MacroScope

A weekend packed with action to reflect on with more to come.

Top of the list was the formation (finally) of an Italian coalition government. Market reaction is likely to be positive, although Italian assets rallied last week, and today’s auction of up to 6 billion euros of five- and 10-year bonds should continue this year’s trend of being snapped up by investors. Italian bond futures have opened about a third of a point higher.

Prime Minister Enrico Letto will seek a vote of confidence in parliament at 1300 GMT, which presumably should go without a hitch. But a coalition with the centre-left and Silvio Berlusconi does not necessarily look like a recipe for smooth government. It is quite possible that the leftward part of the centre-left will find it too hard to stomach, eventually leading to a split. Letta is expected to try to pass at least a few basic reforms quickly including a change to Italy’s much criticised electoral laws and a cut in the size of parliament

As far as the markets are concerned, there shouldn’t be any nerve-jangling economic policy shocks although Letta has said debt-cutting is self-defeating. New economy minister Fabrizio Saccomanni said on Sunday he plans to cut taxes and public spending and lower borrowing costs. The rhetoric may have shifted but the reality for the euro zone’s high debtors is many more years of pain to come. But it’s probably true that more emphasis will now be placed on structural reforms.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble meets his Spanish counterpart, Luis de Guindos, in southern Spain and may have some goodies on offer. Last week, he hinted that he would support a joint programme to boost investment in small- and medium-sized companies – the fabled SMEs. Irish premier Enda Kenny will be there prior to flying to Lisbon. The European Central Bank is also looking at how to get credit flowing to smaller companies, although there is some internal wrangling about whether that is the work of a central bank. It’s interesting that Berlin is prepared to act bilaterally and the word is that similar mechanisms could be rolled out elsewhere.

Germany, despite standing firm against rhetoric suggesting the age of austerity is over, also appears content to see Spain and others in the euro zone get a year or two longer to meet their deficit targets. This begs two profound questions. Does this suggest Berlin is loosening up a little as its economic data suggests even it is struggling? And does acting bilaterally denote a loss of faith in the European Commission?

German newspaper Handelsblatt has got hold of a confidential Bundesbank report to Germany’s constitutional court, which sharply criticized the European Central Bank’s bond-buying plan. This could be very big or it could be nothing.

Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann has made no secret of his opposition to the as yet unused programme and since the mere threat of massive ECB intervention has driven euro zone bond yields lower for months there is no urgency to put it into action. But the OMT, as it is known, is by far the single biggest reason that markets have become calmer about the euro zone, so anything that threatens it could be of huge importance.

The key point is not the Bundesbank’s stance but how the Constitutional Court responds. It is due to consider OMT in June. Through the three-year debt crisis, when Berlin has reluctantly crossed red lines it has had to get the court’s approval. So far, it has always been forthcoming, though sometimes with strings attached. But if it took the Bundesbank’s assertion that bond-buying could “compromise the independence of the central bank” at face value, it is almost certain to have a long hard look. We already know that the court is a potential stumbling block to banking union as it has ruled that any future euro mechanisms would only be in order if Germany’s maximum liability was clearly defined.

After bad economic news from Germany, China and the United States over the past few weeks, here are two more. Brazil and India, two of the world’s largest emerging economies, are increasingly vulnerable to another crisis or to the eventual end of the ultra-loose monetary policies in developed economies after five years of a severe global slowdown.

Weak demand for Brazil’s exports and the voracious appetite of local consumers for imported goods widened the country’s current account deficit to 2.93 percent of GDP in the 12 months through March, the widest gap in nearly eleven years. In dollar terms, that amounts to $67 billion.

To help fund this gap, Brazil could at first loosen the currency controls adopted in the past few years and let more dollars in. But if the dollar flows change too swiftly, Brazil would find itself with three other options: curb spending by growing less, allow a decline in the foreign exchange rate at the risk of fueling inflation, or burn part of its international reserves – which are large, at $377 billion, but not infinite.

First quarter UK GDP figures will show whether Britain has succumbed to an unprecedented “triple dip” recession. Economically, the difference between 0.2 percent growth or contraction doesn’t amount to much, and the first GDP reading is nearly always revised at a later date. But politically it’s huge.

Finance minister George Osborne has already suffered the ignominy of downgrades by two ratings agencies – something he once vowed would not happen on his watch. And even more uncomfortably, he is looking increasingly isolated as the flag bearer for austerity. The IMF is urging a change of tack (and will deliver its annual report on the UK soon) and even euro zone policymakers are starting to talk that talk. It was very much the consensus at last week’s G20 meeting.

The government can argue that it hasn’t actually cut that hard – successive deficit targets have been missed – and that it does have pro-growth measures such as for the housing market and bank lending. But the inescapable political fact is that Osborne and his boss, David Cameron, have spent three years arguing that they would cut their way back to growth and that to borrow your way out of a debt crisis is madness. In fact, it’s arguably perfectly economically sane, given that if you get growth going, tax revenues rise and will eat away at the national debt pile.

