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.
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.”
Poland, the lonely inflation targeter
Is the National Bank of Poland (NBP) the last inflation-targeting central bank still standing?
The bank shocked many today with a quarter point rate rise, naming stubbornly high inflation as the reason, and signalling that more tightening is on its way. The NBP has sounded hawkish in recent weeks but few had actually expected it to carry through its threat to raise rates. Economic indicators of late have been far from cheerful – just hours after the rate rise, data showed Polish car production slumped 30 percent in April from year-ago levels. PMI numbers last week pointed to further deterioration ahead for manufacturing. And sitting as it does on the euro zone’s doorstep, Poland will be far more vulnerable than Brazil or Russia to any new setback in Greece. Its action therefore deserves praise, says Benoit Anne, head of emerging markets strategy at Societe Generale.
(Poland’s central bank) is one of the last orthodox inflation-targeting central banks in the global emerging market central bank universe. They are taking action because they are seeing inflation creeping up and have decided to be proactive.
The rate rise is especially notable given many central banks in developing countries appear effectively to have surrendered their inflation-fighting mandate. Nowhere is the push for lower interest rates more pronounced than in Brazil where the government last week announced plans to scrap fixed-rate savings deposits in a move that is seen paving the way for more agressive rate cuts. Clearly there is tolerance here for higher inflation, which will still end 2012 well above target.
But many analysts such as Manik Narain at UBS consider Poland’s decision a high-risk one given the growth issues. Narain sees it possibly motivated by the need to signal Poland will not welcome further currency weakness (the zloty like most emerging currencies has shed much of its early-2012 gain) Therefore a prolonged monetary tightening cycle is unlikely, he says. Indeed many reckon the NBP may find itself, like the European Central Bank last year, reversing an ill-considered rate rise. Analysts at Capital Economics write:
If we are right in expecting growth and inflation to slow by more than most expect over the second half of this year then this may well be the NBP’s “ECB moment”. Recall that having hiked rates twice in the first half of 2011, the ECB was forced to start loosening policy once again by November as the economy weakened. In Poland’s case, we think there is a good chance that today’s rate hike will be reversed by the end of the year.
Three snapshots for Tuesday
Equities in the countries most exposed to the euro zone crisis seem to be being hit especially hard this year. The Datastream index of shares in Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece and Spain has a total return of -5.3% this year compared to +8.9% for a euro zone index excluding those countries.
U.S. consumers went back to using their credit cards in March to keep spending while student and new-car loans shot up as the value of outstanding consumer credit jumped at the fastest rate since late 2001, data from the Federal Reserve showed on Monday.
Total consumer credit grew by $21.36 billion – more than twice the $9.8 billion rise that Wall Street economists surveyed by Reuters had forecast.
Perhaps some of that credit card spending is finding its way to luxury goods companies – there certainly don’t seem to be too many worries about an economic slowdown coming through in their share price performance:
A necessary evil?
While market players nervously chew their nails over the Greek election result, the French market is calmly absorbing news of a socialist victory in its own presidential race.
Francois Hollande has defeated half the “Merkozy” austerity titan, and panic is nowhere to be seen. Of course, the feeling that cuts might not quite be best way to spark growth has been building for a while but today brings some confirmation that a new consensus is forming.
John Bennett, director of European equities at Henderson, believes the French result might be essential.
“Unfortunately, the austerity medicine prescribed by the (Merkozy) axis has been killing the eurozone patient, particularly the more sickly members who do not have the strength to tolerate the dosage.
Hollande has stated he would like to renegotiate the fiscal compact agreed between member states. This could pave the way for a period of volatility as the ratings agencies bleat their disapproval but such a move is born of pragmatism that more needs to be done to promote growth.
For Sarkozy, such a blatant change of tack would have been awkward if not impossible. For Hollande, it is relatively easy since his win gives him the mandate for change. Will Germany tolerate a shift in stance? Probably, since the only option is to risk being isolated within the eurozone.
