MacroScope

Throughout Europe’s financial crisis, German government bonds have been seen as a safe-haven for those seeking protection against the troubles of southern Europe. However, the confidence of financial markets in Germany’s finances may finally be starting to falter as the cost of a festering financial crisis rises – and the country is seen as ultimately holding the bag.

Demand at the latest government bond auction remained solid. However, the slide in German bunds continued into a second day and, worryingly, it was driven in part by worries about contagion after Spain’s poorly-received 100 billion euro bank bailout.

According to Capital Economics:

The last few days have brought clear signs that bunds are finally losing their safe-haven status.

The markets are starting to see bad news for the periphery as bad news for Germany too. If so, there would appear to be scope for this process to continue as the crisis deepens and the fork in the road to either fiscal union or break-up gets nearer.

Things are on the move in Spain although nothing is set in stone yet.
Treasury minister Montoro’s call yesterday for “European mechanisms” to be involved in the recapitalization of Spain’s debt-laden banks – a reversal of Madrid’s previous insistence that it could sort its banks alone – unleashed a barrage of whispers in Europe’s corridors of powers.

Our sources say that the independent of audit of Spanish banks’ capital needs, the first phase of which is due by the end of the month, will be a key moment after which things could move quickly.

The hitch is that Madrid still doesn’t want the humiliation of asking for a bailout and Germany will not countenance the bloc’s rescue funds lending to banks direct. One possible solution floated last night –  the EFSF or ESM bailout funds could lend to Spain’s FROB bank rescue fund, which could be viewed as tantamount to lending to the state but would give the government some political cover to say it wasn’t asking for the money. This is anything but a done deal and there would still be some strings attached which could be tough for Prime Mininster Mariano Rajoy to swallow.

Many market analysts consider a deeper fiscal union the only way to hold together a troubled euro zone. And while Germany continues to loudly reaffirm its long-standing opposition to shared euro zone bonds, the region is in many ways already headed towards implicit mutual responsibility for national debts. Berlin will likely come under increasing pressure to succumb, especially now that “core” European countries are entering the crosshairs of speculators .

The region’s complex TARGET2 payments system, which hosts payment flows between euro zone member states, suggests there is already a good deal of risk-sharing implicit in regional structures, not to mention the exposure the European Central Bank has to peripheral debt. That shared liability may fall short of the kind of joint risk-taking foreseen for a common bond, where one country is responsible for the non-payment of debt by another.

But analysts say the build-up of imbalances in the system – as the ECB replaced private sector lending which dried up for peripheral countries – reflects the latest in a number of crisis-fighting steps that have increased regional integration.

A telling moment. Before pretty much every showdown EU summit since the debt crisis exploded into life, the leaders of France and Germany have got together beforehand to agree a common strategy. It is a truism that the European motor only works efficiently when its two biggest powers are in accord.

This time, following the election of Francois Hollande as French president, there has been no such meeting. Instead he will talk with Spanish premier Mariano Rajoy in Paris before they head to the Brussels summit.
There, Hollande will press for the currency bloc to start issuing joint euro zone bonds and will run into implacable German opposition that will squash the plan for now.
But the plates are shifting and German Chancellor Angela Merkel looks somewhat isolated.

On euro bonds, Hollande can call on the support of Italy’s Mario Monti and the European Commission among others.
Nonetheless, Angela holds the purse strings so while we will see some modest pro-growth measures agreed (and no doubt trumpeted), there will be no pump-priming that requires extra deficit spending, certainly no mutualising of debt and probably no hint that the likes of Greece and Spain will be given longer to make the cuts demanded of them (though that policy’s time could soon come, depending on how the June 17 Greek elections go).

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.

We will return on Monday knowing whether the Greeks have elected a pro-bailout government and probably to find socialist Francois Hollande – the man leading the growth strategy charge – as the new French president. 

