Showing posts with label Bernanke Put. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bernanke Put. Show all posts

Thursday, June 26, 2014

US GDP 1st Quarter Shrinks 2.9%, Stocks on Record Run

1Q 2014 US GDP was first reported to have grown by a pittance of .1%, then adjusted to a contraction of –1% and eventually changed to an even deeper contraction of 2.9%

From Bloomberg:
The U.S. economy contracted in the first quarter by the most since the depths of the last recession as consumer spending cooled.

Gross domestic product fell at a 2.9 percent annualized rate, more than forecast and the worst reading since the same three months in 2009, after a previously reported 1 percent drop, the Commerce Department said today in Washington. It marked the biggest downward revision from the agency’s second GDP estimate since records began in 1976. The revision reflected a slowdown in health care spending.
The 2.96% contraction represents the 17th worst quarterly decline by the US economy in history (see table here via zero hedge)

Yet despite the deepening contraction, US stocks continues with its fabulous record run.

Record stocks in the face of contracting economy, so what’s the connection?  Who says stocks are about the economy?

Aside from retail investors driving record stocks, and the just off the record in margin debt, a bigger factor has been corporate buybacks.

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Chart from Factset

Notes Sigmund Holmes: (bold mine)
According to Reuters, 1st quarter share weighted earnings amounted to $258.8 billion. So companies in the S&P 500 spent 93% of their earnings on buybacks and dividends. It’s been all the rage in this cycle to look at “shareholder yield” which is a combination of buybacks and dividends, something I find too clever by half considering the past track record of management led buybacks. But if you think that is a useful metric, you have to ask yourself, is a 93% payout ratio sustainable? I guess we do have the answer to one question though. We know why capital spending has been so punk.
How have these record rate of buybacks been funded? Naturally by debt. David Stockman explains: (bold mine) 
And on the business side of the peak debt story, the picture is now even worse. Non-financial business debt has grown from $11 trillion on the eve of the financial crisis to nearly $14 trillion at present. But this staggering gain of $3 trillion or 25% has not gone into incremental investment in plant and equipment—that is, the building blocks of future productivity and sustainable economic growth. Instead, and just like during the prior Greenspan housing bubble, it has gone into financial engineering and rank speculation.

That is the explanation for record stock buybacks and the resurgence of mindless M&A deals (globally we just had the first $1 trillion M&A quarter since Q3 2007). These deals are overwhelmingly nothing more than a vast expansion of cheap leverage being used to liquidate target company stock, and which are so lacking in business logic that they will surely be unwound to the tune of vast “one-time” write-offs in the years ahead.

What is at record 2007 peak levels is not loans to main street businesses—most of which do not need funding or are not credit worthy. Instead, the recently heralded growth in bank lending has gone into leveraged buyouts and dividend recaps.

Indeed, credit is flowing every which-way into the Wall Street casino including sub-prime auto junk funds, double-leveraged CLOs, massive junk bond issuance at the lowest rates and spreads ever and “cov lite” loan issuance at rates even higher than 2007. But according to Yellen, “our models” show no indications of bubbles or over-valuation.

Yes, with the Russell 2000 at 85X reported earnings there is no over-valuation. Likewise, S&P 500 reported LTM earnings in Q1 clocked in a $105 per share, meaning the broad market was trading at 18.7X as she spoke. Incidentally, that multiple of the kind of GAAP earnings that they put you in jail for lying about is higher than 86% of the monthly observations in in modern history, and actually higher than 95% if you take out the years of Greenspan’s lunatic dot-com bubble.

Worse still, those $105 of earnings have crept up by only 5% annually since later 2011— during a period in which the stock index has risen by nearly 60%. Yet the current $105 earnings number is also bloated with unsustainable interest subsidies on upwards of $3 trillion of S&P company debt owing to the Fed’s financial repression which is eventually to end; is festooned with tax rate gimmickry that is finally stimulating a Washington revulsion; and is flattered with earnings translation gains that are going to reverse as the ECB puts the kibosh on the Euro.
Some debt graphs supporting these buybacks from the International Institute of Finance (IIF)
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Collateralized Loan Obligations (CLOs)—a type of collateralized debt obligation that pools medium and big business loans

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Junk bonds
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Leveraged loans

Awesome accumulation of leverage!

Stock buyback is a form of financial engineering because this signifies a massaging of earnings. Buybacks shrinks the denominator of Earnings per share (EPS) which amplifies the numerator. In short, US stocks are at record levels because of credit financed accounting based manipulation of earnings via buybacks, courtesy of the FED.

Also notice the source of disconnect; borrowings at near record or at record pace in different credit markets have hardly been used for real business investments (or productive undertakings)  but has been mainly redirected to manipulate earnings in order to justify record stocks, thus the wonderful DIVERGENCE or PARALLEL UNIVERSE.

