05/01/2011: Services PMIs - December 2010

Today's data from NCB Stockbrokers on Services PMIs (Manufacturing sector PMIs were covered in the earlier post here). The trends are generally worrisome:
First the headline numbers:

• Overall business activity index in services sectors has dipped below expansion mark of 50, with December reading of 47.4 signaling an outright and sharp-ish contraction. 12-months average for the sector was 50.7 - hardly blistering growth, but still a notch above the waterline. Q4 average is now at 49.7 - a steady decline from the annual peak of 52.9 in Q2 and slightly less impressive 52.5 in Q3.
• New Business index fell to 46.2, marking 4th consecutive month of below 50 performance. 12-months average is at 49.8, with Q4 reading of 46.8 being the lowest quarterly average of 2010.

A snapshot of the series:
Now to detailed sub-indicies:
Since I will be posting separately on employment, it is just worth mentioning that (a) employment index remains under water since February 2008 - marking a truly scary contraction stretching uninterrupted over 34 months now, and (b) employment index fell even lower in December (to 47.8) than in November (48.7).

The rest:

• New Export Business index is in contraction territory with December reading of 49.7 being the first sub-50 month since August 2009. 12-months average was 53.6 while Q4 average fell to 52.6 from 52.8 in Q3 and the annual peak of 55.3 in Q2.
• Despite this, Business Expectations actually rose to a strong 62.2 in December against 55.2 in November. 12-months average was 65.5, ahead of Q4 average of 62.8, which marked the lowest quarterly performance of the index for 2010.
• Profitability remains poor cousin of expectations - Profitability index reached 46.1 in December, down from 48.4 in November. To see last month when profitability was in expansion mode we would have to go back to December 2007, so this December marks 36th month of shrinking profitability for Irish services producers.
  

Chart above concludes by showing some recovery in prices trends, with output prices still lagging inputs prices inflation. In fact, the gap between two series, having opened up once again around Q2 2010 remains wide.

05/01/2011: Manufacturing PMIs - December 2010

Manufacturing PMIs were released earlier this week by NCB Stockbrokers (a truly useful service for all concerned with the Irish economy - see the third post on PMIs to come for the true reason). Here are the updated charts and some comments:
First what matters most on GDP side - second consecutive month of declining growth on New Exports Orders side - December reading was at (still expansionary) 54.0, down from 54.7 in November and 54.9 in October. 12-months average was 55.5, so we have a signal of relative growth slowdown into Q4 (average 54.5), compared with Q2 and Q1 (averages of 57.4 both), but of Q3 (52.7).

Total New Orders are robustly up to 53.2 reading for December (12-months average is 51.7), but December increase was not enough to push poor performance in Q4 (average for the quarter is 51.6).

Overall PMIs for Manufacturing are signaling relatively positive momentum, rising to 52.2 in December, from 51.2 in November, marking third consecutive monthly rise. December reading is above 12-months average of 51.2 as is Q4 average reading (51.4).

Here's a close-up:
But what about capacity?
So far, capacity remains below growth line (50 reading signifies expansion, of course), suggesting - strongly - that Irish companies are not running out of existent capacity yet. Which means productivity will continue grow, and that's the good news. The bad news is that with capacity remaining underutilized, there's no real hope for strong growth in either wages or employment.

Although index of Employment rose above 50 line - reaching 50.5 in December for the first time since May 2010 (when it stood at 51.5 - and then again, nothing really happened on employment side, as sustained jobs creation will require consistent above 51.3-52 readings in the index). Clearly, Employment prospects have improved - December reading was 2.6 points above 12-mo average reading of 47.9, and Q4 average - at 49.9 - is almost touching jobs-neutral expansion.

Most worrisome to me is the New Exports Orders data - as discussed above, although the series is generally more volatile than Total Orders series, it is clear to me that going forward, domestic demand of the Total Orders is not going to hold.

Another issue - more of a question, than concern is: backlogs of orders rising appears to be driving up forward employment expectations. There seem to be some 3mo plus lag in the two series, so delivery time remaining relatively benign, but under pressure, it is difficult to make a call on employment index reading. That said, employment index for manufacturing does show stronger correlation, historically with overall sector PMIs than in the case of services (but more on this in the third post on PMIs later today.