There’s been a lot of noise surrounding the rhetorical shift away from austerity in the euro zone in recent days, the notable exception being Germany. It is now widely acknowledged that monetary policy alone cannot turn economies around. But of course it has a vital part to play.

That puts the focus on the European Central Bank and growing expectations that it will cut interest rates to a new record low next month. Yesterday’s poor German PMI could have been the tipping point. On three of the four times the survey reading has fallen below 50 since the collapse of Lehman Brothers a rate cut followed the month after. Germany’s PMI duly slipped into contractionary territory yesterday.

In all this, we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that a quarter-point rate cut may move markets but will have only a small impact on the euro zone economy. It’s also true that the ECB has shown no signs of wanting debt-cutting drives to be mothballed. Its reaction to any shift in that direction remains to be seen.

A sudden turn for the worse across German companies should clinch an interest rate cut from the European Central Bank next week, or in June at the latest.

That’s because the latest PMI surveys, which have a decent correlation with economic growth, suggest the German economy  shifted back into reverse this month, against the expectations of economists.

And the one thing the ECB’s Governing Council never allows to pass is any sign that Germany, Europe’s No.1 economy, is floundering.

With debate about the balance between growth and austerity well and truly breaking out into the open, flash euro zone PMIs – which have a strong correlation to future GDP — are likely to show why a bit of fiscal stimulus is sorely needed. Talk of a European Central Bank rate cut is growing, euro zone policymakers at the G20 last week began to ponder loosening up on debt-cutting in an attempt to foster some growth and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso added his voice to the debate yesterday, saying the austerity drive had reached its “natural limit”.

Crucially, we haven’t heard similar from Germany but something is afoot, starting with the certainty that the likes of Spain and France will get more time to meet their deficit targets when the Commission makes a ruling next month. Portugal has already been given more leeway and today its finance minister will spell out new spending cuts which are required after the constitutional court threw out Plan A.

It’s a coincidence, but an interesting one, that this debate – frequently voiced in private over many months – has gone public just as THE academic study from 2010 which asserted that as soon as debt exceeds 90 percent of GDP growth is crushed, has been called into question.

All the talk of currency wars is mostly just that – talk. This week’s meeting of the Group of 20 nations at the International Monetary Fund was living proof. Despite speculation that emerging nations would redouble their criticism of extraordinarily low rates in advanced economies, the G20 ended up largely supporting the Bank of Japan’s new and bold stimulus efforts aimed at combating years of deflation.

Mr. currency wars himself, Brazilian Finance Minister Guido Mantega, told reporters Japan’s monetary drive was understandable given its struggle with falling prices and stagnant wages, even if he called for close monitoring of its potential spillover effects.

Outgoing Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney said Japan’s action is consistent with the G20 communiqué that called for countries to refrain from competitive devaluation. Carney, the head of the G20′s Financial Stability Board, takes over the Bank of England in July. His comments echo recent remarks from Fed Vice Chair Janet Yellen.

The big euro zone development over the weekend was the re-election of ageing Italian President Giorgio Napolitano for a second term. The presumption is that to put himself through this again he must have got pretty serious expressions of intent from the warring political parties that they will strive for some form of grand coalition. That may have been made easier by the resignation of centre-left leader Bersani who was in danger of splitting his own caucus.

If that comes to pass it should push back the timing of fresh elections until next year at least, a welcome turn for markets which feared a new poll could result in an even more fractured outcome and put more power in the hands of the anti-establishment Five Star movement. All that means we should see a significant rally in Italian assets today. That should also benefit other peripheral euro zone bonds. Safe haven German Bund futures have already dipped at the open, Italian bond futures have leapt almost a full point and European stock futures are pointing upwards.

87-year-old Napolitano will address parliament later and could either rush through consultations with the parties or skip that step altogether since he’s already heard from them ad nauseam.

Discussions about central banking are often belabored by analogies to moving vehicles, which make some sense given that interest rate policy can act both as accelerator and brake on economic activity. Perhaps tired of being in the driver’s seat, Minnesota Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota decide to switch gears and talk about clothing instead.

In an attempt to illustrate that interest rates are low because of economic conditions, not the whim of policymakers, Kocherlakota compares monetary policy to a protective jacket that needs to be worn when the weather gets rough but can slowly be removed as the summer approaches.

Why have real interest rates fallen so much? At one level, the answer is obvious: monetary policy. The FOMC has announced its intention to keep the fed funds rate near zero at least until the unemployment rate falls below 6.5 percent. At the same time, the FOMC has bought over $3 trillion of longer-term assets issued or backed by the government. With inflationary expectations well anchored, these actions are designed to push downward on real interest rates and have been successful in doing so.