Again who says stocks are about the economy?

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

World Millionaires Parties on Central Bank Policies

I am not a fan of the political correct issue called “inequality”, whereby populist politics calls for political solution to redistribute wealth in order to make economic standings “equal”. 

This inequality issue for me is really nonsense. Simple reasons, there is no such thing as “equal” (e.g. even public schools’ rating of students have ranks). Second, political ways of solving inequality extrapolates to a shift in inequality from the markets to politics or from market inequality to political inequality. Wealth (or resource distribution) will be skewed towards those whom political patrons anoint as beneficiaries. So when you hear "it is not what you know but who you know", those are signs of politically based inequality.

For instance when Ben Bernanke, yet as a university professor wrote a “smart central bank can protect the economy and the financial sector from the nastier side effects of a stock market collapse”, which became a social policy, popularly known as the Bernanke/Greenspan PUT, this translates to an implicit subsidy to equity market owners, financed by the ordinary citizens. 

And since global central banks have embraced and assimilated US Federal Reserves’ policies of ZIRP and QEs that has inflated asset markets, these has increased “wealth” of mainly of equity (as well as other asset) owners around the world.

From the Wall Street Journal Real Time Economic Blog
Overall, the world’s wealth grew by 15% to $152 trillion, led by a 31% jump among countries in the Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) to $37 trillion. In North America, the world’s richest region, wealth grew by 16% to $50.3 trillion, thanks largely to strong returns in the stock market.

Globally, the number of millionaire households hit 16.3 million in 2013, a 19% rise from the previous year.
Millionaires in China have reportedly eclipsed Japan to place second behind the US.

The difference has been that growth in the millionaires of Chinese, instead of coming from equity markets, has been mostly a product of shadow banking.
The Chinese saw their portfolios swell as wealth in the country grew by a whopping 49% to $22 trillion last year. The report’s authors attributed that explosive rise to specialized financial products such as trusts — the amount of wealth in trusts rose 82% in 2013 — “reflecting the country’s rapidly expanding shadow-banking sector.”

While booming stock markets fueled wealth growth in many other countries, including the U.S., China’s investors experienced the opposite: Wealth in equities actually fell 6.8% on the year among Chinese.
Notice that inflated assets markets have been the basis of “wealth” which means they are artificial and depends on sustained central bank subsidies. This includes China’s shadow banking system.

And as I pointed out here, in the US booming stocks mostly benefit the elites.

The sad part is that while inflationary boom supports a few, when the bust comes most will get hurt.

In short, central bank policies have both serious externality and inequality issues.

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Charts: US Stocks and The Greater Fool Theory; No Weekend Stock Market Commentary

I’m taking this week off from my weekly stock market outlook.

In gratitude to my readers, I will leave something for you to ponder on this weekend: Important charts depicting what seems as the greater fool theory in motion at the US stock markets. Remember, what happens to the US will most likely have a domino effect to the world.

Greater fool theory—buying assets in the hope that greater fools will buy the same assets at a much higher price—or as per Wikipedia.org—”a situation where the price of an object is not being driven by intrinsic values, but by expectations that irrational bidders for limited assets or commodities, will set the price”

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Bullishness in investor sentiment has now reached extreme levels (Zero Hedge). The sustained upside movement has only strengthened the convictions of the bulls and the fools, luring more and more of them into a bidding spree.

Yet this appear to be signs of a ‘crowded trade’ where everybody’s "all in" and everyone's expecting higher prices from more fools buying at higher prices (endowment bias). 

Question is but what if there are lesser number of fools to sell to?

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Who could be the fools?

Record US stocks have been driven mostly by retail/household punters (in billion of dollars).

Household buying of US stocks have also reached milestone highs, drifting slightly above the 2000 and 2007 levels (Yardeni.com).

The last 2 times US households furiously stampeded into the stock markets, bear markets followed (see pink rectangles). Remember the crash from the dot.com bubble bust and the US housing mortgage bubble bust? Again household buying has reached "peak" levels of 2000 and 2007.

Question is could the Bernanke-Yellen policies have transformed stocks into a “permanently high plateau” (to borrow from the late economist Irving Fisher)? 

Will this time be different?

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What has financed such bidding frenzy from the bulls and the fools? The short answer is DEBT.

Record US stocks have now coincided with record margin debt.

Margin ‘real inflation-adjusted’ debt has currently surpassed the 2000 levels but has been slightly off the 2007 record highs.

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Margin debt including free cash accounts and credit balances in margin accounts or Credit Balance as the sum of Free Credit Cash Accounts and Credit Balances in Margin Accounts minus Margin Debt  as per Doug Short, which are also at record levels, reveals how punters have increasingly used leveraged to push up stocks to record territory. 