Again, the credit for data goes to NCB Stockbrokers, but analysis (and any errors it may contain) is solely my own.

05/01/2011: Eurozone growth - January

For the first post of 2011. So a slightly belated wish to all of the readers: May 2011 be (in no particular order of importance):

• A prosperous and a fruitful one
• A healthy and a happy one
• A year for me to write better research and for you to comment more on it
  
• A year of renewing the political and economic strengths of the countries we call our homes.

Oh, and may the 30-year bull market in fixed income finally come to an end in 2011. Why you may ask? Because I, for one, am sick and tired of watching the sovereigns from the US to the EU to Japan borrowing beyond any control to underwrite unsustainable status quo of our bankrupt social democratic models. Leveraging our children and ourselves to pay for the dubious 'benefits' of redistributive 'justice' is unlikely to end with anything but tears. And the latter stage of history is uncomfortably close for all of us to continue ignoring the facts of our economic sickness.


Now, to the top of the newsflow from the EU-wide perspective.

The latest Eurocoin leading indicator for Eurozone growth was out recently and hence the updated details:
December performance was above November, reaching 0.49 - 4bps above November reading of 0.45. As of the beginning of January, Eurozone economy signals expansion that is yoy some 28% weaker than in January 2010 (December 2009 reading was 0.68).

Historically, Eurocoin is a pretty decent longer-term leading indicator (70%+ RSq) for the trend in the Eurozone GDP growth:
The new reading is consistent with growth of ca 2.0% and is driven primarily by industrial production and producer confidence. However, Eurozone industrial production growth has been declining persistently from the annual peak achieved back in May. Per latest (October) data, Germany continues to power ahead with strong positive growth, France and Italy remain at near zero growth and Spain's industrial output growth sticky in negative territory.

Composite PMIs for Germany (through December) powering ahead, while staying in contraction territory in France, Italy and Spain. Consumer confidence is at 2007 levels in Germany, while staying below the water line in other three economies (see chart):
Source: CEPR

I will be blogging on Ireland's PMIs in few hours tonight, so stay tuned for comparatives to the homeland.

Economics 24/12/10: Retail Sales for November

Retail sales stats were out this week, prompting the usual 'upbeat' comments from the official analysts.

Here's an example from one bank analyst (emphasis is mine):

"November retail sales figures show a second consecutive monthly increase in sales volumes. The 0.2% rise last month followed a 0.3% monthly gain in October, representing the first back-to-back monthly increases since March/April. This leaves total sales in October/November running some 0.4% above the average level seen in the third quarter."

Oh, Mighty Aphrodite, folks. Time to pull the crackers out and funny hats? Alas, no. The quote above is so full of spin, you get dizzy after the first two sentences and by the end of the second paragraph all systems collapse is virtually inevitable. For reality is nowhere to be seen in the claims made above.

Take a look at the full seasonally adjusted figures for sales:

First, levels of sales - volume and value
Few things are worth noting:

• November shows that we - consumers in Ireland - are purchasing 23.89% less today than in February 2008 - the peak of our retail sales volumes
• Same figures show that we are buying 17.45% less value relative to October 2007 - the peak point in the value of sales index
• We are now consuming some 9.2% less in terms of volume and 4% less in terms of value than in 2005
• November 2010 index of 90.8 seasonally adjusted volume of sales is below that in November 2009 (91.8) and November 2008 (109.1)
• November 2010 index of 96 seasonally adjusted value of sales is above that in November 2009 (95.1) but below November 2008 (106.5)

Chart above shows changes in two series mom and yoy. Three things are worth noting there:

• Mom - both series are pointing down, with alue index going from +0.6% in October to -0.1% in November, while volume index from +0.3% to +0.2%
• Yoy - value index going from -0.3% in October to -1.1% in November, while volume index moved from +1.9% in October to +0.9% in November
• Yoy there has not been a positive growth month in terms of value of sales since April 2010

Our friendly economist quoted above went on in his/her note:
"As has been the case for much of the year, the overall picture is being flattered somewhat by rising levels of car sales. This was a pattern that was again evident last month, according to the CSO, as the motor trade category posted a 0.4% monthly rise in sales volumes. While modest by the standards of the stronger increases in car sales earlier in the year, this was still enough to pull total sales higher in November as core sales (which strips out the motor trade) fell by 0.2% on the month. This 0.2% fall in underlying sales followed a flat reading in October to leave core sales running about 0.5% lower than their average level in the September quarter."

