Three snapshots for Wednesday
On Friday 283 companies in the S&P 500 had a dividend yield higher than the 10-year Treasury yield, at yesterday’s close this had fallen to 266 but remains very high compared to the last 5-years.
Italian consumer morale plunged to its lowest level on record in May as Italians’ pessimism over the state of the economy plumbed new depths.
Germany set a zero coupon on its new Schatz, the first time it has done so on debt of such maturity. The bid to cover ratio for the new bond at the auction was 1.7, compared with 1.8 at a sale of two-year debt on April 18.
The average yield at the sale was 0.07 percent.
Three snapshots for Thursday
Fears that Athens is on the brink of crashing out of the euro zone and igniting a renewed financial crisis have rattled global markets and alarmed world leaders, with Greece set to figure high on the agenda at a G8 summit later this week. This chart shows the impact on assets since the Greek election:
Euro zone banks now account for only 8% of total euro zone market value – they were over over 20% of the market in 2007:
Japan’s economy rebounded in January-March from a lull in the previous quarter, shaking off the pain of a strong yen and Europe’s debt crisis on solid consumer spending and rebuilding from last year’s earthquake.
Three snapshots for Monday
The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries, fell to their lowest levels since early October today, breaking decisively below 1.80 percent. That compares to the dividend yield on the S&P 500 of 2.28%.
The European Central Bank kept its government bond-buy programme in hibernation for the ninth week in a row last week. The ECB may come under pressure to act as yields on Spanish 10-year government bonds rose further above 6% today.
Output at factories in the euro zone unexpectedly fell in March, the latest in a series of disappointing numbers signalling that the bloc’s recession may not be as mild as policymakers hope. On an annual basis, factory output dived 2.2 percent in March, the fourth consecutive monthly slide, Eurostat said, and only Germany, Slovenia and Slovakia were able to post growth in the month.
Research Radar: Greek gloom
Greek gloom dominates the start of the week as new elections there look inevitable and talk of Greek euro exit, or a Grexit” as common market parlance now has it, mounts. All risk assets and securities hinged on global growth have been hit, with China’s weekend reserve ratio easing doing little to offset gloomy data from world’s second biggest economy at the end of last week. World stocks are down heavily and emerging markets are underperforming; the euro has fallen to near 4-month lows below $1.29; safe haven core government debt is bid as euro peripheral debt yields in Italy and Spain push higher; and global growth bellwethers such as crude oil and the Australian dollar are down – the latter below parity against the US dollar for the first time in 5 months.
Financial research reports on Monday and over the weekend were just as gloomy, but plenty of interesting takes:
Bank of New York Mellon’s Simon Derrick’s view of the Greek political impasse concluded “there is at least an evens chance that the latter part of this summer will see what had officially been seen up until last November as an impossibility: a nation leaving the EUR.”
RBS’s Sanjay Mathur reckons that if there is another hung parliament after new Greek elections, implying no significant voter return to the pro-bailout parties, then euro risk soars. “This means, on another hung parliament, that Greek government IOUs could trade as proxy currency as early as July.” If that does not galvanize sufficient parties into accepting Trioka bailout demands at that point, he said that then exit looms. “Opening up the Pandora’s box of exit means deposit risk across the periphery. The future of the euro would then be dictated by the subsequent policy response.”
Barclays Sree Kochugovindan talks of a three phase possible deterioration of the euro crisis — one, where solvency concerns and asset market fright are contained to Europe and mostly the fixed income markets of the periphery countries concerned; two, solvency concerns hit the core such as France and Belgium with asset market contagion widening before a series of major policy responses; and three, no major policy response or ECB SMP/LTRO, which leads to Greek default and even exit and global market shock akin to September 2008. “Given the immense cost of a crisis triggered by a Greek exit, we are not expecting the current situation to deteriorate into Phase 2. However, the risks are elevated and with the prospect of second round Greek elections in a few weeks, market jitters are likely to continue.”
Deutsche Bank’s global markets note also focuses on rising risks from Greece and also on the May 31 Irish referendum on the EU fiscal pact. Apart from outlining obvious risks to the Greek financing from a political vacuum, one conclusion Deutsche comes to is that a new EU growth pact may happen sooner than many had figured. “The new situation in Athens forces EU leaders to find common ground faster than we thought.” Another conclusion was that Ireland may consider postponing its referendum, given the risk that a “no” vote may disastrously cut off its access to new EU funds and also given a possible delay in German parliamentary votes on the fiscal deal to June. “Ireland might do well to think about postponing the 31 May referendum.” It called Spain’s sweeping banking reform plan “making progress” but a 15 bln euro government recapitalisaation of the banks “too timid”.