It's more than just margin debt and investor credit. 

Systemic leverage in order to chase yields have been intensifying and broadening, from bond issuance to finance stock buybacks, near record consumer and industrial loans, stratospheric unprecedented levels for commercial real estate lending and more.

What have the bulls and the fools been buying?

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Record stocks comes amidst declining EPS (Business Insider)…
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…as well as record negative over positive eps announcements (Zero Hedge).

All these means that the fools have been chasing multiples rather than eps growth with escalating debt.

Will the current bonanza via a “don’t worry be happy” trade remain in favor of the stock market bulls and the fools?

Perhaps. Depending on how many more fools can be seduced into the frenzied pile up. Mania phases can have an extended period of euphoria. Manias signify the "peak" of the bubble cycles where convictions have been the strongest.

Nevertheless the farther the height of the serial increases, the bigger the accumulation of risk via more debt, the greater the fall.


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Based on the “log periodic” pattern designed by economist Didier Sornette where bubbles reflect on “a widening gap between the increasingly extrapolative expectations of market participants and the prospective returns that can be estimated through present-value relationships linking prices and likely cash flows” current momentum indicates of an accelerating odds of a text-book stock market crash, according to fund manager John Hussman

Well such risks will be discarded and the ignored by the bulls and their fools because stock markets, for them, have been perceived as a one way street: "up, up, up and away!"—courtesy of the Greenspan-Bernanke-Yellen Put, which some believe have worked as an elixir.

At the end of the day, let us see who will be holding the proverbial bag.

Sunday, October 13, 2013

Shutdown-Debt Ceiling Politics: The Charles Schumer Put

Step aside Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke. New York Senator Charles Ellis ‘Chuck’ Schumer has declared that the preservation of stock market has to be prioritized from the shutdown-debt deal stalemate.

From the Zero Hedge: (bold-italics original)
We commend Senator Schumer for being the first Senator to openly step up and admit that the worst case scenario in the whole Congressional 3D IMAX farce is not about keeping the economy afloat, is not about preserving jobs, but merely keeping the stock market at or near its all time highs:
  • Schumer Says He Worries About Monday Stock Drop on Default Risk. "This is playing with fire," Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., tells reporters. Says he worried whether “the stock market will go down
For those confused, Schumer has merely admitted what the vast majority of the Senate, where two thirds are millionaires, and nearly half the House, think: don't you dare let the manipulated precious, which at last check was just 1% below its all time Fed-balance sheet derived highs, drop.

And speaking of Chuck Schumer's "bottom line", here it is.
Bluntly stated; protect my investments and the interests of my campaign contributors

Saturday, September 21, 2013

Video: David Stockman: From “Bubble” Ben Bernanke to “Calamity” Janet Yellen

Strident criticism of Janet Yellen, the likely replacement of Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, by author, former Congressman and Director of the Office of the Management Bureau David Stockman in a Bloomberg interview (zero hedge)
She has no clue how to wean Wall Street from this pathetic addiction to this massive stimulus, easy money that’s been going on for this entire century…

She spent her whole life as a monetary bureaucrat in the Fed system, has no clue what honest capitalism what genuine free markets are about. Believes that the entire system has to be run by a monetary politburo turning over the dials…short-term interest rate, yield curve and the entire financial system.

She is part of the groupthink. She is part of the Keynesian consensus that 12 people running $16 trillion economy. They are delusional. The market is simply trading the word clouds in this daily injections that comes from the out of control central bank


Wednesday, September 18, 2013

European Economic Recovery? Car Sales Plunges to Record Low

We have been told that the Eurozone will be one major force in alleviating the plight of Asia and emerging markets. Unfortunately, it seems that Eurozone will have to fix their problems first before assisting anyone.

Despite positive surveys and all that, what people say and people actually do have been different. In the Eurozone, cars sales fell to the “lowest on record” last August. 

This compounds on the significant decline in July’s Industrial output which has been oceans away from consensus expectations

From Bloomberg: (bold mine)
European car sales fell in August, bringing deliveries this year to the lowest since records began in 1990, as record joblessness in the euro region hurt deliveries at Volkswagen AG (VOW), PSA Peugeot Citroen (UG) and Fiat SpA. (F)

Registrations dropped 4.9 percent to 686,957 vehicles from 722,458 cars a year earlier, the Brussels-based European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, or ACEA, said today in a statement. Eight-month sales declined 5.2 percent to 8.14 million autos.

The economy of the 17 countries using the euro emerged from a record six-quarter recession in the three months through June. Aftereffects such as a jobless rate in the area that held at 12.1 percent in July led industry leaders at the International Motor Show in Frankfurt a week ago, including Peugeot Chief Executive Officer Philippe Varin, to stick to predictions of a sixth consecutive annual car-market contraction in 2013.

