MacroScope

Germany’s zero bound

Ana Nicolaci da Costa

May 4, 2012 15:00 EDT

The ultra-low rates offered by two-year German bonds reflect just how worried investors have become about the euro zone debt crisis and the continent’s sluggish economy.

Two-year German debt is currently yielding only 0.09 percent. That is less than the 0.11 percent offered by equivalent bonds in Japan – whose central bank has been grappling with deflation for some two decades. It is also below the 0.26 percent offered by similar U.S. Treasuries after the Federal Reserve more than tripled the size of its balance sheet compared to pre-crisis levels.

Elwin de Groot, senior market economist at Rabobank, expects the euro zone’s sluggish economy and intractable debt crisis to continue to favour a safety bid as long as policymakers do not take steps towards a closer fiscal union. He sees the two-year German bond yield hitting zero in three to six months and ten-year benchmark yields falling to 1.40 percent over the same period from 1.59 percent currently.

Peter Allwright of investment management firm RWC Partners goes one step further. He can envision a scenario where the German Schatz trades at significantly negative yields as the crisis unfolds.

There is going to be a huge shortage of triple A collateral in euros and if people start to price in the euro break-up scenario, people are going to be pushed into that.

Selective transparency at the Fed

Pedro da Costa

Apr 18, 2012 09:46 EDT

It’s something of a dissonant communications strategy: Fed officials are willing to tell us what they think will happen three years from now, but not what they discussed three years ago.

The Federal Reserve’s public relations arm holds up the chairmanship of Ben Bernanke as a model of transparency. And it’s true. Press conferences and federal funds rate forecasts are major steps forward for a central bank that until the mid-1990s didn’t even tell the markets what it was doing with interest rates.

Still, the old habits of secrecy die hard. Monetary policy transparency aside, the Fed has remained adamantly opaque in other ways – to the point that it took a Bloomberg News lawsuit for it to name the recipients of emergency era loans.

Similarly, it took a Freedom of Information Act request from MSNBC and The Huffington Post to obtain a mostly blacked out version of transcripts for Fed meetings during the worst of the U.S. financial crisis. The Fed only releases full transcripts of its meetings with a five year lag, arguing that this allows policymakers to conduct their discussions more freely.

New research from economists Xavier Freixa and Christian Laux examining the nature of regulatory failures during the crisis makes an interesting distinction between mere disclosure, the raw release of data, and transparency, which is a more directed effort to communicate that information to the public.

We interpret disclosure as providing information, while transparency arises when the information is effective in reaching the market, being adequately interpreted and used.

from Jeremy Gaunt:

Twisted Sister and the Federal Reserve

Jeremy Gaunt

Sep 21, 2011 05:31 EDT

The Federal Reserve's "Operation Twist" has set the literary- and musical-allusion juices flowing.  It is all about the Fed selling or not rolling over short-term debt and buying long-term bonds instead in order to keep borrowing costs low.

But that is frightfully dull for economists, analysts and reporters trying to get attention for their work. So, so far we have heard:

-- "Let's Twist Again", a reference to the 1960's Chubby Checker record about the dance craze . Problem is that the second line is "Like we did last summer", and the Fed did nothing of the sort, launching plain old quantative easing instead.

-- Twisted Sister might be a contender, but the heavy metal band's big hit "We're Not Going To Take It" probably better descibes market reaction to euro zone debt-crisis policy.

-- "Twist and Shout",  a reference to the rock song covered by The Beatles, among, others.  This is better. "Well, shake it up, baby, now" could indeed be the clarion call from financial markets for the Fed to so something, almost anything. But "Come on and twist a little closer, now, and let me know that you're mine" might be going a little far.

-- So the prize for now goes to literature not music:  "Oliver Twist".  Young Master Twist's  "Please Sir, I want some more"  just about sums it up.

Any others?

Banking on a Portuguese bailout?

Andy Bruce

Nov 30, 2010 08:44 EST

Reuters polls of economists over the last few weeks have come up with some pretty firm conclusions about both Ireland and Portugal needing a bailout from the European Union.

Portuguese 10-year government bond yields have hovered stubbornly above 7 percent since the Irish bailout announcement, hitting a euro-lifetime high and giving ammunition to those who say Lisbon will be forced into a bailout.

And of those who hold that view, it’s clear that bank economists have been most vocal in expecting Ireland and Portugal to seek outside help.