HSBC’s Karen Ward and Simon Wells warn about the long-term impact of continuous quantitative easing by central banks, saying the political relationship between central banks and governments rather than inflationary consequences may be the biggest concern. “The heyday of independent central banking could be drawing to a close.”
Not everyone is “risk off”
Who would have thought it. As fears over the euro zone’s fate, Chinese economic growth and Middle Eastern politics drive investors toward safe-haven U.S. and German bonds, some have apparently been going the other way. According to JPMorgan, bonds from so-called frontier economies such as Pakistan, Belarus and Jordan (usually considered high-risk assets) have performed exceptionally well, doing far better in fact than their peers from mainstream emerging markets. The following graphic from JPM which runs the NEXGEM sub-index of frontier debt, shows that returns on many of these bonds are running well into the double digits.
NEXGEM returns of 8.4 percent are on par with the S&P 500, writes JPMorgan and outstrip all other emerging bond categories. Clearly one reason is the lack of correlation with the mainstream asset classes, many of which have been selling off for weeks amid growth fears and in the run up to French and Greek elections. Second, investors who tend to buy these bonds usually have a pretty high risk-tolerance anyway as they keep their eyes on the double-digit yields they offer.
So year-to-date returns on Ivory Coast’s defaulted debt are running at over 40 percent on hopes that the country will resume payments on its $2.3 billion bond after June. The underperformer is Belize whose bonds suffered from a default scare at the start of the year.
JPMorgan said NEXGEM, accounting for 9 percent of the broader emerging debt index and containing 18 countries, offers the best investment opportunity for the rest of 2012:
Stay overweight NEXGEM credits, including Belize, Dominican Republic, Georgia, Sri Lanka and upgrade Gabon to overweight this month.
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.
Emerging bond defaults on the rise, no surprise
As may be expected, the crisis has increased the risk of default by emerging market borrowers. According to estimates by ING Bank’s emerging bond guru David Spegel, the default rate on EM bonds is running at over $6 billion in the first four months of 2012, already surpassing the 2011 total of $4.3 billion. He predicts another $1.3 billion of emerging defaults to come this year.
Spegel expects the default rate for speculative grade emerging corporates to rise to 3.25 percent by September, up from 3 percent at present. That doesn’t look too bad, given defaults ran at 13 percent after the 2008 crisis and hit a record of over 30 percent in the 2001-2003 period. But ING data shows some $120 billion worth of corporate bonds trading at “distressed” or “stressed” levels, i.e. at spreads upwards of 700 basis points. The longer such wide spreads persist, the higher the probability of default. A worst case scenario would see a 12.9 percent default rate by end-2012, Spegel says.
Many companies are having trouble rolling over maturing bonds (selling debt to pay off existing creditors). One reason might be the explosion in bond issuance this year. Data from Bank of America/Merrill Lynch shows bond sales by emerging borrowers, sovereign and corporate, totalled 14 billion in the first three months of the year, a quarter more than the same 2011 period. Clearly everyone is rushing to raise cash before U.S. Treasury yields rise further. (see what we wrote on this a few months ago)
Now look at ING’s figures on syndicated bank lending. Syndicated loans are a key funding source for EM borrowers but they have dropped 51 percent in the first three months of 2012 from the previous quarter to $105 billion. Coinciding with the surge in bond issuance and European banks’ problems, this suggests many former bank borrowers have turned to bond markets intead.
What about potential loan defaults? ING estimates $178 billion in syndicated loan repayments remain for 2012 and it is unclear how much of this will spill into bond market issuance. EM debt demand so far has been buoyant, with EPFR data showing inflows of almost $18 billion year-to-date to EM bond funds. Even lower-rated EM companies and countries have easily raised cash. But Spegel warns:
While the abilityof EM borrowers to find alternative sources of funding is positive, the rotation of borrowing from banks to bonds could potentially have negative implications for bond markets if the improving demand dynamics suddenly change direction in face of increasing supply.
Three snapshots for Thursday
Weaker than expected economic data has pushed Citigroup’s G10 surprise indicator into negative territory. The indicator has tracked closely with the relative performance of equities vs bonds:
Italian business confidence fell unexpectedly to its lowest level in two and a half years on Thursday. Business confidence has historically given a good lead on GDP growth suggesting further weakness to come.
An update on currency moves against the dollar this year. Hungary tops the list, the EU opened the way to talks with Hungary on financial aid on Wednesday, ending a five-month dispute over the independence of its central bank. The UK pound and the euro remain positive for the year despite the UK falling back into recession and the continued euro zone crisis.
The Currency Performance chart should have included Gold.
Hungary can seek IMF aid now. But can it cut rates?