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"Record low" car sales appear to be undermining the supposed re-emergence from “a record six-quarter recession”.

And to think that “record recession” means soaring stock markets where the Stoxx 50 has been in the proximity of “record highs”. Economic growth drives the stock market? Duh.

Rising stocks provide mainstream media the delusion of a perpetual “recovery” that has gone amiss as signified by “record recession”. 

The reality has been that the Draghi Put (“do whatever it takes” OMT etc…) or guarantees on the markets, has been shifting resources from the main street to Europe’s Wall Street. So Europe's Wall Street feasts on the subsidies provided by the ECB. The real economy then goes only for the morsels.

Yet recent gains in car sales have been misinterpreted by the mainstream and the officialdom as sustainable. 
The European car market rose 4.9 percent in July to 1.02 million vehicles. The gain was the second this year, following a 1.7 percent increase in April that marked the first growth in European car sales in 19 months. The trade group releases July and August sales figures simultaneously each September.
One can call this a “head fake” or in chart lingo a “dead cat’s bounce”.

The car recession has not only been deep but has been widespread.
Four of Europe’s five biggest automotive markets shrank last month. Deliveries in top-ranked Germany dropped 5.5 percent to 214,044 vehicles. That compared with a 2.1 percent increase in July. The U.K. market, the region’s second biggest, expanded 11 percent to 65,937 cars in August.
Don’t worry be happy. The consensus will keep on piling onto the stock markets which it should drive to stratospheric highs, since all other alternatives (bonds, commodities and the real economy) have been down. 

As ex-Citigroup chief executive Charles O. Prince haughtily expressed during the 2007 mania:
When the music stops, in terms of liquidity, things will be complicated. But as long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance. We’re still dancing.
Despite signs of the music stopping as manifested by rising global bond yields, let’s keep dancing.

Monday, July 22, 2013

Ron Paul: Bernanke’s Farewell Tour

Ron Paul at the Free Foundation.org (bold mine)
Last week Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke delivered what may well be his last Congressional testimony before leaving the Federal Reserve in 2014. Unfortunately, his farewell performance was full of contradictory comments about the state of the economy and the effects of Fed policies on the market. One thing Bernanke inadvertently made clear was that the needs of Wall Street trump Main street, the economy, and sound money.

Quantitative easing (QE) and effectively zero interest rates have created paper prosperity, but now the Fed must continuously assure Wall Street that the QE spigot will not be turned off. Otherwise even the illusion of recovery will disappear. So Bernanke made every effort to emphasize that the economy was not doing well enough to end QE, while lauding the success of Fed policies in improving the economy.

Bernanke was also intent on denying that Fed policies directly boost financial markets. However, the money the Fed creates out of nothing in order to buy mortgage-backed securities and government debt for the QE3 program, benefits first and foremost the big banks and the financial class — those people who are invited to the Fed auctions. This new money then fuels stock bubbles, bond bubbles, agricultural land bubbles, and others. The consequences of this are felt by ordinary savers, investors, and retirees whose savings lose value because of the Fed’s zero interest rate policy.

As if Wall Street favoritism and zero returns for savers isn’t bad enough, the Fed wants the rest of America to bear a greater inflation burden. The Fed thinks you should lose two percent of the value of your dollar this year. But Bernanke is not satisfied with having reduced purchasing power by ten percent since the 2008 recession. The inflation picture is actually much worse if we look at the old consumer price index —the one that did not assume that ground beef is a perfect substitute for steak.

Using the old CPI metric, as calculated by John Williams at Shadow Government Statistics, we’ve lost close to 50 percent of the purchasing power of our money in just the last five years. So what you were able to buy with the $20 in your pocket before the financial crisis costs more than $30 today. That might be peanuts to Wall Street, but that’s real money for working Americans. And it’s theft by the Fed. It is a direct consequence of the trillions of new dollars the Fed has “not literally” printed—as Bernanke put it.

Bernanke’s final testimony before Congress confirms that the Fed has blatant disregard for the extra costs and the new bubbles it is creating. The Fed only understands paper prosperity, not how middle class Americans and the poor suffer the consequences of higher prices, resources misallocations, and distortionary bubbles as well as insidious unemployment.

