MacroScope

It’s European Central Bank day and we have it on very good authority that a quarter-point interest rate cut is on the cards, which will take rates to a record low 0.5 percent. A plunge in euro zone inflation to 1.2 percent, way below the target of close to but below 2 percent, has cemented the case for action.

In terms of reviving the euro zone economy this is pea shooter and elephant territory. The ECB has consistently diagnosed the key problem that already ultra-low interest rates are not transmitted to high debt corners of the euro zone, where lending rates are much higher and credit restricted. A rate cut won’t change that. It also illuminates the gulf in approach with the Bank of Japan and Federal Reserve who continue to print money at a furious rate.

The Fed said on Wednesday it would continue buying $85 billion in bonds with new money each month and added it would step up purchases if needed to protect the economy, dousing recent suggestions that the programme could be wound up in the months ahead. Nonetheless, a euro rate cut will help at the margins.

The ECB is also considering ways to help small- and medium-sized companies get easier access to credit. This is a thorny debate. There is clearly some internal opposition and even disinterested outsiders say it is an unusual thing for a central bank to get involved in. Don’t bet on it happening.

The really interesting point is that if the ECB fears deflation could take hold, all the arguments about what its mandate allows it to do (one reason it has not mimicked the Fed, BoJ and Bank of England in printing stacks of money) fall away and all sorts of expansionary policies are possible. If that fear doesn’t gain traction, then the ECB is reaching the limits of its policy response unless it gets an excuse to launch its bond-buying programme, which seems a distant prospect at the moment.

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.

The huge downturn in French businesses was by far the most disappointing aspect of this week’s euro zone PMIs, which again painted a dismal picture of the euro zone economy.

Maybe it’s because grim euro zone PMIs come around with depressingly familiarity these days, but economists on the whole had surprisingly little say about this.

Still, the March survey delivered some major landmarks relating to France.

Most obviously, its services companies endured their worst month since February 2009, practically at the nadir of the Great Recession of 2008-09.

The European Central Bank takes centre stage. While others in the euro zone are saying the way Cyprus was bailed out – with bank bondholders and big depositors hit – could be repeated, the ECB insists it was a one-off.

Fearful of any signs of contagion it will continue to talk that talk and there’s no sign of it having to do more so far, with no bank run even in Cyprus let alone further afield. But the last two weeks has reignited debate about what the ECB might have to do in extremis. It’s no nearer deploying its bond-buying programme but it could flood the currency area’s financial system with long-term liquidity again if called upon.

Interest rates are expected to be held at a record low 0.75 percent. Hints of policy easing further out are not out of the question. As ever, Mario Draghi’s hour long press conference will be minutely parsed but there will be nothing to match the Bank of Japan which earlier announced a stunning revamp of its policymaking rules – setting a balance sheet target which will involve printing money faster and pledging to double its government bond holdings over two years.

Take with a pinch of salt economists who say Tuesday’s strong UK services PMI  might persuade the Bank of England to hold off from restarting its printing presses this week.

BoE policymakers been perfectly willing over the last few years to vote in favour of more asset purchases after a rise in the services PMI number.

Only the last decision for more quantitative easing — July 2012 — came after a decrease in the services PMI’s main index. While members of the Monetary Policy Committee rely on the PMIs as a monthly gauge of economic activity, it’s clear the surveys can’t be read as any proxy for policy decisions.

Optimism in Germany is roaring and consumers across the euro zone are starting to become less gloomy. But the latest hard economic data are a reminder of the difference between confidence that things are going to get better, and the hope that they will.

For the moment, we only have the latter.

Friday’s German Ifo business climate survey topped even the highest expectations, as did the ZEW economic sentiment indicator on Tuesday. Euro zone consumer confidence improved this month too, and the mood in financial markets has been largely buoyant since the start of the year.

The hope is that will translate into a growing euro zone economy, but that isn’t happening yet.

The euro zone economy may be doing far worse than most economists want to believe. That’s not good news for a central bank trying to rescue the single currency through a hotly-contested bond purchasing programme that has yet to get started.

The latest flash purchasing managers’ indexes, which cover thousands of euro zone companies, suggest the third quarter will mark the euro zone’s worst economic performance since the dark days of early 2009, according to Markit, which compiles them.

They predict the economy likely shrank by 0.6 percent in the quarter that finishes at the end of this month.

It seems foolish to hope for a summer lull given recent history but in euro zone debt crisis terms at least, the next week looks quieter unless the markets turn savage again.

That’s not to say things are getting better – Spain’s 10-year borrowing costs are still above the seven percent level which it cannot survive indefinitely — it’s just that things aren’t getting much worse at the moment. Certainly with the Spanish bank bailout signed off as far as it can be, there’s nothing on the policy front to shake things up for a while although the debt-laden region of Valencia’s call for help with its debt hardly inspires confidence that Madrid can get things back on track.

What there is next week is a welter of evidence coming up on the health, or lack of it, of the world economy.
Flash PMIs for the euro zone, France and Germany are swiftly followed by Germany’s Ifo sentiment survey and second quarter GDP figures from Britain. The Q2 U.S. growth figure also comes out on Wednesday as well as the Chinese PMI on Tuesday. The euro zone’s slide into recession is likely to be confirmed and of course Britain is already there and unlikely to clamber out despite government and central bank protestations that the country’s travails are all to do with the euro area.

I don’t want to be the idiot who asked “is it all over?” … but is it all over?

Almost certainly not, is the answer. Greece is shored up for now but Portugal will probably need to follow it in seeking a second bailout and Spain, heading back into recession, will have to make deep, deep cuts over the next two years to meet EU deficit targets. Greek and French elections could easily upset the apple cart, the former producing a fractured government with less will to tread the austerity path, the latter a new president who wants to renegotiate the bloc’s new fiscal rules (though neither are guaranteed).

In Italy, a lot of faith continues to be placed in Monti but the proof of his ability to deliver the structural reforms needed to regalvanise the economy has yet to be seen. On that front, the Italian government is talking with trade unions during the week on radical reform of labour market rules, with the aim of clinching a deal next week.