Archive

from MacroScope:

Euro zone may struggle with its own Lost Decade

Additional Reporting by Andy Bruce and polling by Rahul Karunakar and Sumanta Dey.

As Europe’s crisis drags on, the prospect of a Japanese-style lost decade of economic malaise is becoming increasingly real, according to a new poll. Half of the bond strategists and economists surveyed by Reuters are now expecting just such an outcome.

Many market participants have dismissed the fall of two-year German bond yields below their Japanese counterparts as being merely a result of a crisis-fueled flight to quality bid. Two-year German yields are now close to zero, offering returns of only 0.02 percent. By contrast, equivalent Japanese bonds are yielding 0.11 percent.

But a significant portion of analysts in a Reuters poll see something more sinister in the rapid narrowing of the premium investors require to hold German debt over Japanese bonds. One half of those polled – 12 out of 24 – said it is likely the euro zone is close to entering a period of prolonged low or no growth and inflation and low interest rates, with the other half saying it was unlikely.

According to Stephen Lewis, chief economist at Monument Securities:

I don't really see an early end to the financial crisis in the euro zone. I think it's very unlikely that Germany and the other countries will see eye to eye in the course of this year. That's going to keep the euro zone economy looking very weak for the next several quarters.

Europe's economy stagnated in the first quarter of 2012 and is expected to shrink 0.4 percent this year, according to another recent Reuters poll. Data on Thursday certainly pointed in that direction, suggesting even wealthier countries like France and Germany are also starting to feel the pinch.

from Breakingviews:

Italy’s new off balance sheet wheeze

By Neil Unmack

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Rome is in a bind. Arrears to local companies are choking the economy, but funding them upfront could push up the country’s debt and spook markets. So Italy is using banks to front some of the money in a way that avoids pushing up its debt at least for the time being.

Rome’s unpaid bills by local authorities and other government entities to private suppliers are estimated at about 70 billion euros, or 4 percent of GDP. Euro zone accounting rules allow governments to exclude commercial arrears from their public debt levels until they are paid. But accumulating arrears hurts the economy, and a European directive next year will force governments to recognise unpaid bills. Spain has started to bite the bullet; it recently recognised 35 billion euros of arrears owed by its regions as debt, and is taking out a loan to pay them off.

Italy has just announced a plan to clear up to 30 billion euros of arrears by year end - but in a way that won’t affect its reported debt levels. Some of the arrears will be netted off against unpaid taxes that the suppliers owe. A further 6 billion euros was set aside to clear arrears in last year’s austerity package.

To handle the remaining chunk, Rome has come up with an elaborate piece of financial engineering. Italian banks will lend to suppliers once they have obtained a certification to prove that the payments are legitimate. The loans leave the bank exposed to credit risk. But a separate central government-backed fund will provide banks with guarantees. Those, in turn, will cut the risk weighting on the loans so enabling banks to offer suppliers better terms. As these guarantees are contingent liabilities, they too should stay off the government’s balance sheet unless called on.

This jiggery-pokery is a stop-gap solution. At some point the government will still need to pay the bills. And going through the banks may be less speedy than the government just paying the supplier directly. Still, with debt equivalent to 120 percent of GDP and markets febrile from the Greek crisis, it easy to see why Rome prefers keeping things off-balance sheet.

from Global Investing:

Quiet CDS creep highlights China risk

As credit default swaps (CDS) for many euro zone sovereigns have zoomed to ever new record highs this year, Chinese CDS too have been quietly creeping higher. Five-year CDS are around 135 bps today, meaning it costs $135,000 a year to insure exposure to $10 million of Chinese risk over a five-year period. According to this graphic from data provider Markit, they are up almost 45 basis points in the past six weeks.  In fact they are double the levels seen a year ago.

That looks modest given some of the numbers in Europe. But worries over China, while not in

the same league as for the euro zone, are clearly growing, as many fear that the real scale of indebtedness and bad loans in the economy could be higher than anyone knows.  Above all, investors have been fretting about a possible hard landing for the economy, with the government unable to control  a growth slowdown.

The CDS rises have coincided with worsening economic data -- state-owned companies' profits have fallen 8.6 percent in the January-April period from year-ago levels while industrial production weakened sharply in April. Fixed asset investment - a key driver of the economy - has hit its lowest level in nearly a decade.

