22/5/2014: Poverty in the US Cities: Regional Comparatives

Bloomberg published a fascinating list of 50 US cities with biggest exposure to poverty amongst their populations. The full list is available here: http://www.bloomberg.com/visual-data/best-and-worst/most-poverty-us-cities

Just to make exercise a little different, I grouped them into four main regions. One would expect the results to show South to have highest poverty exposures, the West showing relatively benign poverty, but due to high ethnic diversity and significant presence of minorities, somewhat higher poverty exposure than, say North-East... alas, here are the numbers in full glory.

Ranking in descending order: West shows lowest poverty exposures, followed by the South excluding Florida (different composition of population by age and ethnicity), and so on, until Mid-West comes out the worst, but only as long as we include the State of Michigan (Detroit and Flit being numbers 1 and 2 worst off cities when it comes to poverty).

22/5/2014: Happy Times Roll: Irish Manufacturing Producer Prices

Deflation keeps hammering Irish Manufacturing sector:

Per CSO: year on year, factory gate prices fell 2.7% in April 2014, compared with a decrease of 3.1% in the year to March 2014, including

• a decrease of 3.1% in the price index for export sales (subject to potential effects of currency fluctuations) and 
• a decrease of 0.6% in respect of the price index for home sales.

Nothing to worry about, folks, this economy is gaining strength and momentum all of the time... PMIs booming and producers confidence is rising (if you ask IBEC).

22/5/2014: Paging Super Mario: Cleanup in the German Isle

Remember the OMT - the ballistic missile Super Mario fired in the direction of the markets to calm the hell out of them and dramatically lower the bond yields for the countries saddled with the likes of the FG/LP/Troika coalitions (known colloquially as 'peripherals')?

Well, those pesky Germans never really liked the idea and as we all know (past history is a good indicator) when Germans don't like something, it is for a long... long... long time...

21/5/2014: Ireland Ranks 14th in Economic Connectedness

McKinsey Global Institute Global Connectedness Index was published in April this year, scoring countries connectedness index and overall flows based on data through 2012.

Rank of participation by flow as measured by flow intensity and share of world total.

Couple of things to notice: Ireland's position is strong at 14th rank, but it is not as strong as one would have expected. And certainly would not be anywhere near the 14th rank were we to consider Ireland's indigenous enterprises, as opposed to MNCs.

Another point: Ireland's strengths are in only one segment: services flows. Which are, of course, skewed very heavily by a handful of MNCs trading out of ICT services and IFSC. In fact, we rank below Russia in Data and Communications flows, despite being a global hub for ICT services MNCs.

Scarier bit: we rank below virtually all our direct competitors in the global markets.

21/5/2014: Few Slides Covering Russian Banks

Few slides from my bigger and newer Russia Deck - these covering Russian banks:

 In the above, note the nonperforming loans... Ugly does not even begin to describe Ukrainian situation. Russia's NPLs, however, are benign by comparative to rest of the FSU...

 Summary as is in both above and below...

21/5/2014: That Medicated Happiness in the Club Med...

"France’s love of anti-depressants, sleeping pills and other prescription medication has reached new heights according to figures showing one in three adults in the country use some form of psychotropic drug. A study by France’s National Drug Safety Agency (ANSM) found that 32 percent of French people used such medications in 2013, either on a regular or occasional basis, French daily Le Parisien reported Tuesday." This was reported in here.

There's more: "Another study released this week, carried out by Ipsos on behalf of the French Hospital Federation, found that 84 percent of patients polled said that doctors often hand out unnecessary prescriptions." And "a study by carried out by the company Celtipharm, also cited by Le Parisien, found that 230,000 French people were risking their health each month by mixing psychotropic drugs with other, non-compatible medication."

A cross-nations comparative shows trends for anti-depressant drug use across Europe for the period 1980-2009: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0066455

Interestingly, Mediterranean countries fared really poorly in the above study: Greece, Italy and Spain all recorded above average rises in the use of anti-depressants, with big increases from the mid-1990s on.

21/5/2014: Irish Credit Supply to Cash Ratios are Heading South, Still

Irish Central Bank and Government departments have been pushing hard to convert Irish economy into cashless, electronic accounting data storehouse, where everything gets counted and taxed (at least in theory).