Well, notice - there are no yoy references. Shall we take a look?
As above:

• Relative to the peak (February 2008) value of core retail sales today is down 19.09%
• Relative to the peak (October 2007) volume of core retail sales today is down 12.90%
• There are clearly two moments - around Q1-Q2 2010 when the volumes and values of retail sales ex-motors peaked locally - prompting the very same analysts to start trumpeting the recovery in retail sales, alas, all of these 'gains' were exhausted
• Ex-motor retail sales have reached another record lows in terms of both volume of sales and value in November 2010.
  

While the picture above confirms that there is little ground for optimistic reading of retail sales let's do justice to the quotes above:

• While celebrating the first consecutive two months rise in volume of retail sales since April,
• Keep in mind we also had (1) third consecutive month of declines in the value of core sales - the first time since December 2009, (2) 28th consecutive month of annual declines in the value of core sales, (3) 6th consecutive month of annual declines in the volume of core sales.

Looking at subcategories of sales, 7 out of 12 categories posted declines in volume mom and 8 out of 12 yoy. In value terms these figures were 7/12 and 9/12 respectively. In October 2010 we posted 9th worst performance in retail sales volumes in EU27 and 5th worst in Euro area 16.

Economics 24/12/10: Forecasting 2010 Trade performance

As a follow up for the previous post, here are my forecasts for levels of Exports, Imports and Trade Balance as well as Terms of Trade for Ireland for 2010 - using monthly data:
Overall, Terms of Trade deterioration in October 2010 stood at -5.12% on the best reading for 2007-to date.

Economics 24/12/10: Ireland's Trade Balance

With a slight delay, here is a deeper look into Ireland's trade performance through October.

First - exports and imports in levels:
Notice first that Imports are following steeply down-trending line, while Exports are trending flat and even slightly down over 2007-to-date period. Encouragingly, since May 2010, Exports are managing to stay well above their longer term trend line.

Summarized in the tables below, monthly and annual figures show clearly that significant gains in the trade balance are driven primarily by the continued declines in imports.


Hence, trade balance gains - impressive at +7.46% month on month and 11.95% in year on year terms:

At the same time, strong performance in Trade Balance is coming against the tide of adverse changes in the terms of trade: September marked the 4th consecutive month of deteriorating terms of trade, with a fall of 0.7% on August. Overall, since May 2010 terms of trade
have fallen by a cumulative 5.11% through September 2010. We can now expect this process to continue through October-November and cumulative May-October loss in terms of trade to rise to 5.9-6%.

It is worth taking a closer look at the relationships between trade balance components and terms of trade over the 2007-2010 period.

There is no statistical relationship between the level of exports and the terms of trade over 2007-2010 (through October). The relationship stands at y = 0.0175x + 7257.1, R2 = 1E-08. There is a relativeley weak, but strengthening relationship between trade balance and the terms of trade (as reflected in levels). In 2007-2009 data, terms of trade were able to explain roughly 0.32% of variation in the Trade Balance (y = 14.215x + 1385.2; R2 = 0.0032). Including data through October 2010 provides for much stronger explanatory power of 12.3% (y = 90.668x - 4989.4; R2 = 0.1228).

As chart below shows, correlation between levels of exports and imports has reversed sign in 10 months through October 2010 (to – 0.1458) compared with the first 10 months of 2009 (+0.3264). In longer terms, 2007-May 2010 data implied relationship between the levels of exports and imports was: y = 0.3266x + 5726.9; with a strong R2 = 0.2171. Adding data through October 2010: y = 0.1953x + 6398.5 and lower R2 = 0.0802.

Looking at the annual data:

Using annual data for 1990-2010 (where 2010 is my forecast values) we have weak relationships between growth rates in imports, exports and trade balance as a function of terms of trade changes. My full year 2010 forecasts are: Imports value €43,506mln, Exports value €85,209mln and Trade Balance of €41,703mln. This represents a forecast of 3.4% drop year on year in imports, 2.02% rise in exports and a jump of 8.4% in trade balance.

