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:
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.
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.
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.
For luxury, all that glitters is gold
The year has certainly got off to a good start for luxury companies, with firms like LVMH, home to Louis Vuitton, reporting stellar results for the first quarter. No wonder – according to CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets analyst Aaron Fischer, resurgent emerging market consumers are fuelling a strong growth in the global luxury goods market. Growth in the sector was double its long-term average last year, Fischer says. He has updated his bullish 2011 report “Dipped in Gold” and is particularly optimistic on established brands, predicting global growth of 10% in 2012, slowing slightly from last year’s 14% rise:
However, we expect leading brands to continue to outperform, rising 15%, compared with the street’s estimate of 12%, which seems far too low.
We look for emerging market consumers, especially when travelling, to drive robust sector growth in the medium term, posting a 15% demand compound annual growth rate in the next 10 years.
That should take emerging markets’ share of global luxury demand to 73% by 2020, up from 50% at present, Fischer predicts, with China playing a leading role.
Already in European fashion capitals, and in favourite shopping destinations such as New York and Hong Kong, shoppers from emerging markets account for over 50% percent of luxury sales. And the home-grown brands that populate malls and department stores across China should gradually cede ground to big international players, Fischer says. What’s more these new consumers don’t seem too price sensitive — Fischer estimates that Chanel passed on 20% price increases to customers in 2011, without denting sales.
Luxury brands are also benefiting from the growing sophistication of consumers who aren’t content with knock-offs anymore. Between 2008 and 2011, the proportion of Chinese consumers interested in buying fakes fell by more than half to just 15%, a McKinsey survey found.
Fischer’s top stock picks include handbag maker Prada, which listed in Hong Kong last year. 33% of Prada and Gucci’s sales come from mainland China, according to the report. But he also likes some Chinese luxury brands, naming leading shoe retailer Belle, jeweller Chow Tai Fook and Greater China department store firm Lifestyle.
But how has the luxury sector proved so resilient during an economic downturn? Fischer tackles the Wall Street bonuses equal big watches and nice handbags myth by explaining that only around 5 percent of luxury sales come from the financial sector.
In India, no longer just who you know
It’s not what you know but who you know. There are few places where this tenet applies more than in India but of late being close to the powers in New Delhi does not seem to be paying off for many company bosses.
Look at this chart from specialist India-focused investor Ocean Dial. It shows that since mid-2011 companies perceived as politically well-connected have significantly underperformed the broader Mumbai index. The underperformance has intensified this year.
According to David Cornell, portfolio manager at the fund, this is down to several factors such as The Right to Information Act which has helped curb unfettered corruption as well as shifting political power away from the centre towards provincial governments. He says:
Political connections at a corporate level are no longer a pre-requisite for stocks to perform. Stay away from areas of the economy that rely on government patronage such as real estate, mining and power.
On Friday, media reported that Reliance, a giant company once seen by many as exemplifying India’s politics-business nexus, would not be allowed to recover $1.2 billion costs before starting to share gas production profits with the government. Reliance shares slumped 1.7 percent after the report. This year they have risen just 4 percent, less than half the gains of the Mumbai index.
In defence of co-investing with the state
It’s hard to avoid state-run companies if you are investing in emerging markets — after all they make up a third of the main EM equity index, run by MSCI. But should one be avoiding shares in these firms?
Absolutely yes, says John-Paul Smith at Deutsche Bank. Smith sees state influence as the biggest factor dragging down emerging equity performance in the longer term. They will underperform, he says, not just because governments run companies such as Gazprom or the State Bank of India in their own interests (rather than to benefit shareholders) but also because of their habit of interfering in the broader economy. Shares in state-owned companies performed well during the crisis, Smith acknowledges, but attributes emerging markets’ underperformance since mid-2010 to fears over the state’s increasing influence in developing economies. (t
Jonathan Garner at Morgan Stanley has a diametrically opposing view, favouring what he calls “co-investing with the state”. Garner estimates a basket of 122 MSCI-listed companies that were over 30 percent state-owned outperformed the emerging markets index by 260 percent since 2001 and by 33 percent after the 2008 financial crisis on a weighted average basis. The outperformance persisted even when adjusted for sectors, he says (state-run companies tend to be predominantly in the commodity sector).
Past performance and state support aside, Garner sees two inducements to buy shares in state-run companies. Firstly, they tend to trade relatively cheaply to their private sector peers (almost certainly because of the risks that state involvement is perceived to bring). Morgan Stanley calculates these companies are a fifth cheaper than the broader index, both on a forward price/earnings basis and on a price/book basis.
Secondly, many of these companies now pay decent dividends. Garner’s sample group of companies exhibits a dividend yield of 3.2 percent versus 2.7 percent for the MSCI index. That’s up from 1 percent in 2007 and should rise to 4 percent in 12, Morgan Stanley predicts.
It also expects a 15 percent upside to the share price for state-run companies.
Trading the new normal in India
After a ghastly 2011, Indian stock markets have’t done too badly this year despite the almost constant stream of bad news from India. They are up 12 percent, slightly outperforming other emerging markets, thanks to fairly cheap valuations (by India’s normally expensive standards) and hopes the central bank might cut rates. But foreign inflows, running at $3 billion a month in the first quarter, have tapered off and the underlying mood is pessimistic. Above all, the worry is how much will India’s once turbo-charged economy slow? With the government seemingly in policy stupor, growth is likely to fall under 7 percent this year. News today added to the gloom — exports fell in March for the first time since the 2009 global crisis.
So how are fund managers to play India now? According to David Cornell, who runs an India portfolio at specialist investor Ocean Dial, they must simply get used to the “new normal” — subpar growth and high cost of capital. In this shift, Cornell points out, return on assets in India has fallen from a peak of almost 14 percent in 2007 to less than 10 percent now. While that is still higher than the broader emerging asset class, the advantage has dwindled to less than 1 percent as companies suffer from margin compression and falling turnover. Check out these two graphs from Ocean Dial:
Cornell is playing the new normal by focusing on three sectors — consumer goods, banks and pharmaceuticals. These companies, he says, have pricing power and structural barriers to entry (banks); provide access to still-buoyant demand for services such as mobile phones (consumer goods) and are well-run and profitable (pharmaceuticals). And the export-oriented pharma sector is also an effective hedge against the weakening rupee.
If cost of capital is high, you want to avoid leverage, you want to be in banks which have pricing power. In pharmaceuticals you have 20 percent earnings growth and transparent accounting. In an uncertain environment these sectors should perform well. (Cornell says)
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.