The only way out of this tailspin of monetary favoritism is to restore sound money, which would end the Fed’s ability to manipulate currency and put Wall Street first. The Fed has proven over and over again that it has no respect for the real money that preserves the value of people’s labor, their wealth, and their ability to live free and prosperous lives. It is beyond time for the Fed, Wall Street, and the federal government to stop manipulating money and stealing from the American people under the false guise of paper prosperity.
If indeed this is the farewell tour, then Dr. Bernanke will have done a great escape act.  Whoever his successor is, he/she would need to deal with the chaotic legacies created by Mr. Bernanke and Mr. Greenspan

Phisix: The Myth of the Consumer ‘Dream’ Economy

Life is not about self-satisfaction but the satisfaction of a sense of duty. It is all or nothing. Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Bernanke Put: If we were to tighten policy, the economy would tank
I don't think the Fed can get interest rates up very much, because the economy is weak, inflation rates are low. If we were to tighten policy, the economy would tank.
That’s from Dr. Ben Bernanke, US Federal Reserve Chairman’s comment during this week’s Question and Answer session in the congressional House Financial Services Committee hearing[1].

This practically represents an admission of the entrenched addiction by the US and the world financial markets on the central bank’s sustained easy money policy. This has likewise partially been reflected on the US and global economies. I say “partially” because not every firms or enterprises use leverage or financial gearing from banks or capital markets as source of funding operations. Since I am not aware of the degree of actual leverage exposure of each sector, hence it would seem to use “safe” as fitting description to the aforementioned relationship.

The fundamental problem with easy money dynamics is that these have been based on the promotion of unsound or unsustainable debt financed asset speculation and debt financed consumption activities, in both by the private and in the government, in the hope of the trickle down multiplier from the “wealth effect”.

The reality is that such policies does the opposite, it skews the incentives of economic activities towards those subsidized by the government particularly financial markets, banks, and the government (via treasury bills, notes and bonds as low interest rates enables sustained financing of the expansion of government spending) which widens the chasm of inequality between these politically subsidized sectors at the expense of the main street. For these sectors, FED’s easy money policies signify as privatization of profits and socialization of losses.

Yet the massive increases in debt as consequence from such loose interest rate policies, magnifies not only credit risk, thus affecting credit ratings or creditworthiness, but importantly the diversion of wealth from productive to capital consuming activities, which ultimately means heightened interest rate and market risks.

Eventually no matter how much money will be injected by central banks, if the pool of real savings will get overwhelmed by such imbalances, then interest rates will reflect on the intensifying scarcity of capital.

Capital cannot simply be conjured by central bank money printing, as the great Ludwig von Mises warned[2] (bold mine)
The inevitable eventual failure of any attempt at credit expansion is not caused by the international intertwinement of the lending business. It is the outcome of the fact that it is impossible to substitute fiat money and a bank's circulation credit for capital goods. Credit expansion can initially produce a boom. But such a boom is bound to end in a slump, in a depression. What brings about the recurrence of periods of economic crises is precisely the reiterated attempts of governments and banks supervised by them, to expand credit in order to make business good by cheap interest rates.
From such premise, interpreting “low” interest rates as a function of “weak” economy and “low” inflation seems relatively inaccurate.

Such assessment has been based on the rear view mirror. As of Friday, Oil (WTIC) at US $108 per bbl and gasoline at $ 3.12 per gallon, as noted last week[3] US producer prices have also been rising, which reflects on an inflationary boom stoked by credit expansion. If energy and commodity prices persist to rise, then “low” price inflation will transform into “high” price inflation. Thus “price” inflation, as corollary to monetary inflation, will likely add pressure on bond yields and interest rates.

Moreover record levels of US stock markets imply of intensifying asset inflation. Prior to the bond market turmoil, US housing has also caught fire. “Low” levels of price inflation or what mainstream sees as “stable prices” doesn’t imply of the dearth of accruing imbalances, on the contrary, these are signs of the boom bust cycle in motion channeled through specific industries, similar to the “roaring twenties[4]” or the US 1920s bubble and the 1980s stock and property bubble in Japan.

As the great dean of the Austrian school of economics, Murray N. Rothbard explained of the inflating bubble of 1920s amidst low price inflation[5]:
The trouble did not lie with particular credit on particular markets (such as stock or real estate); the boom in the stock and real-estate markets reflected Mises's trade cycle: a disproportionate boom in the prices of titles to capital goods, caused by the increase in money supply attendant upon bank credit expansion
The same bubbles on “titles to capital goods”, via stocks and real estate, plagues from developed economies to emerging markets, whether in Brazil, China or ASEAN.

And “weak” economy in the backdrop of elevated levels of interest rates powered by price inflation had been a feature of the stagflation days of 1970s.

Finally, while price inflation, scarcity of capital and deterioration of credit quality are factors that may lead to higher interest rates as expressed via rising bond yields, another ignored factor has been the relationship between the growth of money supply and interest rates.

As Austrian economist Dr. Frank Shostak explains[6]
an increase in the growth momentum of money supply sets in motion a temporary fall in interest rates, while a fall in the growth momentum of money supply sets in motion a temporary increase in interest rates.