All of this data clearly suggests accelerated process of transfer pricing by profit-generative MNCs during the 2010 period. In fact, looking at log-relationships, growth in the trade balance is currently being explained by faster shrinking imports than the changes in exports. Coupled with deteriorating terms of trade, we have strong suggestion that our trade performance is being sustained primarily by the MNCs driving through strong expansion of profit-booking transfer pricing.

Of course, one should remember that whether due to transfer pricing or organic exports growth or - as indeed is the case, both - the improving Trade Balance is about the only positive news we can count on in 2010.

Economics 21/12/10: BofI & Irish derivatives warning from the IMF

How wonderful is the world of international banks linkages? And especially, how wonderful it can get when regulators are so soundly asleep at the wheel, a firecracker from the IMF can be shoved in their faces and popped, and the snoring still went on.

A 2007 working paper from the IMF, republished earlier this year in an IMF journal, has warned Irish regulators that (referring to the data through 2005):

“BofI had launched a new venture with a leading Spanish bank, La Caixa to provide extra mortgage options for Irish people buying property in Spain, which included equity release from existing BofI mortgages” (IMF WP/07/44: External Linkages and Contagion Risk in Irish Banks, by Elena Duggar and Srobona Mitra).

Now, think of those La Caixa/BofI borrowers leveraging levels. But here’s the bit that relates directly to securitisation threats I hypothesize about in the previous post (here): on page 8 of the report, IMF folks state: “Irish banks could be indirectly exposed to property markets by selling risk protection (buying of covered bonds, credit default swaps, and mortgage backed securities) to other banks which are exposed to foreign property markets. From anecdotal evidence, some small IFSC banks, exposed to international property markets, are selling CDS to other domestic-oriented banks, making the latter indirectly exposed to these property markets even though their loan books are not.”

Of course, the Irish banks were also selling protection to the SPVs they were managing as well. And now, lets jump to IMF’s conclusions:

“Some tentative policy lessons could be drawn from the results of this exercise. The Central Bank and Financial Services Authority of Ireland (CBFSAI) may want to stress test specific categories of exposures of Irish banks to both the U.S. and the U.K. Even though linkages with the U.S. do not come out strongly from aggregate consolidated balance sheet exposures, there might be derivatives or other off-balance sheet exposures that the bank supervisors may need to be vigilant of. The Irish authorities may need to collect more information about types and counterparties of derivative positions and risk transfers through structured products of Irish banks, as the use of these is likely to grow rapidly in the future. This would especially be necessary if Irish banks are buying CRT products from foreign banks (that is selling risk protection) that are in turn exposed to property markets or other loan products in the U.S. or the U.K., thus exposing the Irish banks to these markets even though there is no direct loan exposure.”

Sounds like a warning against Irish banks exposures to lending against the US-based property? Oh, no – not at all. In fact recall a basic stylized fact of mortgages finance – in the long run (equilibrium) long term yields on Government debt and long term mortgage rates converge. Which means that if an Irish bank was underwriting an interest rate swap for the US SPV that purchased Irish bank’s securitised loans, then Irish bank was taking a position in providing insurance into the US interest rates environment.

The article – based on 2005 data – couldn’t have imagined what followed in 2007 and 2008. But, needless to say - judging by their staunch silence on the issue of derivatives and securitisation - our regulators didn't bother with the IMF warnings back then... and still are not bothered by them...


Update: It is worth noting that today the EU Commission approved measures for AIB, Anglo and INBS (details here) that include "a guarantee covering certain off-balance sheet transactions" - a code name for things like securitisations and derivatives...

Economics 21/12/10: Derivatives hole?

Updated (end of post)

The following post is attempting to put some numbers behind a highly uncertain, opaque and completely under-reported side of the Irish banks operations - the side relating to securitisations and derivatives exposures. My numbers below are pure estimates and their objective is to at least start raising the questions as to the depth of our (taxpayers) exposure to this murky world of banks' securitised assets.

Before we begin, I must also relay my thanks to Brian Lucey and 3 anonymous experts for providing advice and comments on the earlier draft and to LorcanRK who was involved in trying to scope the problem earlier.


Years ago, before our sick puppies (banks) became sick, in the golden days when the Anglopup, AIBickey, permo, INBiSquit, EBSsie and BofIpooch were still wagging their happy tails around the streets of Dublin, securitisation was all the rage.