Will the markets be forgiving? Probably, since otherwise Europe risks becoming a textbook case of the Paradox of Thrift. A shift in mindset towards a focus on getting Europe moving again rather than relentless cuts is exactly what the doctor should be ordering.”
Bennett clearly believes the demise of the “vainglorious” Sarkozy is a good thing for Europe, and is standing by a relatively sanguine view on European equities… assuming investors have the nerve to wait it out. His team continues to find it ”compelling that global businesses whose domicile happens to be Europe have the potential to reward handsomely the patient investor… As ever the scarce yet fundamental commodity is patience.”
Research Radar: Beyond Hollande and Holland…
Markets have been dominated this week so far by the fallout from Sunday’s French presidential election, where Socialist Francois Hollande now looks set to beat incumbent conservative Nicolas Sarkozy in the May 6 runoff , and the collapse of the ruling Dutch coalition on Monday. Public anxiety about budgetary austerity in Europe was further reinforced by news on Monday of a deepening of the euro zone private sector contraction in April. That said, euro equity, bond and currency prices have stabilised relatively quickly even if implied volatility has increased as investors brace for another month or so of political heat in the single currency bloc. The French runoff is now on the same day as the Greek elections and May 31 sees Ireland going to the polls to vote on the EU’s new fiscal compact. Wall St’s volatility gauge, the ViX, is back up toward 20% — better reflecting longer term averages — and relatively risky assets such as emerging market equities remain on the back foot. The euro political heat and slightly slower Q2 world growth pulse will likely keep markets subdued and jittery until mid year at least. At that point, another cyclical upswing in world manufacturing together with the passing of the EBA’s euro bank recapitalisation deadline as well as the introduction of the new European Stability Mechanism may well encourage investors to return at better levels.
Following are some interesting tips from Tuesday’s bank and investment fund research notes:
- JPM economists reckon finding the reason behind the backup in US weekly initial jobless claims over the past couple of weeks is key to assessing whether a sub-par March payrolls report is repeated in April. It says it’s possible the claims jump move is a seasonal factor as unadjusted claims are closely tracking 2007′s pattern and Easter holidays fell on the same dates in both years. If 2007 was repeated, there would be a sizeable late April drop in claims and JPM looks for some of that on Thursday with a 14,000 forecast drop. (Reuters poll consensus is for a 11,000 drop)
- Following the surprise news last week that dovish Bank of England policy maker Adam Posen is no longer voting for more UK money printing, Barclays FX team said it’s turning more positive on the UK economy and also says sticky inflation may mean the Bank of England’s current monetary stance may be too accommodative. As a result, it lowered its euro/sterling 3-month forecast to 0.79 from 0.84. However, it cautioned about being short euro/sterling until after Wednesday’s Q1 UK GDP report, which it said could come in weaker than expected due to temporary factors. (Reuters poll consensus is for a 0.1% rise Q/Q)
- As everyone watches the FOMC outcome on Wednesday, Bank of New York Mellon‘s Simon Derrick highlights widespread expectations of further Bank of Japan easing and asset purchases on Friday. He reckons the economic arguments for more easing in Japan may be sound but it’s worth considering whether BoJ governor Masaaki Shirakawa may want to start facing down heavy political pressure for endless BoJ easing.
- Rabobank‘s emerging markets team flag their concern about Poland’s zloty, which has been one of the best performing currencies of the year so far. They say the zloty is a high “Eurozone beta” play, seen in the correlation of the eur/pln rate with composite euro periphery sovereign CDS spreads, and as a result will suffer if euro tensions rise further over the next month or two.
Three snapshots for Thursday
U.S. jobless claims unexpectedly rose last week to their highest level since January:
The unemployment rate in Greece rose to 28.1% in January.
Gold mining equities continue to underperform the metal:
A Hungarian default?
More on Hungary. It’s not hard to find a Hungary bear but few are more bearish than William Jackson at Capital Economics.
