Showing posts with label US municipal bonds. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US municipal bonds. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 24, 2013

Meredith Whitney: Detroit as precedent to the staggering aftershocks of the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history

Bank analyst Meredith Whitney who correctly called on the Citibank fiasco during the 2007-2008 crisis warns in the Financial Times that  the Detroit episode serves as precedent to a coming wave of municipal bankruptcies. (bold mine)
As jarring as the reality may be to accept, Detroit’s decision last week to declare bankruptcy should not be regarded as a one-off in the US municipal market – which is what the bond-peddlers are now telling their clients. The aftershocks of the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history will be staggering, and Detroit will set important precedents.

Municipal bankruptcies have historically been rare for a number of reasons – including the states’ determination to preserve their credit ratings, their access to cheap funding and the stigma of bankruptcy. But, these days, things are very different in the world of municipal finance.

At the root of the problem is the incentive system that elected officials used to face. For decades, across the US, local leaders ran up tabs for future taxpayers; they promised pensions and other benefits for public employees that have strong legal protection. That has been a great source of patronage for elected officials: they can promise all sorts of future perks to loyal supporters (state and local workers) with very little accountability on the delivery of those promises.

Today, we are left with the legacies of this waste. The bill for promises past is now so large for some cities and towns that it is crowding out money for the most basic of services – in the case of Detroit, it could not even afford to run its traffic lights. Across many American cities, cuts to basic social services have already been so deep that they have made the communities unpleasant places.
Read the rest here.

Ms. Whitney has had strident critics for predicting defaults by 50 to 100 cities to the tune of of “$100s of billion dollars” in 2010 such as David Kotok of the Cumberland Advisors.

Nonetheless currently the unfunded state and local pension liabilities has been estimated at a huge $3.8-4 trillion. This should gobble up a huge share of state budgets in the backdrop of a highly fragile steroids dependent economy. Also, pension shortfalls increases state or muni credit risks, if expected or targeted returns are unmet.

Yet if bond vigilantes continue to unsettle the interest rate markets, and or, if the FED does “taper”, where Dr. Bernanke said last week, “If we were to tighten policy, the economy would tank”, then it wouldn’t be far fetched for Ms. Whitney’s predictions to come to fruition.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Global Financial Markets Party on the Palm of Central Bankers

It’s has been a “Risk On” frenzy out there. And I’m not just talking about Philippine financial or risk assets, I’m alluding to global financial markets.

From the global stock market perspective, the bulls clearly have been in charge.

The Global Asset Rotation
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Most of this week’s modest gains virtually compounds on the advances of the last three weeks.

Among the majors, the US S&P 500 and the Japan’s Nikkei appeared to have assumed the leadership on a year-to-date return basis, which looks like a rotational process at work too.

Last year’s developed market leader, the German DAX which generated a 2012 return of about 29% has now underperformed relative to the US S&P 500 (11.52% in 2012) and the last minute or mid-December spike by the Nikkei (22.94% in 2012). The huge push on the Nikkei has been in response to the Bank of Japan’s (BoJ) increasingly aggressive stance to ease credit by expanding her balance sheet.

The BoJ is set to target 2% inflation and may follow the US Federal Reserve and the ECB’s unlimited option or commitment on the coming week[1]

For the ASEAN majors, the Philippine Phisix has taken the helm with a 5.62% return over the same period. The milestone or records highs have been reached following three successive weeks of phenomenal gains.

Yet ASEAN’s peripheral economies, Vietnam and Laos, have eclipsed the remarkable performance of the Phisix, with 9.77% and 15.91% in nominal currency returns covering the same period. Incidentally, the Laos Securities skyrocketed by 11.61% this week contributing to the gist of her 2013 returns.

It is important to point out that rotational process which is a manifestation of the inflationary boom has not just been a domestic episode but a global one too.

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First, my prediction that the domestic mining sector will lord over the Phisix in 2013 appears to have been reinforced this week. The mining sector has stretched its lead away from the pack, up by 13.65% in three weeks.

Last year’s other laggard, the service sector, also has taken the second spot.