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Such momentum based relationship can be seen in the Fed’s M2 and the yield 10 year constant maturity or even with the Divisia money supply

On the top pane, in 2008-2010, as the Fed’s M2 (percent) simple sum aggregate (blue line) collapsed, the yields (percent change from a year ago) of 10 year constant maturity notes soared. Following the inflection points of 2010, the relationship reversed, particularly the M2 soared as the Fed’s 10 year yields fell.

The M2 commenced its decline on the 1st quarter of 2012 while the UST 10 year yield rose in July or with a time lag of over three months.

The Divisia money supply, instead of a simple sum index used by central banks, is a component weighted index which has been based on the ease of, and opportunity costs of the convertibility or “moneyness” of the component assets into money (Hanke 2012)[7].

The Divisia money supply has been invented by invented by François Divisia, 1889-1964 and has now been made available via the Center for Financial Stability (CFS) in New York, through Prof. William A. Barnett[8]

As of June[9], the varying indices of the Divisia money supply based on year on year changes have all trended downwards since late 2012.

The slowdown in the growth of momentum of money supply have presently been reflected on the upside actions of yields of the bond markets.

The momentum of changes of money supply will largely be determined by the rate of change of credit conditions of the banking system.

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Rising bond yields largely attributed to the FED’s “tapering” chatter has spurred a huge $66 billion in the past 5 weeks through July exodus on bond market funds according to Dr. Ed Yardeni[10].

The destabilizing rate of change in bond flows appear as evidence of “If we were to tighten policy, the economy would tank”

Bernanke PUT’s Effect: Parallel Universes

The Q&A statement along with the Dr. Bernanke’s earlier comments in the House Financial Services Committee where he said central bank’s asset purchases “are by no means on a preset course[11]” has energized a Risk ON environment.

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US stocks broke into record territories. Benchmarks of several key global stock markets rebounded. Global bond markets (yields) rallied along with commodity prices.

During the past two weeks, the financial markets have been guided higher by repeated assurances from Dr Bernanke aside from central bankers of other nations.

Given this cue, ASEAN stock and bond markets rallied substantially despite what seem as deteriorating fundamentals.

The sustained rout of the Indonesia’s rupiah appears to have been ignored by the stock and bond markets. Indonesia’s central bank, Bank Indonesia intervened in the currency market by injecting dollars into the system. Indonesia’s foreign exchange reserves dropped by $7.1 billion in June, the most since 2011, and which brings total reserves to less than $100 billion, a first in two years, according to a report from Bloomberg[12].

Indonesia’s unstable financial markets mainly via the bond and currency have prompted the World Bank to cut her growth forecast early June. Thailand’s central bank have downshifted their economic growth estimates along with their Ministry of Finance and the IMF[13].

The IMF has also marked down global economic growth due to “longer economic growth slowdown”[14], from China and other emerging economies whom have been faced with “new risks”

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has also trimmed growth forecast for ASEAN at 5.2% where the Philippines has been expected to grow 5.4% in 2013 and 5.7% 2014[15].

In contrast to the ADB, the IMF, whom downgraded world economic growth, has upgraded economic growth projection of the Philippines to 7% in 2013[16]
In the world of central bank inflationism, “fundamentals” in the conventional wisdom hardly drives the markets. Stock and bond markets may substantially rise even as the economy has been mired in a prolonged period of negative growth or recession. This has been in the case of France in 2012-13[17].

An investor in Chinese equities would have only earned 1% per year during the last 20 years even as per capita has zoomed by 1,074 percent over the same period, according to a Bloomberg report[18].

This shows how the discounting mechanism of financial markets has been rendered broken, relative to reality, reinforced by the stultifying effects of central bank easing policies.

And amidst sinking stock markets and the recent spike in short term interbank interest rates due to supposed cash squeeze from attempts by the Chinese government to ferret out and curtail the shadow banks, China’s increasingly unstable and teetering property bubble continues to sizzle with home prices rising in 69 out of 70 cities. Guangzhou, Beijing and Shanghai reported their biggest gains since the government changed its methodology for the data in January 2011 according to another report from the Bloomberg[19].

Such dynamics reinforces China’s parallel universe

Never mind that Chinese rating agencies downgraded “the most bond issuer rankings on record in June” as brokerage houses have been preparing for “the onshore market’s first default as the world’s second-biggest economy slows” according to another Bloomberg article[20].

China’s rampaging property bubble appears to be in a manic blow-off top phase

The Myth of the Consumer ‘Dream’ Economy

Speaking of mania, a further manifestation of the “permanently high plateau”, new order, new paradigm, “this time is different” can be seen from the president of the Government Service Insurance System Robert Vergara, who proclaims that the Philippines has reached a political economic nirvana.