An Hollande victory could cause some jitters given his rhetoric about the world of finance. But we’ve looked at this pretty forensically and there may not be much to scare the horses. Yes he is making growth a priority (but even the IMF is saying that’s a good idea) yet his only fiscal shift is to aim to balance the budget a year later than incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy would. Contrary to some reports, he is not intent on ripping up the EU’s fiscal pact and of course the bond market will only allow so much leeway.

The heavyweight Economist magazine may have labelled socialist Hollande “dangerous” but the reality is likely to be that he will rule from the centre and his demands for a dash for growth — and a change to the ECB’s mandate to aid it — will be tempered. Spain has shown everybody that too much fiscal loosening will be pounced upon by the bond market and while there is a lot of talk about a growth strategy for Europe, what we’ve heard so far amounts to tinkering.

After the Easter break, a bit of perspective — to paraphrase the immortal Spinal Tap, maybe too much perspective.

Over the past two weeks, Spanish and Italian borrowing costs have continued to rise – in the former’s case they have now relinquished more than half their fall since December and are heading back into the danger zone. Stocks have also appeared to have given up on their first quarter rally, presumably testament to the realization that the ECB and other top central banks are unlikely to be writing any more blank cheques for banks to reinvest.

Late last year, it was Italy that seemed to have the power to drag Spain into the debt crisis mire. Now, it’s the other way round and after the ECB anaesthesia  wears off, it’s clear the euro zone patient is still sickly.

A new quarter dawns and although a holiday-shortened week isn’t likely to see dramatic investment decisions taken, the burning question is whether the strong ECB-fuelled rallies of the first three months of the year can continue. The consensus so far is yes, but at a more modest pace.

Markets will pick through the details of the Spanish budget and the euro zone’s decision on increasing the capacity of its firewall. Implementation risk in the first case, and shallow ambition in the second leaves scope for disappointment.

The standout events of the week are the policy meetings of the European Central Bank and Bank of England. No policy changes will result but within the former at least, there is growing internal debate about the long-term consequences of creating a trillion euros of three-year money which no doubt prevented a credit crunch, but according to monetarist theory at least, will inevitably fuel future inflation. There is also the conundrum of creating banks forever reliant on central bank support rather than being able to stand on their own two feet and start lending to each other again.

Brace yourself for a blizzard of numbers.

EU finance ministers gathered in Copenhagen are poised to decide precisely how much firepower their new rescue fund – to be launched mid-year – will have. A draft communiqué suggests that as of mid-2013, presuming no new bailouts have been required in the interim, the combined lending ceiling of the future ESM and existing EFSF bailout funds will be set at 700 billion euros (500 billion pledged to the ESM plus the roughly 200 billion already committed to Greek, Irish and Portuguese rescue programmes).

Up to mid-2013, if 700 billion proves to be insufficient — i.e. someone else needs bailing out — euro zone leaders will be able to bolster it with the 240 billion euros as yet unused in the EFSF, according to the draft, although German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said last night that 800 billion should be the absolute limit.

Sorry, there’s more. Because the ESM will not have its full 500 billion euros capacity on day one – it will build up over time – the real available figure for the next year is more like 640 billion euros.
Confused? You should be.

The first quarter winds to a close and, for most investors, it must have been a profitable one with stocks climbing and peripheral euro zone bond yields falling largely on the back of the European Central Bank’s efforts to pump prime the financial sector with a trillion new euros. Reuters’ asset allocation polls on Tuesday will look at whether there has been a significant pull-back from core government debt and the “risk on” trend can continue.

The second quarter may be much less straightforward (though let’s not forget at the turn of the year, no one thought the first quarter would be either) but let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves.

The coming week provides a number of chances to take the temperature of the euro zone debt saga. Spain, having ripped up its 2012 deficit target, will present its full budget a day after a general strike and EU finance ministers gather in Copenhagen where the still unresolved issue of how to structure the euro zone’s permanent rescue fund will be structured.