So aside from some signs of rotation within the local stock market, there seems to be signs of an ongoing rotation dynamic operating among global equity markets.

This brings us to the next level
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The rotational process across asset markets: Specifically, there has been a meaningful shift in money flows towards equities.

Since the start of 2013, during the second week of the year, money flows into global equities has reached historic highs[2] (left window).

The yield chasing dynamic has essentially reversed investor sentiment on the equity markets. Investors have mostly shunned the stock markets and have flocked into bonds. This has been particularly evident with the US stock markets[3] since 2007.

Nonetheless despite the still robust flows towards fixed income, initial manifestations of the so-called “great rotation” exhibited the outperformance of global equities relative to global bonds[4], two weeks into 2013 (right window).

Yet such phenomenon has not been a stranger to us. I predicted a potential rotation from the bond markets into the stock market in October of last year[5].
We can either expect a shift out of bonds and into the stock markets or that the bond markets could be the trigger to the coming crisis.

In my view, the former is likely to happen first perhaps before the latter. To also add that triggers to crisis could come from exogenous forces.
It is important to realize that financial markets are essentially intertwined. For instance, stock markets have been closely tied to bond markets since many companies have used the bond markets to finance stock buybacks[6], as well as, to finance the property sector which has prompted for today’s booming assets.

In other words, the RISK ON environment prompted by monetary policies have made the asset rotational process a global dynamic.

Rotation Pumped Up by Releveraging

We are seeing massive systemic “releveraging” which has been inciting a speculative mania that is being greased by a credit boom.

Proof?

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In the US, Hedge funds have reportedly been upping the ante by the increasing use of leverage to increase stock market exposures. From Bloomberg[7] (chart from Zero Hedge[8] as of December 29th) [bold mine]
Hedge funds are borrowing more to buy equities just as loans by New York Stock Exchange brokers reach the highest in four years, signs of increasing confidence after professional investors trailed the market since 2008.

Leverage among managers who speculate on rising and falling shares climbed to the highest level to start any year since at least 2004, according to data compiled by Morgan Stanley. Margin debt at NYSE firms rose in November to the most since February 2008, data from NYSE Euronext show.
Traditional instruments of leverage haven’t been enough. Wall Street has essentially resurrected financing via securitization or the innovative pooled debt instruments called Collateralized Debt Obligations or CDOs, which played a pivotal role in the provision of finance to the previous housing bubble which resulted to a crisis.

From Bloomberg article[9], [bold mine]
What’s old is new again on Wall Street as banks tap into soaring demand for commercial real estate debt by selling collateralized debt obligations, securities not seen since the last boom.

Sales of CDOs linked to everything from hotels to offices and shopping malls are poised to climb to as much as $10 billion this year, about 10 times the level of 2012, according to Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc. (RBS) Lenders including Redwood Trust Inc. are offering the deals for the first time since transactions ground to a halt when skyrocketing residential loan defaults triggered a seizure across credit markets in 2008.

The rebirth of commercial property CDOs comes as investors wager on a real estate recovery and as the Federal Reserve pushes down borrowing costs, encouraging bond buyers to seek higher-yielding debt. The securities package loans such as those for buildings with high vacancy rates that are considered riskier than those found in traditional commercial-mortgage backed securities, where surging investor demand has driven spreads to the narrowest in more than five years.
The search for yield extrapolates to a search of alternative assets to speculate on. This is why investors have also been piling into state and municipal fixed income bonds. From Bloomberg[10]
Investors are pouring the most money since 2009 into U.S. municipal debt, putting the $3.7 trillion market on a pace for its longest rally versus Treasuries in three years.

Demand from individuals, who own about 70 percent of U.S. local debt, rose last week after Congress’s Jan. 1 deal to avert more than $600 billion in federal tax increases and spending cuts spared munis’ tax-exempt status. Investors added $1.6 billion to muni mutual funds in the week ended Jan. 9, the most since October 2009 and the first gain in four weeks, Lipper US Fund Flows data show.
Companies have once again commenced to tap unsecured short term fixed income security commercial markets usually meant to finance payroll and rent. 