The basic idea behind this transaction runs innocuously enough as follows: a bank holds a bunch of loans, say mortgages. These yield an annual revenue stream, but hold up capital, restricting new lending. To help unlock this capital, a bank can package these loans together and sell them to an SPV which will issue a paper security against these loans that entitles the owner to a share of the total package of loans as they yield returns over time. An SPV, of course, doesn’t manage the mortgages but leaves them in the custody of the bank which acts as a manager/custodian, responsible for collecting the moneys due and paying out to the SPV.

Now, for a bit relevant to us: an agreement between the SPV and the custodian has two key covenants:

1. loans are held by the custodian in trust, so that the custodian is obliged, upon either the termination of the management contract or should other covenants be breached, to deliver the actual loans/mortgages to the SPV owner;
2. ability of the custodian/manager to hold on to the loans is subject to a minimum credit rating, usually - investment grade.
   

The first point means that should an SPV ask an Irish bank for its loans (due to a breach in its covenants), the banks must deliver these loans.

The second point means that if the covenants are breached, by, say for the sake of argument, Irish banks rating sinking to junk, the banks can be found in a breach of covenants and face:

• a margin call – according to my sources, of up to a whooping 20% face value of the securitized loans in some cases; and/or
• a call on the actual loans to be transferred to a different manager/custodian nominated by the SPV

Every securitized contract runs alongside it a derivative security designed to protect against the risk exposures relating to the loans.

These derivatives can be

• symmetric – covering both sides of the potential exposure – e.g. interest rates swaps going both ways or
  
• asymmetric or uni-directional, covering only one side of the risk exposure (e.g. an interest rate swap insuring against a future rise in the interest rates).
  

The derivatives can be written by an independent entity or by the bank, but for the reasons of good risk management (maturity mismatch risk and direct exposure to underwriter risk) these derivatives should really be underwritten by the third parties, not the custodians.

Now, let’s go back to the history. Earlier this year, I wrote about our ‘national derivatives accounts’:

• AIB held the total derivative exposure to the notional value of €261bn in 2008 which fell to €197bn in 2009 (here)
• BOI held €360.5bn (here) in 2009
• Anglo held some €268.3bn worth of notional value derivatives in 2008 (here), falling to €184.5bn in 2010 (here)
  

The above is very close to the gross notional exposure amounts of €640 billion (for two banks ex-Anglo) reported in 2008 by the employee of the Financial Regulator - Grellan O'Kelly (here).

So now, suppose that the notional value reflects symmetric hedges, and even there, let's assume that directionality is such that benign risk is weighted by twice the weight assigned to maximum loss-linked risk, so that the underlying value of these derivatives is around 1/3rd of the €742.3 billion of notional value, or €245 billion.

Here is the beefy problem. Since these derivatives are written against real loans contracts, what happens if the covenants of the SPVs behind them are breached?

Let’s talk some hypotheticals (since we have no actual clarity on these):

• Scenario 1: Irish Government debt sinks to junk, which automatically means banks debt sinks to junk (while I was writing this, the latest Moody’s downgrade pushed it even deeper...). There’s a margin call on derivatives of say ½ of 20% mentioned above, or 10%. Oops – Irish banks are in a hole for up to 24.5bn off the starting line (10% of the 245bn above)
• Scenario 2: Instead of a call on the derivatives, SPV breaks management agreement with an Irish bank and asks for its loans to be moved out of the bank. Wouldn't be a problem, unless: what if the bank, in the mean time, has leveraged the same loans it held in custody for the SPV at the ECB (or CBofI or both) discount window? Well, should the SPVs insist, the Irish banks will be forced to buy their collateral out of ECB and CB of Ireland to the amount that the banks borrowed against such collateral.

Things are starting to smell rotten… But do not be afraid, those in charge who still have some brains left spotted the dodgy stuff. To our chagrin, however, the smart ones are in Frankfurt, not in Dublin. Back in August 2008, the ECB has pulled the plug on taking Irish banks-securitised loans as collateral. Miraculously, in the end of 2008, CBofI lent Anglo €10.5bn against some mysterious collateral that, several of my sources argued, was previously rejected by the ECB.

