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.”
Three snapshots for Thursday
The European Central Bank kept interest rates on hold on Thursday. President Mario Draghi urged euro zone governments to agree a growth strategy to go hand in hand with fiscal discipline, but as thousands of Spaniards protested in the streets he gave no sign the bank would do more to address people’s fears about the economy
The divergence between Euro zone countries is starting to impact analyst estimates for earnings. As this chart shows earnings forecasts for Spain and Portugal are seeing more downgrades than Germany or France.
The inflation rate in Turkey rose to 11.1% in April, putting pressure on the central bank to raise interest rates:
Three snapshots for Monday
The euro zone’s business slump deepened at a far faster pace than expected in April, suggesting the economy will stay in recession at least until the second half of the year. The euro zone’s manufacturing PMI came in below all forecasts from a Reuters poll of economists, plumbing 46.0 in April – its lowest reading since June 2009. Weak PMI numbers are a bad sign for economic growth (see chart) but also for earnings:
Reuters reports that the Dutch government will resign on Monday in a crisis over budget cuts, spelling the end of a coalition which has strongly backed a European Union fiscal treaty and lectured Greece on getting its finances in order. As this overview shows the Dutch economy looks in better shape than many in the euro zone but is still finding austerity measures difficult to pass.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy appealed directly to far right voters on Monday with pledges to get tough on immigration and security, after a record showing in a first round election by the National Front made them potential kingmakers. See how the votes may transfer from 1st to 2nd round in this interactive calculator (click here).
Three snapshots for Friday
Although the focus has been on Spanish debt auctions this week as this chart shows Italy has much further to go in meeting this year’s funding needs.
German business sentiment rose unexpectedly for the fifth month in a row in March, moving in the opposite direction to the composite PMI:
Greg Harrison points out 82% of S&P 500 companies have beaten their Q1 earnings estimates so far. It is early days but it it continues that would be the highest for at least five years. Is this a sign that the strength in corporate earnings in continuing? The chart below suggests as least part may be due to falling expectations coming into earnings season.
Three snapshots for Tuesday
The German ZEW economic sentiment index for March smashed expectations, coming in at 22.3 against the Reuters poll of 10.0. Over the last couple of years the German 10 year Bund yield has tended to track the ZEW, however this has broken down with yields staying below 2% despite the rebound in economic sentiment.
Improving earnings momentum has been backing up the rally in equities with fewer analysts taking the hatchet to earnings forecasts. The chart below shows that the 3-month average revisions ratio (the number of earnings upgrades minus downgrades as a percent of the total) looks to have turned back towards positive – especially in Europe.
Are emerging markets joining the dividend race?. As this chart of Datastream equity indices shows, the payout ratio for emerging market equities is now above that of the US. Traditionally seen as a growth-based investment, is this another sign of emerging market equities moving closer into line with developed?
Becoming less negative on Europe
Markets are unimpressed today by Europe finally agreeing to bail out Greece for the second time, with European stocks down -0.6% on the day.
But here’s some encouraging news: Credit Suisse has become less negative on Continental European stocks for the first time in almost two years.
The bank has moved to benchmark weighting from 5% underweight for a currency hedged portfolio.
Why?
We think that the ECB is increasingly dovish (and we would not rule out another three-year LTRO after the one on 29 February), which should help weaken the euro; and we now only expect a 1% decline in European credit (down from our previous estimate of a 5% decline); relative to other regions, economic momentum and earnings momentum have troughed. But there is not enough for us to raise weightings to overweight.
In CS’s earnings momentum scorecard, Europe ex-UK has moved up one place, off the bottom of the list, with a total score of -0.1 — above Japan’s -1.2.
On previous occasions when relative Continental European earnings revisions have troughed, Europe ex UK equities have on average outperformed 75% of the time and when they did outperform, it was by 3–5% in the next three to six months (in local currency terms).
January in the rearview mirror
As January 2012 drifts into the rearview mirror as a bumper month for world markets, one way to capture the year so far is in pictures – thanks to Scott Barber and our graphics team.
The driving force behind the market surge was clearly the latest liquidity/monetary stimuli from the world’s central banks.
The ECB’s near half trillion euros of 3-year loans has stabilised Europe’s ailing banks by flooding them with cheap cash for much lower quality collateral. In the process, it’s also opened up critical funding windows for the banks and allowed some reinvestment of the ECB loans into cash-strapped euro zone goverments. That in turn has seen most euro government borrowing rates fall. It’s also allowed other corporates to come to the capital markets and JP Morgan estimates that euro zone corporate bond sales in January totalled 46 billion euros, the same last year and split equally between financials and non-financials..