Take last week’s poll in which economists said Portugal would follow Ireland in applying for EU funds. Bank-based economists who expected a Portuguese bailout outnumbered those who didn’t almost three-to-one. For non-bank economists – those working at research houses, brokers and wealth management firms – the margin was only two-to-one.

This division was even more marked in the Irish bailout poll we ran three weeks ago. Bank-based economists expecting an Irish bailout outnumbered those who didn’t more than two-to-one. Our sample of non-bank economists were split almost evenly on the subject.

Interestingly, market makers and primary dealers – or banks mandated by government debt agencies to deal their new government bond issues – were staunchest in expecting Irish and Portuguese bailouts.

Of the seven economists polled by Reuters who work for primary dealers of Portuguese debt, six said Lisbon would need to apply for a bailout. For analysts representing primary dealers of Irish debt, four out of five said a bailout was imminent.

from Global Investing:

Solar activities and market cycles

Natsuko Waki

Nov 29, 2010 12:33 EST

Can nature's cycles enrich our finance and market theories?

Market predictions based on the alignment of the sun, moon and the earth and other cycles could help investors stay disciplined and profit in economic storms, says Daniel Shaffer, CEO of Shaffer Asset Management.

Shaffer writes that sunspot activities show that the sun has an approximate 11-year cycle and as of March 31, 2009, sunspot activity has reached a 100-year low (this, interestingly, coincides with a cycle low in equity markets, reached sometime mid-March in 2009).

But a low in solar activity seems to be followed by a high. Scientists are predicting a solar maximum of activity in sunspots in 2012 that could e the strongest in modern times, according to Shaffer.

"The concern is that something weird is going on and that the current extreme low in the sunspot cycle, similar to the stock market, can be followed by an unusually high sunspot cycle leading to a solar maximum, or in other words, a peak in sunspot activity," he writes in his latest book.

"Our analysis is currently indicating a stock market low in the United States in approximately year 2012, which coincides with either a sunspot low or high depending on the cycle. "

from Global Investing:

Bad economic data, please

Interesting twist at the moment - how are financial markets going to view not-so-bad or good data out of the United States in the run-up to the next Federal Reserve meeting.

Investors have been pricing in a chunky operation by the Fed to feed the markets with cheap cash – look at the gold, silver, the Australian dollar and the Canadian dollar. Bad data from the United States will keep investors confident of such Fed action and support the flows into high yielding assets.

But any data showing the pace of recovery in the world’s largest economy is not in such a bad shape. Investors will adjust their expectations and positions, causing a sell-off in equities, speculative-grade credit and high-yielding currencies.

Maybe bad data is what investors want over the next few weeks.

The end of capitalism

Jeremy Gaunt

Nov 23, 2009 11:09 EST

Hard to imagine with financial markets still buoyant and newspapers full of tales of bonus greed, but there is still the possibility that captialism will end.  At least there is according to prestigious investment consultants Watson Wyatt in their latest study called “Extreme Risks“.

The firm listed the demise of the system of private ownership as one of 15 threats to investors and the global economy that probably won’t happen but which it reckons are worth worrying about anyway. The idea behind the report is that such things as climate change, the break up of the euro zone and war are always worth being included in an investment risk management process.

As for the future of capitalism:

In our view, the most likely scenario is moving along from one end of a spectrum where market is king (minimum regulation) towards the other end, where we could see more onerous regulations and government intervention in, and control of, the economy. The extreme risk, however, is the demise of the capitalist system and the end of the market as the primary means of resource allocation.

And the impact:

The economy would be likely to run a higher risk of failure and economic growth would be sluggish in the long run due to lower productivity.  Centrally controlled economies tend to be characterised by shortages, which are inherently inflationary. Private investment activities would collapse or even be terminated. The end of capitalism is simply the ultimate extreme risk. The economy is likely to be associated with extreme uncertainty and a large amount of wealth destruction during the transition period.

Watson Wyatt does try to give its free market clients some hope, suggesting that buying gold may be one way to hedge against the propect of capitalism’s demise. But it admitted that in such a circumstance investors would probably be more concerned about the return of their investments rather that the return on them.

Former Head of U.S. Mint Goes for Gold

Pedro da Costa

Nov 12, 2009 16:45 EST

You know the American dollar is in trouble when…  There is plenty of discussion about the fate of the U.S. greenback these days, what with multi-trillion dollar rescues still flowing through the financial system. But dollar bulls might feel just a little trepidation to see Jay Johnson, former head of the U.S. mint — the folks that print the stuff — become a spokesperson for gold. Johnson actually passed away last month, but he can still be seen on TV infomercials, singing gold’s praises.  