Why would the ECB decline to take securitised packages as collateral, while taking the loans? Surely this signals something is amiss with the vehicle of securitisation as carried out by the Irish banks?

Two things can be dodgy with the securitized packages in general:

1. Underlying derivatives, and/or
2. Security over the loans/assets that are securitized.
   

I am not going to speculate what it is – time will tell. Instead, let’s run through some scenarios on potential losses due to the above positions.

Assumptions:

• Assume that the above gross notional amounts of derivatives are 2/3 covering one side of exposure (e.g. expected increases in interest rates, for interest rate swaps) and 1/3 covering less expected opposite direction risk. This means that of the total values of derivatives written by the 3 banks, these derivatives were covering a collateralised pool of loans/assets equal to 1/3 of the gross notional derivatives.
• Now, some of collateralised assets were held by the banks themselves, but we do not know how much. So let’s assume that 25% and 50% are reasonable amounts for these shares, implying that banks sold on some 50% to 75% of the securitised assets
• Next suppose that the banks have written down these securitised assets by 20% (a gross overestimate, but let’s allow it to be conservative) and that the ECB has applied the usual 15% haircut in lending against the above writedowns
• Table below shows the estimates of potential losses

So the downside from the derivatives exposure and securitization can range between €12.25bn and €50.8bn.

Pretty wide.

Let’s take a look at the underlying assumptions. Running through the ‘What if covenants are breached?’ scenarios, one has to remember that many of the securitized loans borrowed against are related to more stable, longer-term mortgages. Since default rates across mortgages are lower it is highly unlikely that SPVs wouldn’t want to claim them out of the hands of the insolvent banks. This means that the 10% margin call on all loans scenario is highly unlikely to materialize. More likely – either the margin calls will be larger, or full call backs will be triggered. Which suggests that the range above more realistically should be expected around €17.15bn and €25.7bn.

Also, recall that Irish banks weren’t really at the races in speculating on financial instruments, preferring instead to speculate on property. This means that my assumption of 50% unidirectional net derivatives relating to property securitization is pretty conservative.

And remember that none of this has been factored by either the IMF or anyone else into the expected losses across the Irish banks. It hasn’t been incorporated into my earlier estimates of

• €67-70 billion total losses on NAMA, recognized losses and post-2010 commercial and investment books’ losses, and
• €9-11 billion total losses on mortgages post-2010, plus
• the lower €17bn figure as an estimate for the derivatives and securitization-related losses.
  

The total expected loss across the entire banking sector, net of recoveries might be as high as €93-98 billion. Or it might go as high as €107bn. And at this point, folks, even an old hawk like myself starts to feel scared.


Note: these are potential estimates. Given that we have been given no clarity as to the depth of securitisations, or the derivative instruments underlying it, nor do we have any idea as to what the banks have been doing with custodial-managed loans that relate to securitised products, one can only guesstimate - or speculate - as to the true extent of losses. I tried my best to be very, very conservative in the above, with my upper limit of factored estimate of €25.7bn in losses being below the average of the most benign scenario (€12.25bn) and the worst case scenario (€50.8bn). I was also very conservative in my assumptions. Note also that in the end, €17-25bn range of losses used in final estimate of the total cost of banks bailouts corresponds to just 2.29-3.37% of the notional value of all derivatives held in 2009 by the three banks.


Update: things are hardly trivial when it comes to potential securitisation-linked derivatives exposure. Back in 2007, the IMF has warned Irish regulators that:

“BoI has transferred the bulk of its domestic residential mortgage assets to a designated mortgage credit institution, which has a banking license to issue mortgage covered securities.—these are used both for hedging interest risk and for generating additional funding. Almost 60 percent of these securities were held by other Euro Area members, while 25 percent was held in USD by other countries. (IMF WP/07/44: External Linkages and Contagion Risk in Irish Banks, by Elena Duggar and Srobona Mitra - here)

Did IMF say 'the bulk'? So as of 2006-2007, the bulk of mortgages were out to securitisation in a 'conservatively' run BofI?

Economics 17/12/10: Q3 2010 National Accounts - part 2

This is the second post on the QNA data for Q3 2010.