CDS fell slightly today after Premier Wen Jiabao called for more efforts to support growth. His comments also provided a mild boost to China's stock markets.  Gavan Nolan, Markit's director for credit research, says Wen's comments suggest growth is taking precedence over inflation in policymakers' minds:

from Breakingviews:

Debt markets may be good compromise for Dreyfus

By Kevin Allison

The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.

Commodity traders are finding it harder to maintain their privacy. Louis Dreyfus is the latest to step out of the shadows. The venerable agricultural trader needs to invest if it wants to stay relevant in a consolidating and increasingly capital-intensive industry. But a float or merger would dilute family control. For now, plans to tap debt markets mark a sensible compromise.

Dreyfus made a net profit of $735 million on revenue of about $60 billion last year, according to the Financial Times, making it the world number three. Expansion must be funded internally or via bank financing, although Dreyfus also raised $2 billion from the sale of a natural gas pipeline and storage business last year.

New sources of funding may be needed if Dreyfus is to maintain its edge. Asia’s growing appetite for grains has lured rival commodity traders into agriculture. Half a decade of high prices and a scarcity of targets have pushed up acquisitions prices. Peers are investing in strategic assets, like silos and ports, and value-added activities, such as food processing, to gain competitive advantage.

True, Dreyfus already enjoys scale. But to keep up, it reckons it needs to invest $7 billion over the next four years - 40 percent more than in the previous four. Rivals are moving even faster. Glencore, the Swiss trader, raised $8 billion in a float last year and recently agreed to pay more than $7 billion including debt for Canadian wheat trader Viterra. Japan’s Marubeni is reportedly eyeing an acquisition of U.S. grain trader Gavilon for $5.2 billion.

Moreover, Margarita Louis-Dreyfus, who became the trustee of a controlling stake in the company after her husband’s death in 2009, needs to be prepared for a curve ball from minority shareholders. Other family members with 35 percent of the business hold options that could require Dreyfus to buy their shares.

from Global Investing:

Battered India rupee lacks a warchest

The Indian rupee's plunge this week to record lows will have surprised no one. After all, the currency has been inching towards this for weeks, propelled by the government's paralysis on vital reforms and tax wrangles with big foreign investors. These are leading to a drying up of FDI and accelerating the exodus from stock markets. Industrial production and exports have been falling.  High oil prices have added a nasty twist to that cocktail. If the euro zone noise gets louder, a balance of payments crisis may loom. The rupee could fall further to 56 per dollar, most analysts predict.

True, the rupee is not the only emerging currency that is taking a hit. But the Reserve Bank of India looks especially powerless to stem the decline. (See here for an article by my colleagues in Mumbai) .  One reason  the RBI's hands are  effectively tied is that  India is one of the few emerging economies that has failed to build up its hard currency reserves since the 2008 crisis and so is unable to spend in the currency's defence. Usable FX reserves stand now around $260 bilion, down from $300 billion just before the 2008 crisis.  See the following graphic from UBS which shows that relative to GDP, India's reserve loss has been the greatest in emerging markets.

But there is worse. The relative decline in reserves since 2008 coincides with a ballooning in India's external debt, both private and public. Comprising mostly of corporate borrowing and trade credit, the debt stands at $350  billion, up from $225 billion four years back.

No wonder investors have upped their bearish bets on the rupee: a Reuters poll of Asian fund managers shows these at a six-month high and significantly higher than any other Asian currency. For now, the trade  looks worryingly like a one-way street.

from Edward Hadas:

Bad ideas spawn Lesser Depression

On September 15, 2008 Lehman Brothers collapsed in a heap, a bankruptcy that was followed by a recession in most rich countries. As time goes on, the severity of the disruption becomes both more apparent and more puzzling.

When Lehman failed, it was reasonable to expect the pain to be brief and concentrated. While too many houses had been built in the United States, most of the world’s real economy (comprising factories, offices, retail outlets, construction projects) was doing well. The global financial sector was more distorted, even before investors took fright at the decision to let Lehman go under. But by the middle of 2009, governments and central bankers had agreed to provide bankers and brokers with anything needed to keep them healthy.

