

The authors subsequently "show that when a government with weak public finances conducts expansionary fiscal policy, the private sector scales back on consumption in anticipation of future tax pressures (Ricardian channel) and risk premia rise on mounting concerns about sovereign risk (interest rate channel)." In other words, high starting debt position does trigger both theoretical effects to reinforce each other.

This is an unpleasant arithmetic for uber-Keynesians who hold that fiscal policy is always effective in stimulating economic growth during periods of economic crises. The findings also support the view that the 'fiscal policy space' is indeed bounded by the reality of pre-crisis fiscal policy paths: there is no free lunch when it comes even to sovereign financing.

20/2/19: Crack and Opioids of Corporate Finance

More addictive than crack or opioids, corporate debt is the sand-castle town's equivalent of water: it holds the 'marvels of castles' together, util it no longer does...

Source: https://twitter.com/lisaabramowicz1/status/1098200828010287104/photo/1

Firstly, as @Lisaabramowicz correctly summarises: "American companies look cash-rich on paper, but average leverage ratios don't tell the story. 5% of S&P 500 companies hold more than half the overall cash; the other 95% of corporations have cash-to-debt levels that are the lowest in data going back to 2004". Which is the happy outrun of the Fed and rest of the CBs' exercises in Quantitive Hosing of the economies with cheap credit over the recent years. So much 'excessive' it hurts: a 1 percentage point climb in corporate debt yields, over the medium term (3-5 years) will shave off almost USD40 billion in annual EBITDA, although tax shields on that debt are likely to siphon off some of this pain to the Federal deficits.

Secondly, this pile up of corporate debt has come with little 'balancesheet rebuilding' or 'resilience to shocks' capacity. Much of the debt uptake in recent years has been squandered by corporates on dividend finance and stock repurchases, superficially boosting the book value and the market value of the companies involved, without improving their future cash flows. And, to add to that pain, without improving future growth prospects.

15/2/19: Still Drowning in Love [for Debt]...

Debt... Sovereign debt... and Valentines...

A decade post-GFC, we are still shedding love to our overly-indebted sovereigns... so nothing can ever go wrong, again...

27/12/18: Mr. Draghi's Santa: Ending QE, Frankfurt Style

It's Christmas time, and - Merry / Happy Christmas to all reading the blog - Mr. Draghi is intent on delivering a handful of new presents for the kids. Ho-Ho-Ho... folks:

The ECB balancesheet has just hit a new high of 42% of Eurozone GDP, up from 39.7% at the end of 3Q 2018. Although the ECB has announced its termination of new purchases of assets under the QE, starting in January 2019, the bank has continued buying assets in December, and it will continue replacing maturing debt it holds into some years to come.

Despite the decline in the Euro value, expressed in dollar terms, ECB's balancesheet is the largest of the G3 Central Banks, ahead of both the Fed and the BOJ.

Ho-Ho-Ho... folks. The party is still going on, although the guests are too drunk to walk. Meanwhile, global liquidity has been stagnant on-trend since the start of 2015.

And now the white powder of debt is no longer sufficient to prop up the punters off the dance floor:

Ho-Ho-Ho... folks.

22/12/18: Chile on course for a higher credit rating

My recent comment on improving credit conditions in the case of Chile via Euromoney: https://www.euromoney.com/article/b1by3mb0pskp43/chile-on-course-for-a-higher-credit-rating.

17/11/18: Nine in Ten in the Red: Asset Markets YTD Returns Signal Risk Repricing

According to a recent research note from the Deutsche Bank, 89% of global macro assets are posting losses on year-to-date basis. This is the highest level of losses in more than a century.

Given the scale of financial risk mis-pricing in equities and bonds markets in the post-QE period, we are likely to witness more downward movement in the assets valuations in months to come. A gradual deleveraging that the market trends have been supporting so far remains highly incomplete and requires more pronounced re-pricing of assets to the downside.

Read more on this here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.com/2018/11/161118-horsemen-of-financial-markets.html. 

16/11/18: The Horsemen of the Financial Markets Apocalypse

My column for the Manning Financial  is now available here: http://issuu.com/publicationire/docs/manning_financial_november_2018?e=16572344/65613030.

29/10/18: Corporate Credit and the Debt Powder Keg

As it says on the tin: despite growth in earnings, the numbers of U.S. companies that are struggling with interest payments on the gargantuan mountain of corporate debt they carry remains high. The chart does not show those companies with EBIT/interest cover ratio below 1 that are at risk (e.g. with the ratio closer to 0.9) for the short term impact of rising interest rates. That said, the overall percent of firms classified as risky is at the third highest since the peak of the GFC. And that is some doing, given a decade of extremely low cost of debt financing.

Talking of a powder keg getting primed and fused…

2/10/18: Government Debt per Employed Person

We often see Government debt expressed in reference to GDP or in per capita terms. However, carry capacity of sovereign debt depends not as much on the number of people in the economy, but on the basis of those paying the lion’s share of taxes, aka, working individuals. So here is the data for advanced economies Government debt expressed in U.S. dollar terms per person in employment:

Some interesting observations.

Ireland, as a younger, higher employment economy ranks fifth in the world in terms of Government debt per person employed (USD 115,765 in debt per employed). In terms of debt per capita, it is ranked in the fourth place at USD 54,126.

Plucky Iceland, the country hit as hard by the Global Financial Crisis as Ireland and often compared to the latter by a range of analysts and policymakers, ranks 22nd in terms of Government debt burden per employed person (USD 56,185) although it ranks 13th in per capita terms (USD 32,502). In simple terms, Iceland has higher employment rate than Ireland, resulting in lower burden per employed person.

When one considers the fact that non-Euro area countries have more sovereign control over their monetary policies, allowing them to carry higher levels of debt than common currency area members, Irish debt per employed person is the third highest in the world after Italy and Belgium, and higher than that of Greece.

Out of top ten debtors (in terms of Government debt per employed person), six are euro area member states (10 out top 15).

Looking solely at the euro area countries, Ireland’s position in terms of debt per capita is woeful: the country has the highest debt per capita of all euro area states at EUR43,659 per person, with Belgium coming in second place with EUR40,139. In per-employee terms, Ireland takes the third highest place in the euro area with EUR93,378 in Government debt, after Italy (EUR98,314) and Belgium (EUR94,340).

9/9/18: Populism, Middle Class and Asset Bubbles

The range of total returns (unadjusted for differential FX rates) for some key assets categories since 2009 via Goldman Sachs Research:

The above highlights the pivot toward financial assets inflation under the tidal wave of Quantitative Easing programmes by the major Central Banks. The financial sector repression is taking the bite out of the consumer / household finances through widening profit margins, reflective of the economy's move toward higher financial intensity of output. Put differently, the CPI gap to corporate costs inflation is widening, and with it, the asset price inflation is drifting toward financial assets:

This is the 'beggar-thy-household' economy, folks. Not surprisingly, while the proportion of total population classifiable as middle-class might be stabilising (after a massive decline from the 1970s and 1980s levels):

 Incomes of the middle class are stagnant (and for lower earners, falling):

And post-QE squeeze (higher interest rates and higher cost of credit intermediation) is coming for the already stretched households. Any wonder that political populism/opportunism is also on the rise?