Meanwhile, in Ireland's real economy, cash remains the king as the only metric of money supply still expanding in the deleveraging hell gripping the financial system:

To remind you: in Q4 2013, Irish private households' deposits fell to their lowest point since March 2009 (note, this makes them the lowest since around Q3 2005 as current figures reflect addition of the Credit Unions deposits to the dataset (they were not counted in until January 2009).

That's right... let's do away with cash so Irish banks deposits get another superficial (accounting) boost and few million worth of tax euros flows into the state coffers. Happy times all around... we know Irish households are getting richer and richer by day...

21/5/2014: Russia-China Gas Deal

Russia and China signed bilateral gas deal to supply 38bcm of Russian gas per annum, with an option of expanding shipments to 61bcm. The deal covers 30 years of supply. Full valuations and prices are not yet known, but the deal at 38bcm/annum x 30 years was originally valued at USD440 billion.

Here are the best reports on the deal so far (to be updated):

http://www.businessinsider.com/russia-and-china-sign-billion-gas-pipeline-mega-deal-2014-5

Update: zerohedge covers price details here: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-05-21/russia-and-china-finally-sign-400-billion-holy-grail-gas-deal

WSJ on the deal: http://blogs.wsj.com/moneybeat/2014/05/21/russia-strikes-gas-gold-in-china/ pointing to heating up competition in Asia-Pacific energy markets and Russia's play coming ahead of Canadian exports flows. This, in part, explains why Russia agreed on a deal pricing gas at just above USD350 bcm whereas Russia previously looked for a price closer to USD400 bcm. As you can see from the second chart below, over the years while the deal with China was in negotiations stages, gas price inflation fell significantly, reducing room for price upside in the deal.

The deal is of huge importance to Russia.

Russian economy is only weakly-dependent on gas prices, Government deficits are somewhat more closely linked to these. See more here: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2014/03/2232014-russian-capital-flight-and.html and in the slide below:

The reason for this is that Russian economy is not as dependent on exports (gas accounts for ca 60% of these on goods side):

And in the long run, there is spending and income channel feed through from gas prices (and exports) to domestic demand:

It is worth noting that China-delivery price of Russian gas can be lower than European delivery for two reasons:

1. Internally contained transit costs
2. Lower risk of disruptions (remember that Ukraine routinely pushed Russian gas shipments to the brink by either threatening to or actually syphoning gas designated for Western European deliveries for domestic use) and non-payment (settlements are likely to be in Chinese yuan, rather than in the USD and with this, there is no risk of non-payment, as in the case of Ukraine). See: http://trueeconomics.blogspot.ie/2014/04/1042014-game-of-chicken-ukraine-debts.html for more.

Also, gas for China will be coming from newer fields, which are located closer to the Chinese border and, although more expensive in production, are not competing with Western Europe-focused Western Siberian fields.

Finally, new pipeline holds promise bringing exploration and production further East from existent centres of production.

All across - this should be a very good deal for Russia and China. The core threat here is to the US exports of LNG to Asia-Pacific, where US producers are collecting huge margins, compared to European markets. But this threat is still some years (if not decades) off from becoming a significant pressure point.

20/5/2014: Irish Credit Supply to Non-Financial, Non-Property Sectors

We keep hearing about banks lending to enterprises and the recovery in the banking sector in general. And we keep watching credit supply in the economy shrinking and shrinking and shrinking. The reality, of course, is simple: our banking system continues to deleverage and alongside, our companies continue to deleverage. This means that legacy debts relating to property investments and development are being washed off the books. Which, of course, accounts for property-related credit. But…

Take a look at this chart, plotting credit advanced to Irish private sector enterprises.

The property deleveraging story is in solid orange. And not surprisingly, it is still heading down. With all the fabled foreign and domestic property buyers reportedly killing each other on their hunts for bricks and mortar assets in Ireland, there is less and less and less credit available for the sector. In part, some of this decline is now being replaced by foreign funding (lending and equity, including private equity). But the credit story is still the same: property related lending is down 6% y/y in Q4 2013 (latest for which we have data).

Deleveraging in financial sector is also there - the sector credit lines have shrunk 15% y/y in Q4 2013.