From a Bloomberg report[21]:
The country “is still experiencing a secular growth story,” Vergara said. “We have the kind of economy that every country dreams of.”
Being an appointee of the Philippine president[22] it would seem natural to for him to indoctrinate or propagandize the public on the supposed merits of the current boom as part of the PR campaign for the government.

The GSIS president says he expects a return of 9% or more for the Philippine equity benchmark, the Phisix, over the next 12 months, as earnings will increase by about 15% during the next two years. All these have been premised on the ‘dream’ Philippine economy which he projects as expanding by 6-7% during the next 2 years and whose growth will be anchored by record-low interest rates which allegedly will fuel consumer spending.

What has been noteworthy in the reported commentary has been that of the GSIS’s president implied market support for local equities, where “the fund would consider increasing equity holdings to as much as 20 percent of total assets if the gauge falls below the 5,500 level”. If a private sector investor will say this they will likely be charged with insider trading.

And if he is wrong, much the retirement benefits of public servants risks being substantially diminished. Otherwise, taxpayers will be compelled to shoulder such imprudent actions.

But has the Philippine economy been driven by consumer spending as popularly held?

According to the National Statistical Coordination Board’s 1st quarter GDP report[23]:
With the country’s projected population reaching 96.8 million in the first quarter of 2013, per capita GDP grew by 6.1 percent while per capita GNI grew by 5.3 percent and per capita Household Final Consumption Expenditure (HFCE) grew by 3.4 percent. – 

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The same Philippine economic agency notes that based on the 1st quarter expenditure share of statistical economic growth, household final expenditure grew by only 5.1% (left pane). This has been less than the 7.8% overall growth rate of the economy.

Merchandise trade had hardly been a factor as exports posted negative growth while imports had been little changed. Government final expenditure grew by more than double the rate of household final expenditure or by 13.2%, and capital formation had been mostly powered by construction up by 33.7%.

From the industrial origin calculation perspective (right pane) we see the same picture. Construction soared by an astounding 32.5%. This has fuelled the Industry sector’s outperformance, which had been seconded by manufacturing 9.7%. Financial intermediation has also registered a strong 13.9% which undergirded the service sector. Public administration ranked fourth with 8% growth, about the rate of the nationwide economic growth.

So data from the NSCB reveals that during the 1st quarter, statistical growth has hardly been about the household consumption spending driven growth, but about the massive supply side expansion as seen through construction, financial intermediation, and secondly by government expenditures.

Yet here is what the Philippine ‘dream’ economy has been made up of.

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Credit growth underpinning the fantastic expansion of the construction industry has been at a marvelous or breathtaking rate of 51.19% during the said period, this is according to the data from the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas as I previously presented[24].

How sustainable do you think is such rate of growth?

Meanwhile, bank lending to financial intermediation and real estate, renting and business services and hotel and restaurants grew by a whopping 31.6%, 26.24% and 19.18%, respectively. Wholesale and retail trade grew by 12.49%.

Banking loans to these four ‘bubble’ sectors which embodies the shopping mall, vertical (office and residential) properties, and state sponsored casinos accounts for 53.25% of the share of total banking loans.

Remember household final demand grew by a relative measly 5.1% and this partly has been backed by bank lending too. Bank lending to the household sector grew a modest 11.89% backed by credit card and auto loans 10.62% and 13.86%. Only 4% of households have access to credit card according to the BSP.

The explosive growth in bank credit can be seen both in the supply and demand side. But the supply side’s growth has virtually eclipsed the demand side.

So based on the 1st quarter NSCB data the Philippine consumer story (provided we are referring to household consumers) has been a myth.

Basic economic logic tells us that if the supply side continues to grow by twice the rate of the demand side, then eventually there will be a massive oversupply. And if such oversupply has been financed by credit, then the result will not be nirvana but a catastrophe—a recession if not a crisis.

Given the relentless growth in credit exactly to the same sectors during the two months of April-May, statistical GDP growth will likely remain ‘solid’ and will likely fall in the expectations of the mainstream. The results are likely to be announced in August.

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Prior to the Cyprus crisis of 2013, many Cypriots came to believe that this “time is different” from which many hardly saw the potential impact from a sudden explosion of public sector debt[25]

Unfortunately, a populist dream morphed into a terrifying nightmare.

BSP’s Wealth Effect: San Miguel as Virtual Hedge Fund

And for the moral side of the illusions of dream economy tale, given that only 21.5 of every 100 households have access to the banking sector, and as I previously explained[26], where domestic credit from the banking sector accounted for 51.54% of the GDP as of 2011, and also given that the wealthy elites control some 83% of the domestic stock market capitalization and where the residual distribution leaves 15-16% to foreigners while the rest to the retail participants, an asset boom prompted by BSP zero bound policy rates represents a transfer of wealth from the rest of society (most notably the informal sector) to the political class and their politically connected economic agents. 