Let's take a look at three more dynamic sectoral components of GNP.
Services and industry are now pulling in different directions, which means the proverbial glass on growth is really half-full (or half-empty). Amazingly, construction sector continues to shrink. This is even better illustrated as the sector share of domestic economy:
Now, recall that PMIs for construction sector for November showed continued monthly contraction in sector activity, led by civil engineering (as the rest of the sector has already shrunk by well over 80%). 2011 forecast for new homes completion is now around 9,000 units - and in my view that too is rather optimistic. This means we can expect more bad news out of the sector with a continued knock on effect onto auxiliary services and materials sectors.

Taking a look at GDP and GNP in current prices terms:
For the second quarter in a row, the value of Irish exports was in excess of the value of the country GDP (by 2.94% in Q3 - down from 3.03% in Q2, while in Q3 2009 it was 11% below the level of GDP). Undoubtedly, weakening euro helped here.

Again, in current prices, consumers are still striking, while capital investment has gone even deeper into the negative territory, so that the very partial replacement of amortized stocks that gave it a temporary boost in Q2 before has been exhausted. Government spending is not showing much of a decline.
Take a look at quarterly rates of change in the above components:
We are now an economy that consumes its capital stock, not the one that adds to it for future growth.

Economics 16/12/10: Q3 2010 National Accounts - part 1

This is the first post analysing the latest Quarterly National Accounts data for Q3 2010 released today.

Let's take a big picture view first.
Both the GDP and GNP expanded in Q3, with GNP marking the second quarter of continuous expansion. Real GDP grew +0.5% qoq. Currently, GDP stands at 1.7% higher the lowest point in this recession so far (Q4 2009), but 0.694% below Q3 2009 in current prices. Cumulative Q1-Q3 GDP (seasonally adjusted, constant prices) stands at -1.21% below Q1-Q3 2010 GDP. In other words, year on year we are still in a recession.

Real GNP also rose qoq by 1.1% - a second consecutive quarterly rise following a tiny uplift of 0.1% in Q2. Since GNP measures our actual economy, netting out transfer pricing by the MNCs, it is worth taking a bit of a closer look at the numbers. Net transfers out of this economy, which includes remitted profits, rose 4.573% in Q3 in yoy terms. Over the first three quarters of 2010 this number is up 10.46% relative to 2009. As the result, our GNP was 1.77% below Q3 2009 level and the first three quarters cumulative GNP for 2010 was 3.7% below that of the same period in 2009. By any real metric, this is a raging recession, folks.

The good news from today's figures is that our exports are still growing, and in fact, are still driving economic growth. Total exports grew by 3.6% qoq, though that rate was 7.6% in Q2 2010 and 6.4% in Q1, which implies that Q3 posted a slowdown in exports growth. We now have three consecutive quarters of growth in exports. Which is brilliant news. Year on year, Q3 exports grew by 13.1%, while first three quarters of 2010 posted a rise in exports of 8.9% relative to the same period in 2009.

Irish exporters do deserve some serious praise here. And one other net positive is that we are finally seeing domestic economy benefiting from this exports growth, as evidence by the slight closing of the GDP/GNP gap.

But more on exports later.

As chart above shows, consumer spending and government spending were down, once again.

Consumer spending was down 0.544% qoq - the largest decline in year and a half. In yoy terms, consumer spending was down 1.38% and in Q1-Q3 cumulative terms, personal consumption was down 1.1% on 2009.

Government spending fell 5.053% yoy in Q3 (note that the same yoy decline in Q1 2010 was 6.082%, implying that Government performance on spending side actually worsened during the year), qoq Government spending fell 1.738% in Q3 2010.

Total domestic demand is down 1.7% qoq and 5.1% yoy.

But take a look at the comparatives for the dynamics of private consumption and Government spending since 2005. First, consider both expressed in constant prices:
And next, consider the same expressed in current prices:

In real (inflation-adjusted) terms, Government spending is currently between Q1-Q2 2006, while private consumption is between Q4 2005 and Q1 2006. A close comparison. Once we allow for inflation (in current prices terms), Government spending is currently between Q4 2006 and Q1 2007, while private consumption is between Q4 2005 and Q1 2006. Much less of a match.