Optimism was not justified. Although the countermeasures stopped the deterioration, the rich world now seems stuck in a Lesser Depression - many years of poor economic results and a series of financial crises. In the United States, the euro zone, Japan and the UK, real GDP per person is still lower now than it was four years ago. In all of them, GDP growth is currently either slow or non-existent.

The consumption setback shouldn’t cause too much concern - it wasn’t so bad five or six years ago, when real GDP was last at today’s level. But the enduring recession in the labour market is another matter.

In April 2008 the unemployment rates in the United States, euro zone and UK were respectively 5, 7.3 and 5.3 percent. In April 2012, the corresponding percentages were 8.1, 10.9 and 8.4. More refined indicators - youth unemployment, involuntary part time work and disaffected ex-workers - are even more discouraging. The post-Lehman economy is failing a significant number of people in a fundamental way.

Some economists argue that this real suffering is the necessary price to pay to bring order to the financial world. That’s a dubious argument, since people are more important than money and credit. But the ethical debate isn’t necessary. Despite the real economic pain and the official aid, the financial world looks as ill as ever. On the monetary side, policy remains in shock territory - buyers of safe government debt receive negative real returns. Fiscal positions are equally alarming. Deficits everywhere remain at levels more suitable for wartime mobilisation than for a sputtering economy.

The puzzle is why a relatively small problem in the real economy has led to this Lesser Depression, especially when the authorities have followed expert advice throughout. Surely, if the counsel were sound, the depression would have lifted by now.

from Tales from the Trail:

RNC posts 2004 video of Obama calling the deficit under Bush “an enormous problem”

As Republicans this week extend their attacks on President Obama for the increasing federal debt, the RNC's "rapid response" team has dredged up old video of then-Senate candidate Obama elaborating his views about the federal deficit during a 2004 debate.

In the course of his response to a moderator's question about the "monstrous federal deficit," Obama says it's "an enormous problem" brought about by the Bush White House, which he calls "the most fiscally irresponsible administration in certainly my memory."

"We have gone from trillion-dollar surpluses to trillion-dollar deficits in the blink of an eye," Obama said. "Not all of those costs are the fault of the administration -- obviously, 9/11 occurred and the decline in the economy. But what is also true is that it was aided and abetted by a set of fiscal policies that I think were on the wrong course."

Watch, via the RNC (and h/t Buzzfeed):

from Global Investing:

South African bond rush

It's been a great year so far for South African bonds. But can it get better?

Ever since Citi announced on April 16 that South African government bonds would join its World Government Bond Index (WGBI),  almost 20 billion rand (over $2.5 billion ) in foreign cash has flooded to the local debt markets in Johannesburg, bringing year-to-date inflows to over 37 billion rand. Last year's total was 48 billion. Michael Grobler, bond analyst at Johannesburg-based brokerage Afrifocus Securities predicts total 2012 inflows at over 60 billion rand, surpassing the previous 56 billion rand record set in 2o1o:

The assumption..is based on the fact that South Africa will have a much larger and diversified investor base following inclusion in the WGBI expanding beyond the EM debt asset class

Currently South African bonds are restricted to emerging local bond indices. The most-widely used, JPMorgan's GBI-EM, has less than $200 billion benchmarked to it and South Africa's weighting is 10 percent. But the WGBI is a different matter altogether -- around $2 trillion is estimated to track this index which currently includes just 22 countries, only three of them emerging markets.  An expected 0.44 percent weighting for South Africa implies inflows of  $5-$9 billion, analysts estimate.

Some of that cash has already come. How much more could roll in this year? Optimists point to Mexico -- foreign ownership of the local debt market there rose to 31 percent from 24 percent over 2010, the year the country joined the WGBI, with $11 billion flowing in. But the picture in South Africa is in fact not that rosy. Inflows will undoubtedly pick up, benefiting both bonds and the rand but many reckon positioning in South African bonds is already pretty crowded --  about a third of the market is in foreign hands already, analysts at Morgan Stanley reckon. Worse, the country faces a possible credit ratings downgrade this year (all three rating agencies have cut its ratings outlook to negative in recent months).