From Bloomberg [11]
The market for corporate borrowing through commercial paper expanded for a 12th week as non- financial short-term IOUs rose to the highest level in four years.

The seasonally adjusted amount of U.S. commercial paper advanced $27.8 billion to $1.133 trillion outstanding in the week ended yesterday, the Federal Reserve said today on its website. That’s the longest stretch of increases since the period ended July 25, 2007, and the most since the market touched $1.147 trillion on Aug. 17, 2011.
This hasn’t just been a US dynamic, but a global one.

For instance, China has been exhibiting the same credit driven pathology too, as local governments go into a borrowing binge.

From the Wall Street Journal[12]
Bonds issued by local-government-controlled financing vehicles totaled 636.8 billion yuan ($102 billion) in 2012, surging 148% from 2011, the central bank-backed China Central Depository & Clearing Co. said in a report published earlier this month.
Moreover, lending from China’s non-banking institutions Trust companies, which is said to be the backbone of the ($2 trillion) Shadow Banking system—via loans to higher risks entities as property developers and local government investment vehicles—have likewise zoomed.

From Bloomberg[13],
A seven-fold jump in last month’s lending by China’s trust companies is setting off alarm bells for regulators to guard against the risk of default.

So-called trust loans rose 679 percent to 264 billion yuan ($42 billion) from a year earlier, central bank data showed on Jan. 15. That accounted for 16 percent of aggregate financing, which includes bond and stock sales. The amount of loans in China due to mature within 12 months doubled in four years to 24.8 trillion yuan, equivalent to more than half of gross domestic product in 2011, and the People’s Bank of China has set itself a new goal of limiting risks in the financial system.
Reports of the credit boom appears to have jolted China’s Shanghai index to soar by 3.3% this week. This brings China’s benchmark into the positive territory up 2.7% year-to-date. In 2012, the Chinese benchmark eked out only 3.17%, most of the recovery came from December which erased the yearlong losses.

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In India, soaring loan growth by the banking system, (chart from tradingeconomics.com[14]) now at almost 80% of the economy, has prompted the IMF to raise the alarm flag citing risks of “a deterioration in bank assets and a lack of capital as the economy slowed”[15]

India’s major stock market index, the BSE 30, seems on the verge of a record breakout. Also, India purportedly has a property bubble[16].

The Brazilian government’s directives to improve on credit accessibility have likewise led to a surge in lending.

From Bloomberg/groupomachina.com[17]
President Dilma Rousseff's insistence that Banco do Brasil SA boost lending is helping the state-controlled bank almost double its bond underwriting, giving the government a record share of the market.

International debt sales managed by the bank surged to 10 percent of offerings last year from 5.6 percent in 2011, the biggest jump in the country. With Brazilian issuers leading emerging markets by selling a record $51.1 billion in bonds, Banco do Brasil advanced six positions to become the third- largest underwriter, overtaking Bank of America Corp., Banco Santander SA and Itau Unibanco Holding SA, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Banco do Brasil, Latin America's largest bank by assets, is profiting from the government's push to expand credit as policy makers cut interest rates to revive an economy that had its slowest two-year stretch of growth in a decade. The bank's total lending, which includes loans, bonds on its books and other guarantees to companies, surged 21 percent in the year through Sept. 30 to 523 billion reais ($257 billion) as it piggybacked off existing relationships and bolstered a team of bankers dedicated to pitching borrowers on debt sales.
Following last year’s 7.4% gain, the Bovespa has been up by a modest 1.65%. Like almost everywhere, there have been concerns over the growing risk of a bubble bust[18] in Brazil.

The point is that all these synchronized and cumulative push to create “demand” via massive credit expansion has been driving leverage money into a speculative splurge that has elevated asset markets relatively via the rotational process.

Asset Bubbles and the Mania Phase

The impact of asset inflation has been different in terms of time and scale but nonetheless most assets generally rise overtime. Of course, such will need to be supported by greater inflationism which central banks have obliged.