Economics 14/12/10: ECB/CBofI Ponzi schemes

Last week's ECB figures show that the Irish banks have managed to rake up €136bn worth of borrowing from Frankfurt as of November 26th. This is an increase of €6bn on end-October figures. Mysteriously little? Not really - Irish banks have also borrowed some €45bn from the Central Bank of Ireland - a rise of €10bn on October.

The reason for such a dramatic increase in borrowing from the CBofI instead of ECB is two-fold:

1. ECB is becoming increasingly reluctant to lend to the Irish banks, and
2. Irish banks have run out of suitable collateral to pawn at the ECB discount window.

Which, in turn, means 2 things.

Firstly, Irish banks demand for borrowing is not abating despite Nama and other measures undertaken by the Government. Injecting quasi-Governmental paper into banks balancesheets has meant that the banks face immediate loss without any real means for covering it (remember, they can't really count on selling Nama bonds in the market without incurring an extremely steep discount on the value of these notes). Swapping nearly worthless paper for almost totally worthless loans is not doing the job and the entire banking system simply sinks deeper into debt.

Secondly, Irish banks have now uploaded some €45 billion worth of useless paper (that even ECB is unwilling to accept) into the Central Bank of Ireland. How much of this paper is loss-generative and are we, the taxpayers, on the hook for these losses, should the whole pyramid scheme go belly up?

Oh, and in case you wonder - ECB's equity funds are €5.8bn. It's lending side is over €200bn (it was €139bn total - banks lending & sovereign bonds inclusive - as of the end of December 2009), so as a bank, ECB's 2009 leverage was 24 times. Now, it is closer to 35 times. Lehman Bros territory, folks.

Economics 12/12/10: Europe's crisis won't be solved by the ideas advanced to-date

The most revealing feature of the EU response to the current crisis is the nation states' and Brussels/Frankfurt total denial of the real problem. We are witnessing a debt crisis stemming from unsustainable levels of liabilities piled onto weak economies in order to finance various forms of social welfare state.

This fact is clearly revealed in the 'solutions' being discussed by the EU leaders:

• Tax and fiscal policies harmonization - Harmonizing PIIGS, German, French and other fiscal systems will not achieve more transparency or discipline than the already existent SGP criteria for deficits and debt allowances delivers on the paper. Nor will it provide for better enforcement of these rules. More importantly, it will not reduce the unsustainable levels of debt accumulated by the citizens and sovereigns of Europe. Instead, the divergence between fiscal objectives of the younger and/or less developed states and those with older population and capital and consumption bases will be amplified.
• The idea that centralized bond issuing mechanism will solve the current crisis is basically equivalent to believing in self-healing properties of the disease that's killing you. Bond markets are shorting European sovereign debt not because it is issued by decentralized authorities, but because EU sovereigns have borrowed too much already and/or assumed too much of the private banking sector debt. To issue even more debt, underwritten by the very same sovereigns is like combating a hangover by drinking more whiskey in the morning. Common EU bond issuance will be repeating the fallacy of securitization that has resulted in the markets saturated with AAA-rated mortgages packages blending AAA and subprime loans.
• Increasing EFSF funding will not solve the problem, for it assumes that EU states are facing a cash flow problem, not a structural debt overhang. As I said before in the Irish and Greek cases - issuing more debt to pay down old debt is simply not going to be a long-term solution to our difficulties.
• Finally, the idea of national currencies or two-tier Euro is even more denialist in its nature than all of the above proposals combined. The argument against it is provided in my article in today's Sunday Independent here.

The core problem is that the EU and the national governments remain blind to the main issue at the center of the current crisis: European social welfare states have accumulated too much debt to sustain status quo. These debts were accumulated via various channels:

• The sovereign channels operated in Italy, Portugal, Belgium and Greece;
• The depressed consumption transferred private incomes into public in Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia and the Nordics;
• Banking debts socialization and obligations transfers from public spending to private liabilities has led to the debt explosion in Ireland
  

But across the entire Europe, either Governments or private sector or both simply live well beyond their means. The only resolution that can restore health to our economies rests with a two-step structural change:

1. Restructuring debts to reduce debt burdens on the real economy, followed by
2. Restructuring economies to make them leaner, fitter and capable of sustaining growth

Both require re-thinking of the European social welfare state system with a view of making it's core principles sustainable in the environment of economic growth we can deliver. Nothing else will do the job.