This should be a good example.

Publicly listed San Miguel Corporation [PSE: SMC] recently sold their shareholdings at Meralco for $399 million[27] to an undisclosed buyer.

The BSP inspired Philippine asset boom has transformed San Miguel from an international food and beverage company into a virtual hedge fund which profits from trading financial securities of the highly regulated sectors of energy, mining, airlines and infrastructure.

The 32.8% sale of Manila Electric or Meralco [PSE: MER] and the prospective 49% sale of another SMC asset, the SMC Global Power Holdings, reportedly the country’s largest electricity generator with assets accounting for a fifth of the nation’s capacity, has been expected to raise at least $1.6 billion[28], according to a report from Bloomberg

SMC sales of its Meralco holdings extrapolate to a huge windfall. According to the same report, SMC has tripled return on equity from its conversion to heavy industries.

Moreover, SMC has acquired about 40 companies for about $8 billion which has been partly funded by leverage where “the company and its units have 272 billion pesos worth of debt due by 2018 and San Miguel has 152 billion pesos in cash and near-cash items, the data show.”

Asked by a reporter about the prospects of the sale, the SMC’s President Mr. Ramon Ang bragged “Does San Miguel need the money? No. We can always borrow to fund any opportunity.”

Obviously, a reply based on easy money conditions.

As explained in 2009, the radical makeover of San Miguel has been tinged by politics[29]. The energy, mining, airlines and infrastructure which the company has shifted into are industries encumbered by politics mostly via anti-competition edicts. Thus asset trading of securities from these sectors would not only mean profiting from loose money policies, but also from also arbitraging economic concessions with incumbent political authorities.

The viability of these sectors particularly in the energy and infrastructure (roads) are endowed or determined by political grants. For instance in the case of Meralco, the Office of the President indirectly determines the “earnings” of the company via the price setting and regulatory oversight functions of the Energy Regulatory Commission which is under the Office of the President[30]. The private sector operator of Meralco has to be in good terms, or has blessing of, or has been an ally of the President. These are operations which can’t be established by analysing financial metrics for the simple reason that politics, and not, the markets determine the company’s feasibility.

San Miguel’s new business model allows political outsiders to get into these economic concessions through Mr. Ang’s political intermediations which it legitimately conducts via “asset trading”. SMC’s competitive moat, thus, has been in the political connections sphere.

SMC has also been a major beneficiary from the BSP’s wealth effect and wealth transfer from zero bound rates and from the Philippine government’s highly regulated or politicized industries.

Nonetheless leverage build up for asset trading necessitates a low interest rate environment. Should interest rates surge, and asset markets fall, Mr. Ang’s $35 billion dream might turn into an unfortunate Eike Batista[31] story.

Mr. Batista, the Brazilian oil, energy, mining and logistics magnate was worth $34 billion and had been the 8th richest man in the world a year ago.

Mr. Batista’s highly leveraged or indebted companies crashed to earth when commodity prices collapsed, and exposed such vulnerabilities. Debt deleveraging likewise uncovered the artificial wealth grandeur which has been embellished by debt.

Mr. Batista’s debt fiasco reduced his fortune to only $2 billion. At least he remains a billionaire.

Yet given his political connections, Mr. Ang may expect a bailout from his political patrons.

Risks remain high. Do trade with caution



[2] Ludwig von Mises Theory of Money and Credit p.423


[4] Wikipedia.org Roaring Twenties

[5] Murray N. Rothbard, The Lure of a Stable Price Level, America’s Great Depression Mises.org September 13, 2011

[6] Frank Shostak, What Next for Treasury Bonds? May 03, 2010

[7] Steve H. Hanke, Rethinking Conventional Wisdom: A Monetary Tour d’Horizon for 2013, Energy Tribune January 23, 2013

[8] Wikipedia.org Divisia index

[9] Center for Financial Stability CFS DIVISIA MONETARY DATA FOR THE UNITED STATES, July 17, 2013

[10] Ed Yardeni Great Rotation? (excerpt) Yardeni.com July 16, 2013





[15] Business Mirror ADB cuts growth forecast for Asean July 17, 2013







[22] Wikipedia.org Government Service Insurance System Organizational Structure

[23] National Statistical Coordination Board, Highlights Philippine Economy posts 7.8 percent GDP growth May 30, 2013


[25] John Mauldin The Bang! Moment Shock Advisor Perspectives.com July 13, 2013


[27] Wall Street Journal Money Beat Blog San Miguel Raises $399.5 Million via Sale of Meralco Shares July 18, 2013