Eventually all these will spillover to the real economy either via higher input prices or via higher consumer prices that will entail higher rates that may reverse current environment.

Even FED officials have raised concerns anew that “record-low interest rates are overheating markets for assets from farmland to junk bonds, which could heighten risks when they reverse their unprecedented bond purchases.”[19]

Of course, the problem is HOW to reverse without materially affecting prices of financial assets deeply DEPENDENT on the US Federal Reserves and or global central bank easing policies.

The likelihood is that each time market pressures or downside volatility resurfaces, policymakers will resort to even more easing. Threats to withdraw such policies have merely been symbolical.

And a further point is that while overextended runs usually tend to usher in a natural correction or profit taking phase, a blowoff phase may yield little correction. Instead, any transition to a manic phase of a bubble cycle will generally mean strong continuity of the upside.

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We have seen this happen in 1993 when the Phisix posted an astounding 154% yearly return.

Moreover, the 1986-2003 era basically epitomized the full bubble cycle in motion as shown by the bubble cycle diagram (left) and the Phisix chart (right).

I am not saying that this manic phase is imminent, but rather a possibility considering the current behavior of global and the domestic financial markets.

And I would like to reiterate, I believe that the returns of the Phisix will depend on the expected direction of, and actual actions by policymakers on, interest rates.

If the current boom will not yet impel for a higher rates soon, then such inflationary boom may continue. The Phisix I believe will remains strong, at least until the first quarter of this year.

All these goes to show that financial markets essentially have been dancing on the palm of the central bankers.





[3] Mike Burnick When to Consider Going Against the Grain with Your Investments, money andmarkets.com January 17, 2013









[12] Wall Street Journal, China's Local Governments Boost Borrowing, January 14, 2012





[17] Bloomberg.com Rousseff's Bond Business Booms After Lending Push: Brazil Credit, groupomachina.com January 16, 2013


Saturday, October 27, 2012

Moody’s Downgrades More Munis in 2012

Despite the seeming recent asset based recovery in the US, fiscal conditions of states remains highly fragile.

One of the major credit rating agency, Moody’s has downgraded more muni papers this year than in 2011.

From Bloomberg
Credit-rating cuts were made on more than $200 billion of municipal securities in the first nine months of this year, exceeding the total for 2011, and there’s no end in sight, Moody’s Investors Service said.

Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, Puerto Rico Sales Tax Financing Corp., Chicago O’Hare Airport Enterprise and Pennsylvania state debt accounted for more than 70 percent of third-quarter downgrades alone, affecting about $75 billion of securities, Moody’s said today in a report.

“Increased risk associated with difficult economic and industry environments, stressed budgetary and reserve positions, and challenging debt structures are the principal factors driving the downgrades,” Eileen Hawes and other Moody’s analysts said in the report.

State and local economies are still feeling the lingering effects of the last U.S. recession, which ended in June 2009. Unemployment has risen for four straight months in Pennsylvania, to 8.2 percent last month from 7.4 percent in May, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The New York jobless rate surged to 9.1 percent in July and August from 8.2 percent in December, before declining to 8.9 percent last month.

“Local government credit quality will likely continue to deteriorate through the end of 2012 and be reflected in elevated downgrades as state funding and property-tax revenues continue to lag as expenditure pressures persist,” the Moody’s analysts said in the report. “We expect overall downgrade activity to continue to surpass upgrades through the end of 2012.”

In a report yesterday, Moody’s said more local governments are set to fall below investment grade in the coming year.
Although I don't trust credit rating agencies as they have been partly responsible for the last crisis, I share their concern over the current conditions of state governments in the US, such that should another bubble bust occur soon, through a recession or financial crisis or a combination of, dire financial conditions on the state-muni level will likely not only worsen but spread to the Fed level.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

Warren Buffett Sees Rising Municipal Bankruptcies

Obama crony Warren Buffett predicts that municipal bankruptcies will increase

From Bloomberg,

Warren Buffett, the billionaire chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK/A), said municipal bankruptcies are set to rise as there’s less stigma attached after three California cities opted to seek protection just weeks apart.

