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.”
Play the mini-cycles, not the euro crisis
For all the headline attention on euro zone political heat over the next six weeks or so (Spain is already in the spotlight, Sunday is the first round of the French presidential elections, Greece goes to the polls on May 6, Ireland votes on the EU fiscal pact on May 31 etc etc), global investors may be better rewarded if they follow the more mundane runes of the world’s manufacturing cycle for tips on market direction.
As showcased by the IMF this week, the big picture global growth story remains one of a relatively modest slowdown this year to 3.5% before a substantial rebound in 2013 to well above trend at 4.1%. Of course, there are some who think that’s hopelessly optimistic and others who may quibble about the absolute numbers but agree with the basic ebb and flow.
Yet within even these headline numbers, many mini-cycles are playing out — especially within manfacturing, which accounts for about 20% of global GDP. But problems in deciphering these twists and turns have been compounded over the past year or so by the impact from natural disasters and supply chain disruptions such as Japan’s devastating earthquake and Thailand’s floods.
Crunching the numbers for Q1, however, JPMorgan’s global economists reckon global maufacturing output hit an annualised quarterly clip of some 5.6%. Even though that’s still off the pace of one year ago, it’s back near levels seen in Q3 of last year before the late-year slump. Breaking that down, the United States accounted for more than a half the Q1 rebound while emerging Asian economies, benefitting most from the bounceback after Thailand’s floods, zoomed at a 20% annualised rate.
However, this impressive manufacturing bounce is already ebbing again in the second quarter. The Thai bounceback looks spent and an acceleration in US inventory accumulation is now slowing output there.
Although only one part of a more complex GDP picture (we will see Q1 GDP readouts from the United States and Britain next week as well as flash April business sentiment gauges for Europe and China), world equity markets appear to be taking a lead from the manufacturing pulse — surging in Q1 and now cooling into April. If so, what can be said about the rest of the year? JPMorgan at least reckons we’re in for another reacceleration around mid-year, for a variety of the seasonal, inventory and disaster-related reasons already affecting the mini-cycle and with a rebound in utilities output as weather normalises stateside and in Europe.
So while Europe’s ongoing sovereign debt and banking crisis continues to pose risks to the global economy, its impact ont he wider world may be getting weaker. And it’s curious that a possible re-acceleration of manufacturing this Summer could come in tandem with important junctures in the euro saga itself — namely the European Banking Authority’s June recapitalisation deadline for euro area banks and also the introduction of the permanent European Stability Mechanism to shore up the rest. Deadline-driven deleveraging and global asset sales by euro zone banks, mercifully slowed by the ECB’s cheap 3-year LTRO in December and February, was easily been the biggest external transmission mechanism of the euro crisis last year. Once that has passed, it’s possible there may even be some financial sector relief to add a fillip to any manufacturing resurgence.
Time for a slice of vol?
As the global markets consensus shifts toward a “basically bullish, but enough for now” stance — at least before Fed chief Bernanke on Monday was read as rekindling Fed easing hopes — more than a few investment strategists are examining the cost and wisdom of hedging against it all going pear-shaped again. At least two of the main equity hedges, core government bonds and volatility indices, have certainly got cheaper during the first quarter. But volatility (where Wall St’s Vix index has hit its lowest since before the credit crisis blew up in 2007!) looks to many to be the most attractive option. Triple-A bond yields, on the other hand, are also higher but have already backed off recent highs and bond prices remain in the stratosphere historically. And so if Bernanke was slightly “overinterpreted” on Monday — and even optimistic houses such as Barclays reckon the U.S. economy, inflation and risk appetite would have to weaken markedly from here to trigger “QE3″ while further monetary stimuli in the run-up to November’s U.S. election will be politically controversial at least — then there are plenty of investors who may seek some market protection.
Societe Generale’s asset allocation team, for one, highlights the equity volatility hedge instead of bonds for those fearful of a correction to the 20% Wall St equity gains since November.
A remarkable string of positive economic surprises has boosted risky assets and driven macro expectations higher but has also created material scope for disappointment from now on. We recommend hedging risky asset exposure (Equity, Credit and Commodities) by adding Equity Volatility to portfolios.
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.
Tiger: potentially exciting and turbulent year
It’s the year of Tiger in the Lunar calendar. JP Morgan Asset management says the Tiger year opens with a bang only to peter out with a whimper — it is a year of fluctuating fortunes with people doing dramatic things, often on the spur of the moment.
“In short, it is a year of massive change, but it can also be a year to inject new life into a losing cause,” the asset manager says.
Here are some events that happened in previous Tiger years, listed by JPM:
1950: The (then) USSR claimed to have developed the atomic bomb, while the Korean War began with the North invading the South.
1962: Typhoon Wandda unleashed havoc in Hong Kong, while a border dispute escalated into the Sino-Indian war.
1974: A record number of tornadoes in the U.S., the IRA bombing of the UK parliament and the sudden resignation of Richard Nixon as the U.S. president at the height of the Watergate investigation