But to the extent that the ECB move was aimed primarily at preventing a seizure of the banks, then one measure of success can be seen in the degree to which it steepened government yield curves in Spain and Italy. A positive yield curve, which measures the gap between short-term and long-term interest rates, is effectively commercial banks’ ATM — they make money by simply borrowing short-term and lending long. This chart then shows some normality returning to the benchmark interest structure.
from Jeremy Gaunt:
Wishful thinking on earnings?
The U.S. earnings season is over bar a handful of firms. It has been robust to say the least: Thomson Reuters Proprietary Research calculates that S&P 500 companies overall had second-quarter earnings growth of 38.4 percent. That was 11 percentage points higher than people had been expecting heading into the season.
There may be more surprises ahead -- although which sort, remains in question. The research suggests that analysts still expect solid growth in the coming quarters and that the decline in U.S. economic strength over the summer has not changed their minds much.
Third-quarter earnings growth is estimated at 24.9 percent, down slightly from July estimates but higher than earlier in the year. Fourth-quarter estimates are at 31.8 percent.
It is only when you get into 2011 that you start seeing some pull back. But even then Q1 is seen coming in at 11.8 percent.
Is this wishful thinking, or are analysts persuaded that the U.S. slump is only transitory?
from Jeremy Gaunt:
Micro versus macro
There is little doubt that the latest U.S. earnings season has been a good one for long-equity investors. Thomson Reuters Proprietary Research calculates that with 67 percent of S&P 500 companies having reported, EPS growth -- both actual and that still forecast for those who have not filed yet -- has come in at 36 percent.
Furthermore, a large majority of the reports have surprised on the upside, as they like to say on Wall Street. Some 75 percent of reports have been better than expected. Not surprisingly, the S&P index gained around 6.9 percent in July and is up another 1.7 percent in the first two trading days of August.
But given what looks like at least a faltering U.S. economy with little consumer confidence, some analysts have begun asking what there is to get excited about. Philipp Baertschi, chief strategist at wealth manager Bank Sarasin, for example, calls it a case of micro bulls versus macro bears and warns that it won't last.
We expect the micro data to dominate in the short term and support a temporary recovery in the equity markets. Nevertheless, investors should consider reducing their risk positions in strong market phases ahead of the expected slowdown in growth.
Gavyn Davies, the chairman of Fulcrum Asset Management who now blogs as Econoclast for the Financial Times, reckons a lot of it has to do with a belief that the U.S. economy is not as dominant as it once was.
"The markets appear to be taking the view that other countries are able to withstand the slowdown in the US, and if all else fails, then the Chinese government and the Federal Reserve will come to the rescue. Surely they are not just whistling in the dark - are they?"
The current debate about whether the U.S. economy will double dip into recession and the not-unrelated one about whether decoupling -- China to the rescue etc -- can really work are obviously key to this micro versus macro dichotomy. But success if also often fleeting.
from David Gaffen:
5 Questionable Arguments Against the Double-Dip
Don’t tell George Costanza, but double dipping is all the rage these days. The possibility of the U.S. slipping back into recession after a brief period of growth is a hot topic of late – and while such an occurrence is unlikely, pundits are feverishly declaring that it can’t and won’t happen.
Here are some of their reasons, some of which appear to strain credulity:
- Double-dips are “rare.” Simon Hobbs of CNBC is a vigorous promoter of this idea, but let’s face it, the last 15 years of financial-market history is a veritable compendium things that no one expected to happen – LTCM, the financial panic, Lehman Brothers. Rare means nothing.
- The stock market hasn’t dropped enough. Ah yes, the stock market, that stellar indicator of the economy’s future, such as in October 2007, when it hit an all-time high, two months before the onset of the worst recession since the Great Depression. Next.
- The yield curve hasn’t flattened enough. This indicator comes with a bit more in the way of history, as a flattened/inverted yield curve has been a reliable indicator of economic weakness ahead. But the Federal Reserve is anchoring the short end of the curve to the ground with its zero interest rate policy. It complicates the curve’s predictive value – something Goldman Sachs noted in a morning commentary.
- “External shocks” are responsible for the declines in economic activity, such as that in Europe. Similar shocks were enough to spark recessions in the 1930s, 1970s, and in 2008. Everything’s connected now, remember?
- Corporate profits are strong. As they were all the way through the beginning of 2007, once again, before the most recent eruption.
A recent Reuters poll put the odds of a double-dip recession at about 15 percent. Gluskin Sheff’s bearish strategist David Rosenberg puts it around 50-50, and Jim Bianco of Bianco Research also put that kind of odds on it. It may not happen – but when a lot of people are trying to convince you that something’s not going to happen, it can make you believe that it’s more likely than not.