The City Council of San Bernardino, California, a community of about 210,000 east of Los Angeles, decided July 10 to seek court protection from its creditors. The move came just weeks after Stockton, a community of 292,000 east of San Francisco, became the biggest U.S. city to enter bankruptcy. Mammoth Lakes, California, also sought the shelter this month.

“The stigma has probably been reduced when you get very sizeable cities like Stockton or San Bernardino to do it,” Buffett, 81, said in an interview today on “In the Loop with Betty Liu” on Bloomberg Television. “The very fact they do it makes it more likely.”

Cities and towns across the U.S. have been strained by rising costs for labor, including pensions and retiree health benefits, while the longest recession since the 1930s crimped sales- and property-tax revenue.

I don’t think “stigma” has anything to do with the real issue of the unsustainable financial and economic conditions of the excessively (welfare and bureaucracy) bloated public sector, driven by Keynesian policies. As per Herb Stein’s Law, if something cannot go on forever, it will stop.

So goes with Munis.

Thursday, December 08, 2011

Burton Malkiel: Why Developed Economy Government Bondholders will Lose Money

At the Wall Street Journal, Professor Burton Malkiel, author of the classic finance book "A Random Walk Down Wall Street", argues that government bonds will generate negative for investors. He writes, (bold emphasis mine)

For years, investors have been urged to diversify their investments by including asset classes in their portfolios that may be relatively uncorrelated with the stock market. Over the 2000s, bonds have been an excellent diversifier by performing particularly well when the stock market declined and providing stability to an investor's overall returns. But bond yields today are unusually low.

Are we in an era now when many bondholders are likely to experience very unsatisfactory investment results? I think the answer is "yes" for many types of bonds—and that this will remain true for some time to come.

Many of the developed economies of the world are burdened with excessive debt. Governments around the world are having great difficulty reining in spending. The seemingly less painful policy response to these problems is very likely to keep interest rates on government debt artificially low as the real burdens of government debt are reduced—meaning the debt is inflated away.

Artificially low interest rates are a subtle form of debt restructuring and represent a kind of invisible taxation. Today, the 10-year U.S. Treasury bond yields 2%, which is below the current 3.5% headline (Consumer Price Index) rate of inflation. Even if inflation over the next decade averages 2%, which is the Federal Reserve's informal target, investors will find that they will have earned a zero real rate of return. If inflation accelerates, the rate of return will be negative.

We have seen this movie before. After World War II, the debt-to-GDP ratio in the United States peaked at 122% in 1946, even higher than today's ratio of about 100%. The policy response then was to keep interest rates pegged at the low wartime levels for several years and then to allow them to rise only gradually beginning in the 1950s. Moderate-to-high inflation did reduce the debt/GDP ratio to 33% in 1980, but this was achieved at the expense of the bondholder.

Ten-year Treasurys yielded 2.5% during the late 1940s. Bond investors suffered a double whammy during the 1950s and later. Not only were interest rates artificially low at the start of the period, but bondholders suffered capital losses when interest rates were allowed to rise. As a result, bondholders received nominal rates of return that were barely positive over the period and real returns (after inflation) that were significantly negative. We are likely to be entering a similar period today.

So what are investors—especially retirees who seek steady income—to do? I think there are two reasonable strategies that investors should consider. The first is to look for bonds with moderate credit risk where the spreads over U.S. Treasury yields are generous. The second is to consider substituting a portfolio of dividend-paying blue chip stocks for a high-quality bond portfolio.

Aside from a portfolio of blue chip stocks, Professor Malkiel recommends tax exempt bonds and foreign bonds.

I’d add that emerging market equities should also be part of one’s portfolio.

Read the rest here

Sunday, March 20, 2011

The US Dollar’s Dependence On Quantitative Easing

Since every central bank of major economies has been inflating, it’s a question of which central bank has been inflating the most. The obvious answer is the US. The US has not only been inflating her economy, she has basically been inflating the rest of the world.

A US Dollar rally can occur and can be sustained once the US withholds inflationism. But $64 trillion question is: Can they afford the consequences?