Gold this week rallied to a new record high above $1100 an ounce, even as the dollar sank to a 15-month low against a basket of major currencies. 

Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher said this week he was mindful of the possibility that the central bank’s pledge to keep interest rates at rock-bottom lows for an “extended period” might be fueling the carry trade. That’s when investors use a “cheap” low-yielding currency to fund trades on riskier assets with loftier returns.

He added that the dollar’s decline had not been disorderly so far, but that he would expect the FOMC (the Fed’s policy-setting committee) and other authorities to craft an appropriate remedy if that were to happen.

Africa alone

Jeremy Gaunt

Jul 21, 2009 06:26 EDT

The good news for Africa when the global financial meltdown began was that its financial markets were generally so far behind the rest of the world that groups such as the World Economic Forum reckoned that there was little or no danger. A new paper, posted on the economic research website VoxEU, suggests that that might be a bit too optimistic.

Tilburg University economist and former World Bank official Thorsten Beck – along with the World Bank’s Michael Fuchs and Marilou Uy —  write that despite shallow financial markets, sub-Saharan Africa is unlikely to escape the repercussions of the financial crisis.

Indeed, they argue that the crisis is threatening what little progress has been made to reverse what they call the alarming superficiality of African finance.

African financial systems are small, both in absolute and relative terms . In addition, Africa’s financial systems are characterised by very limited outreach, with less than one in five households having access to any formal banking service. Banking is inefficient and expensive in Africa, as reflected by high interest spreads and margins and high overhead costs. Banking is also very expensive for deposit customers, as reflected by very high minimum balance requirements and annual fees in many African countries. High documentation requirements to open an account – that is, the need to present several documents of identification – also represent significant barriers given that large parts of the population live and work in the informal sector. Similarly, physical access is limited, as the low bank branch and ATM penetration numbers for Africa illustrate.

Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the report for the region, however, is that the authors reckon Africa is more or less on its own when it comes to fixing this.

For better or worse, the future of Africa’s financial systems is closely linked to the development of global finance, as are its real economies. However, it is up to Africa’s financial sector stakeholders – bankers, donors, and policymakers – to guide financial sector reforms in a way that maximises Africa’s opportunities, learning both from their own experience over the past 50 years and the experience in other emerging and developed economies.

The big question is whether such stakeholders will do so.

from Global Investing:

Big Five

Five things to think about this week:

VALUATIONS - The MSCI world stocks index has rebounded 37 percent since March, the VIX fear gauge has hit its lowest level since September 2008, and positive earnings surprises in Europe are marginally outstripping negative ones. But there are serious questions over the equity market's ability to sustain its rise.

MACRO SIGNALS - Trade data from the U.S., Canada and the UK, all out in this week, will be combed for signs of any recovery in global commerce. Also due are flash GDP data from the euro zone, industry output for the U.S., France, Italy, the euro zone and the UK, and Japan machinery orders.      QUANTITATIVE EASING - The ECB has finally shown willingness to deploy unconventional easing measures but it's hard to judge the success of such steps. Narrowing credit spreads, stock markets' bounce and gains in emerging market assets all show efforts to restore confidence in the financial system are having an effect. But if getting and keeping bond yields down is the yardstick for success, it's unfortunate that 10-year UK and U.S. government bond yields are back up to levels seen before the announcement of quantitative easing in those countries. And diminishing returns on further balance sheet expansion raise questions over how much more money central banks can print before inflation fears start to preoccupy policymakers and markets.    COMMODITIES - Confusion over the reasons for the commodities rally has reduced the usefulness of commodities prices as indicators of the industrial outlook. An apparent economic recovery in China has helped to boost the CRB commodities index by 21 percent from February's lows. But how much does the rise reflect a change in supply/demand for commodities, and how much is it simply due to idle money flooding back to unstable markets? Similarly, why has spot gold remained strong above $900 as jitters over the financial system decrease? Gold could be reflecting expectations that recovering economies will boost physical demand for the metal, but it may also be responding to fears of currency debasement after central banks' radical monetary easing.

EMERGING MARKETS  - Rising commodity prices and an easing dollar have offered a perfect environment to re-enter emerging markets. The coming week's  EBRD meeting will focus attention on central and eastern Europe and how it is coping with a nasty period of refinancing (albeit less dire than the IMF initially estimated).