MacroScope

The Dutch investment bank ING reckons talk of Americans rediscovering savings is misleading.

Households are slashing their purchases of financial assets. The savings ratio is rising because borrowing is falling even more rapidly.   The household savings ratio climbed to 6.9 percent in May, up from a low point of 0.4 percent in 2005. But their purchases of financial assets plunged to -0.5 percent of income in the first quarter (the most recent data), down from a recent peak of 21.6 percent in 2004.

Given this, it will be more than interesting to see the second quarter figures, which should reflect most of the March to June global equity rally. But until then, what do you think? Is the “Americans are saving” mantra misleading?

Emily Kaiser adds:

Jeff Frankel at Harvard has an interesting take on this theme. He’s arguing it’s the end of the global savings glut. Chairman Bernanke, if you’re reading this, what do you say to that?

There is little doubt that the BRICs — Brazil, Russia, India and China — have become big players in Africa. According to Standard Bank of South Africa, BRIC trade with the continent has snowballed from just $16 billion in 2000 to $157 billion last year. That is a 33 percent compounded annual growth rate.

What is behind this? At one level, the BRICs, as they grow, are clearly recognising commercial and strategic opportunities in Africa. But Standard Bank reckons other, more individual, drivers are also at play.

In a new report, the bank looks at what each of the individual BRIC countries is trying to do. To whit:

Nouriel Roubini is a bearish guy at the best of times, but he is currently worried that signs of those “green shoots” of economic recovery are covering up something altogether more stubborn in the garden.

Recent data suggest that the rate of contraction in the world economy may be slowing. But hopes that “green shoots” of recovery may be springing up have been dashed by plenty of yellow weeds.

His point, in a new post on his much-followed blog, is that the consensus view that the global economy has or will soon bottom out has already been proven too optimistic.

Analysts and strategists assessing whether there’s an economic recovery on the way are increasingly referring to “second derivatives”. It usually means a measure, say production, has declined, but not by as much as it did last month, or quarter.

Are second derivatives a strong basis for optimism? If you have to perform differential calculus to make a point, it may be a sign of desperation.

Equities markets continue to factor in a recovery, with the FTSE 100 up about 30 percent from its six-year low of March 9.

Interesting take on the rise in commodity prices from Julian Jessop, chief international economist at Capital Economics. The rise has little to do with the weaker dollar and everything to do with expectations of global economic recovery, he says.

The broad-based revival in commodity prices since March clearly reflects a combination of factors. One of these is the pure accounting effect of the depreciation of the dollar. Other things being equal, a fall in the U.S. currency will of course put upward pressure on commodity prices when measured in dollar terms – commodity producers with bills to pay in other currencies such as euros and pounds will require a higher price in dollars, while consumers outside the dollar bloc will be more able to pay that higher price. However, the movements in currencies have generally been small compared to the underlying movements in commodity prices.

Looking closely at the relative performance of different commodities, Jessop reckons the rally has primarily been led by oil and industrial metals, which are the most sensitive to the economic cycle. Inflation-driven commodities such as precious metals, including gold, have underperformed in the rally, he says.

The International Monetary Fund’s bumbled calculations on the financing needs of some eastern European countries revealed last week were met in Austria with disbelief, ridicule but also a quiet smile.

The IMF said it had overstated external financing needs of some countries in its Global Financial Stability Report, released on April 21, largely because of double-counting errors. The corrections have trickled in.

Worrying reports earlier this year indicating west European banks had lent $1.7 trillion to IMF-bailed-out states like Ukraine and Hungary worsened a steep selloff in the region’s assets. Policymakers lashed back at the time, saying the fear was blown out of proportion.

In much the same way that analysts have been debating whether equities are in a bear market rally or a new bull market, economists now have to deal with the question of whether the global economy is just bottoming out or is now actually recovering. The two things are obviously linked as BlackRock equities chief Bob Doll indicated when he said this week that equity markets will require the economic backdrop to actually improve rather than simply grow less bad if rises are to be sustained.

The less-dreadful-than-feared syndrome has been around for some time. U.S. markets, for example, found themselves cheering the loss of  539,000 jobs in April simply because its was the smallest since October and looked to be an improvement.

But talk of green shoots, a somewhat overused euphemism for the start of economic revival, has also been on the increase: European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet spoke on Monday about the pick-up in GDP evident in certain areas; China said its efforts to boost growth were working; and a lot of institutional investors are acting as if the worst is over.

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).

The global economic crisis has prompted  a number of economists to argue that the world will from now on experience lower trend growth, that is, roughly, that normal growth will be lower. The argument is that the current crisis is structural, not cyclical.

UBS is the latest to latch on to this view. In a client note, the bank’s economists say they have revised their 10-year average global real growth estimates to 3.4 percent from 3.8 percent. They have done the same for most of the big economies. The U.S. economy is now seen averaging 2.3 percent versus about 2.8 percent; China goes to 7.5 percent from 8.0 percent.

Does this matter? In at least one area it does — calculating the needed yield for U.S. Treasuries to be attractive over stocks. The lower the growth rate the lower the needed yield.

Austria’s Ewald Nowotny is a very busy man. Apart from running the Austrian Central Bank and sitting on the board of the European Central Bank, he has given at least 32 interviews since taking office last September, to publications as diverse as Japan’s Nikkei newspaper and Austrian alternative weekly Falter as well as the usual financial papers.

And his fondness to talk at length on ECB rate policy, the euro, emerging Europe, recession, inflation, deflation, growth forecasts and bank rescues has in turn set tongues wagging. He’s even done an internet chat with readers of Austria’s Der Standard.

“Ewald Nowotny is almost omnipresent. Barely a day goes by without (him) popping up in one of Austria’s publications airing statements about the current economic situation,” German
financial daily Handelsblatt wrote in a recent article, which only appears in its paper version.