Jackson argues in a note today that Hungary will ultimately opt to default on its debt mountain as it has effectively exhausted all other mechanisms. Its economy has little prospect of strong growth and most of its debt is in foreign currencies so cannot be inflated away. Austerity is the other way out but Hungary’s population has been reeling from spending cuts since 2007, he says, and is unlikely to put up with more.
How did other highly indebted countries cope? (lets leave out Greece for now). Jackson takes the example of Indonesia and Thailand. Both countries opted for strict austerity after the 1997 Asian crisis and resolved the debt problem by running large current account surpluses. This worked because the Asian crisis was followed by a period of buoyant world growth, allowing these countries to boost exports. But Hungary’s key export markets are in the euro zone and are unlikely to recover anytime soon.
The other example is Argentina. It too recovered strongly from its 2001 crisis but its way out was default. Capital Economics writes:
There are arguments for why, in Hungary’s case, default might appear to be an attractive option. The economy runs both a current account surplus and a primary surplus (i.e. government spending is lower than receipts before interest payments are taken into account). This means that if the Hungarian government were to default and were to be barred from borrowing from abroad, it would still not be forced into drastic fiscal austerity or a painful current account adjustment via reduced domestic demand.
Moreover, the note says:
Sujata Rao, let me explain why this isn’t going to happen, a default that is. It would tarnish the PMs otherwise flawless reputation and image.
He rather resort to unorthodox financial strategies that slowly makes the people that can, move out of the country, and the rest will suffer the consequences of these strategies.
Bullish Barclays says to buy Portuguese debt
Some bets are not for the faint-hearted. Risky punts are even less so following a sovereign debt crisis, one that has riddled European debt markets for two years. Barclays Capital, however, recommends a particularly unusual bet, one that your parents might baulk at.
It will be of little surprise that Barcap is bullish on the year, advising towards assets that will perform well in an environment of US-led global growth, easy monetary policy and tight oil supplies following reduced tail-risks in Europe curbed by cheap money from the European Central Bank.
Now that the rush of the addictive LTRO money is over and the dust is settling on central banks’ balance sheets, Barcap is brave enough to recommend an unlikely candidate and one of the recent targets of financial markets — Portugal.
Laurent Fransolet, Managing Director of Research at Barclays Capital told reporters at a Global Outlook briefing today:
“One of the top trades that we recommend in the global outlook is to be long on Portugal, which is a little bit of a roll of the dice. It is a fairly high risk, high return strategy. The sustainability of the debt, the fiscal consolidation, the long-term economic performance – these are still questions that remain on people’s minds for the foreseeable future.”
But the investment bank said it took the EU and the IMF at their word on implications following the Greek Private Sector Involvement (PSI) bailout deal.
“After the Greek PSI, we do believe the statement that Greece is unique and that anything will be done for Portugal for as long as needed if Portugal does deliver its side of the bargain — which has been the message by the European officials and by the IMF. In the very near term you probably have some opportunity for Portugal to outperform from what are fairly cheap levels.”
from MacroScope:
Greek debt – remember the goats
Greece's creditors have essentially let it off the hook by overwhelmingly agreeing to take a 74 percent loss. So what better time to remember one of the first times Athens got in trouble with paying its debts.
In 490 BC, the bucolic plains before the town of Marathon were the site of a bloodbath. Invading Persians lost a key battle against Greeks, who were led by the great Athenian warrior Kallimachos, aka Callimachus.
The trouble is, Kallimachos shares some of the difficulty with numbers that modern Greek leaders appear to have. Before launching himself upon the Persians, he pledged to sacrifice a young goat to the Gods for every enemy that was killed.
His troops slaughtered some 6,400 invaders. Unfortunately the Athenians didn't have that many young goats. So they had to spread the repayment and legend has it that it took them a century to honour the pledge.
Apparently, Zeus and the other Gods had not heard of the Institute of International Finance and were unwilling to take a 74 percent cut in goats.