Kieran Curtis, a fund manager at Aviva Investors upped his holdings of South African local bonds after the WGBI news but is reluctant to go overweight,  betting the market will benefit less than Mexico did two years ago. He cites two reasons -- first South Africa's budget deficit has been creeping higher and it follows that debt issuance will too. Second, the external backdrop is less supportive today than two years ago when the Fed was in full money-printing mode:

I wouldnt say I detect a very strong commitment in South Africa to restoring the budget to balance and those debt numbers can rise quickly when you have a 5-6 percent deficit. Also Mexico's inclusion came at a time when U.S. Treasury yields were falling fairly quickly but now, with Treasury yields rising we may not get the same support for South Africa.

from Global Investing:

Big Fish, Small Pond?

It's the scenario that Bank of England economist Andrew Haldane last year termed the Big Fish Small Pond problem -- the prospect of rising global investor allocations swamping the relatively small emerging markets asset class.

But as of now, the picture is better described as a Small Fish in a Big Pond, Morgan Stanley says in a recent study, because emerging markets still receive a tiny share of asset allocations from the giant investment funds in the developed world.

These currently stand at under 10% of diversified portfolios from G4 countries even though emerging markets make up almost a fifth of the market capitalisation of world equity and debt capital markets.  In the case of Japan, just 4% of cross-border investments are in emerging markets, MS estimates.

But change is on its way. MS surveys show most classes of global institutional investors intend to boost allocations to emerging markets, including the more conservative investor groups -- Japan's $1.3 trillion government pension insurance fund, for instance, plans to start buying emerging equities later this year.  MS analysts calculate allocations to emerging markets could rise 3.5% over the next five years.

That may not sound like much until one realises the true scale of the global pool of investable institutional assets and compares them with current market cap values in developing countries . These assets currently exceed $212 trillion, meaning a 3.5 % allocation increase will bring over $2 trillion into emerging markets. That's over half the capitalisation of EM equity market, more than 80% of bond markets and a third of the combined market cap of both sectors.

Take a look at some more numbers:

-- Based on current market values, a 1% increase in allocation to EM by pension and insurance funds represents a $524 billion flow to EM assets.

from Hugo Dixon:

What a euro growth pact should contain

It has become fashionable to talk about the need for a euro zone "growth compact" as weariness mounts over a diet of nothing but austerity. France's new president Francois Hollande has popularised the idea. Even Mario Draghi has backed it. That gives the concept credibility as the European Central Bank president was one of the main supporters of the austerity-heavy "fiscal compact", which requires governments to balance their budgets rapidly. Olli Rehn, the European Commission's top economic official, has joined the bandwagon too: at the weekend, he advocated a pact to boost investment, while hinting that there may be scope to ease up a bit on the austerity.

But all this chit-chat won't lead to much unless politicians are prepared take unpleasant decisions on reforming labour, welfare and banking - measures which would boost growth in the long run. That has to be the quid pro quo for loosening the current fiscal squeeze or further easing monetary policy - measures that would help in the shorter term. 

Without such a grand bargain, any growth compact is likely to amount to little more than extra funds for investment. Rehn mentioned the main ideas at the weekend: using EU budget funds to guarantee lending to smaller firms; encouraging countries with fiscal surpluses to increase public investment; and boosting the capital of the European Investment Bank. While these measures are worthy, they are not of the scale needed to change the course of one of the biggest economic crises in recent history. 

The main guts of a growth compact ought to be somewhat looser fiscal and monetary policy married to deep structural reform. 

Look first at fiscal policy. It is great that policymakers such as Rehn seem to understand the dangers of an austerity spiral - where excessive budget squeezes crush the economy which in turn makes it harder to balance budgets and so requires further austerity. He says Europe's fiscal rules are "not stupid". 

 But even if Germany, Europe's paymaster, can be persuaded to go along with a laxer interpretation of the rules, there is a limit to what will pass muster with the bond markets. While investors aren't enamoured with growth-crushing austerity, they won't finance profligacy either. Credible long-term plans to rein in deficits and restore competitiveness are needed. With those in place bond investors would be happy if the European Commission allowed governments another year or so to balance budgets. 

 The need for substantial change is not limited to countries already in crisis. In France, industry is increasingly uncompetitive and the government spends 57 percent of GDP. Tackling that ought to be the government's priority, though it got little mention during the election campaign. Even Germany would benefit from reforming its weak services industries. Meanwhile, across Europe there needs to be a determined drive to deepen the region's single market.