The European Union has given Budapest the green light to seek aid from the IMF. (see here) In fact, the breakthrough after five months of dispute does not let Hungary completely off the hook — to get its hands on the money, Viktor Orban’s government will have to backtack on some controversial recent legislation, starting with its efforts to curb the central bank’s independence. It remains to be seen if Orban will actually cave in.
But markets are reacting as if the IMF money is in Hungary’s pocket already. There have been sharp rallies in Hungarian dollar bonds, CDS and currency markets (see graphic below from Capital Economics). The Budapest stock market has posted its best one-day gain since last November while the yield on local 10-year bonds have collapsed almost 100 bps. Hungarian officials are (a bit prematurely) talking of issuing bonds on world markets.
What investors are hoping for now is a cut to the 7 percent interest rate. Hungary’s central bank jacked up rates by 100 bps in recent months to defend the forint as cash fled the country. Now there is a chance those rate rises can be reeled back in. After all, the moribund economy could really use a dash of monetary easing. Thanasis Petronikolos, head of emerging debt at Baring Asset Management has been overweight Hungary and recalls that after 2008 crisis, the central bank was able to quickly take back its 300 bps of currency-defensive rate hikes.
In the aftermath of this, the central bank may be prompted to cut short term interest rates. If the risk premium comes down a lot, the central bank may feel that 7 percent interest rates are not justified. I’m expecting them to at least take this 100 bps back assuming they can reach an agreement with the IMF.
Hungary’s FRAs (forward rate agreement), are still pricing slightly higher short-term interest rates and have not yet reacted to the shifting picture. Many urge caution however on the rate cut expectations, noting that Orban and the IMF may struggle to reach common ground and the central bank will want to see money on the table before it actually acts.
Petronikolos is right in that the economy is moribund, credit growth has slumped and there is a big output gap. But headline inflation is running at 5.5 percent, well above the central bank’s 3 percent target, due to an increase in sales tax. Sandor Jobbagy, at CIB Bank in Budapest is one analyst who says inflation risks have forced him to push back the date of likely interest rate cuts.
The “least worst” option?
Western governments saddled with mountainous debts will “repress” creditors and savers via banking regulation, capital controls, central bank bond buying and currency depreciation that effectively puts sovereign borrowers at the top of the credit queue while simultaneously wiping out real returns for their bond holders. So says HSBC chief economist Stephen King in his latest report this week called “From Depression to repression”.
Building on the work of U.S. economist Carmen Reinhardt and others, King’s focus on the history of heavily indebted governments applying “financial repression” to creditors arrives at several interesting conclusions. First, even though western governments appeared successful in using these tactics to reduce massive World War Two debts alongside brisk economic growth during the 1950s and 1960s, King argues that the debt was cut mainly by the impressive economic growth and tax revenues during that “Golden Age” – and this was mostly down to the once-in-a-century period of relative peace that involved unprecedented integration and cooperation among western governments also engaged in a Cold War with the Soviet Union. Compared to this boost, the financial repression was a “sideshow”, he reckons. To show t
Instead, King says governments will adopt this repression tactic anyway just to stave off draconian austerity now and prevent a destabilising surge in economy-wide borrowing rates. This will effectively reduce the amount of credit to the rest of the private sector, or at least elevating its cost, while reducing the pressure on governments to cut the debt levels quickly. The net result, then will likely be “persistently lower growth”, whatever your conclusion about the desirability of state or the market allocation of resources.
And, in the absence of an obvious alternative, repression may also be the “least worst” option, King argues.
Renihart is exactly right. But there is a darker theory yet: that Fed policy is just part of a government-wide strategy of practicing “financial repression” to escape from the consequences of the debt explosion. The leading expert on financial repression is Carmen Reinhart of the Peterson Institute. She defines it as a situation in which “governments implement policies to channel to themselves funds that in a deregulated market environment would go elsewhere.”
Low or negative real interest rates are among the oldest examples. Call this monetary repression. Reinhart points out that it was practiced on a large scale by governments after World War II. She asserts that it accomplished by stealth the effective cancelation of government debt without resort to orthodox spending and tax policies for which governments knew then and now that they cannot get the electorate’s consent.
A similar debt predicament today implies that monetary and other forms of repression are again on the cards, especially in the United States. Wainwright has attempted to measure it, but estimates of real interest rates and monetary repression are fuzzy and contentious, especially because the government as¬serts control over the method by which inflation is measured.
Nevertheless, the company’s research, estimates that the Fed’s interest-rate policy in 2007-11 has cut the real interest rate from a normal 2 or 3 percent to an aver¬age of minus 7 or 8 percent. That’s a diversion of about ten percentage points a year to the Treasury and other borrowers—just about enough to fund the current budget deficit. Genius…
Luis de Agustin