Like in early 2010, experts and officials babbled about “exit strategies” as the US economy’s recovery advanced, something which we debunked as a Poker Bluff[1]. Yet 10 months later, the Fed re-engaged in Quantitative Easing 2[2] citing “low consumer spending” and “unemployment” as an excuse even as the US moved out of the recession in June of 2009th[3].

The mainstream doesn’t get it or has stubbornly been denying this.

Quantitative Easing or euphemistically called Credit Easing isn’t about the economy but about buttressing politically the US government and the banking system.

As Mises Institute Lew Rockwell writes[4],

Another truth is that the Fed doesn’t really care about inflation as much as it cares about the solvency of the banking and financial systems. Bernanke would drive us right into hyperinflation to save his industries. Savers living on pensions just don’t have the political clout to stop the money machine.

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US housing has still been struggling. Since a substantial segment of the banking system’s balance sheets have been stuffed with US mortgages, then QE 1.0 and 2.0 has managed to keep these afloat but has, so far, failed to strongly revive the US housing market[5].

Under enfeebled housing conditions, a failure to continue with the QE amplifies the risks of falling housing prices thereby jeopardizing the fragile state of the US banking system.

Most importantly, the US Federal Reserve has been buying US Treasuries which means the US central bank has been funding the profligacy of US government.

Yet much of US treasury has also been substantially held by the foreign governments.

However, there are signs that the interest to hold US debt has been waning.

According to Economic Times India[6]

China, the biggest foreign holder of US debt has trimmed its portfolio to $1.15 trillion to diversify its foreign reserve portfolio to avoid risks.

China reduced its US Treasuries portfolio by $5.4 billion to $1.15 trillion in January, according to the data released by the US Treasury Department on Wednesday.

It is the third straight month of net selling after China's holdings of US debt reached a peak of nearly $1.18 trillion in October 2010.

If the Japan repatriation trade proves to be a real event risk, then this could even further dampen interest to support US debt.

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With substantial foreign held US debt maturing over the next 36 months[7], if foreign governments withhold from buying, will the US accept higher interest rates?

Given the ideological background and the path dependency by the incumbent monetary authorities, the answer is a likely NO!

The US government can’t simply put her fragile banking system at risks, and thus, we can bet that QE 3, 4, 5 to the nth, will likely occur until the market recoils from these.

The above doesn’t even include the financial conditions of wobbly states and municipalities.

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Financial conditions of US states have been plodding[8] while Municipal bonds, following a huge meltdown, has also been floundering. The rally in the Muni bonds have not erased the losses.

Controversial analyst Meredith Whitney, who recently presaged “50 to 100 sizable defaults to the tune of “hundreds of billions of dollars worth of defaults”[9], has been constantly under fire by the mainstream, for such prognosis. She has even been summoned by a US Congressional Panel. Anyone who goes against the government appears to be subject to censorship or political harassment.

The point is: given all these fragile conditions, will the Ben Bernanke led US Federal Reserve bear the onus of withdrawing, what has given Bernanke and the Fed an artificial aura of success?


[1] See Poker Bluff: The Exit Strategy Theme For 2010, January 11, 2011

[2] CNN Money.com QE2: Fed pulls the trigger, November 3, 2010

[3] Reuters.com Recession ended in June 2009: NBER, September 20, 2010

[4] Rockwell, Llewellyn H. Is QE3 Ahead?, Mises.org, March 18, 2011

[5] Northern Trust, Sales of Existing Homes Moved Up, But Median Price Establishes New Low, February 23, 2011 and

Food and Energy Prices Lift Wholesales Prices, But Pass through to Retail Prices is Key, March 16, 2011

[6] Economic Times India, China continues to trim its US debt to avoid risks, March 18, 2011

[7] Osborne, Kieran U.S. Government: Evermore Reliant on Foreign Investors Merk Investments, March 15, 2011

[8] Center on Budget Policies and Policy Priorities, States Continue to Feel Recession’s Impact, March 9, 2011

[9] New York Times, A Seer on Banks Raises a Furor on Bonds, February 7, 2011