But what on earth is happening in the 'healthy' (allegedly) sectors of the economy - those ex-Property and ex-Financial Intermediation? Here, total credit is down 4% y/y in Q4 2013.

In fact, from Q2 2009 onward, Irish financial system registered not a single quarter of y/y increases in credit supply to non-financial and non-property enterprises in Ireland. That's right: credit did not go up even in a single quarter. Worse, between Q4 2011 and Q4 2013, average annual rate of decline in credit to real economy was -4.0% which is exactly the same as in Q4 2013. In other words, even in terms of growth rates, there is no improvement. 

20/5/2014: Q1 2014 Gold Demand Report

Q1 2014 Gold demand report is out today. Highlights are:

1. Jewellery demand grew 3% year-on-year to reach 571 tonnes, the largest Q1 volume since 2005, as consumers responded positively to lower average gold prices. Geographically, demand was wide-spread; however it was China that posted the largest volume increase, rising by 18 tonnes from Q1 2013.
2. Shifts in the components of investment cancel out: net investment demand little changed, down 2%. Q1 investment demand of 282 tonnes was just 6 tonnes below Q1 2013. Bar and coin demand was down 39% from last year's elevated levels, while outflows from ETFs slowed to a virtual halt compared with outflows of 177 tonnes in Q1 last year.
3. All segments of technology saw a 4% decline in the first quarter, resulting in overall demand for the sector of 99 tonnes. The fall was primarily driven by continuing substitution to cheaper alternatives as manufacturers remained under pressure to reduce costs.
4. First quarter demand from central banks once again topped the 100 tonnes level, reaching 122 tonnes, and marked the 13th consecutive quarter of net purchases. The desire to diversify holdings in an uncertain global environment continues to underpin this source of demand.
5. The supply of gold in Q1 2014 saw a marginal year-on-year increase of 1%. Increased mine production was offset by a fall in recycled gold coming onto the market, leading to a total supply figure of 1,048 tonnes.
6. Total demand was down at 1,074.5 tonnes in Q1 2014 compared to 1,077.2 tonnes in Q1 2013

Summary chart:

Report is here.

Compared to 5 year averages:

• Jewellery demand was up at 570.7 tonnes against 5 year average of 512.0 tonnes
• Technology demand was down at 99.0 tonnes against 5 year average of 108.3 tonnes
• Total Investment demand was down at 282.3 tonnes against 5 year average of 367.6 tonnes. Of this, Bar & Coin demand was down to 282.5 tonnes relative to 5 year average of 338.2 tonnes; ETFs and similar products demand was net -0.2 tonnes compared to 5 year average of +29.5 tonnes
• Central Banks net purchases demand was up at 122.4 tonnes against 5 year average of 72.7 tonnes
• Overall demand was up at 1,074.5 tonnes against 5 year average of 1,060.5 tonnes

Top 10 official reserves:

17/5/2014: Debt, Equity & Global Financial Assets Stocks

An amazing chart via McKinsey and BIS showing the distribution of financial assets by class and overall stocks of financial assets. These are covering the period through Q3 2013.

What we can learn from this?

1. Stock of financial assets might seem absurdly high compared to overall economic activity, but it is not that much out of line with longer term growth trends. Between 2000 and 2014 the world GDP is expected to grow from USD32,731.439 billion to USD76,776.008 billion, a rise of 135%. Over 2000-2013, stock of financial assets rose at least 124%.
2. However, in composition terms, the assets are geared toward debt and especially sovereign debt. Public Debt securities are up in volumes 243% - almost double the rate of economic growth. Financial institutions bonds are up 144% - faster than economic growth. Private non-financial sectors debt is up from USD43 trillion to USD 91 trillion - a rise of 112%. Total debt is up from USD73 trillion to USD178 trillion or 144% so within debt group of assets, public debt is off the charts in growth terms.

There is much deleveraging that took place in the global economy over the recent years. All of it was painful. But there is no way current levels of debt, globally, can be sustained. 

18/5/2014: Global Gambling: Ireland of Saints & Scholars

A chart summarising some interesting stats on global gambling addiction…

Ireland in a 'proud' seventh position... and just like our 'aspirational' brethren in Finland, heavily into online gambling - a form of a-social entertainment that is pure addiction...