Shopping For Farmland?

An ocean of money from global central banks is about to flow into commodities which should trigger a boom.

And as legendary investor Jim Rogers predicted, ``Power is shifting now from the money shifters, that got us to trade to paper and money, to people who produce real goods, whether it is agriculture or mining or whatever. This has happened many times in history, what you should do is become a farmer, or you should go and start a farming network. That’s what you do, because in the future the farmers are going to be one of the best professions you can possibly have."

And farming as the next sunshine profession should also mean a boom in farmlands.

And where are the best priced farmlands?

According to the Economist, ``FARMLAND has outperformed the property market in many countries. Investors rushed into agricultural land as food prices soared, helping to push up prices. A hectare of farmland in England increased by 16% (in sterling terms) in the year to January 2009, according to a new report by Knight Frank and Citibank. And even against a resurgent dollar this equates to $17,100 a hectare, the highest among the countries shown. Canada looks a bargain by comparison with neighbouring America: prices are around a tenth of the $11,000 a hectare paid in Ohio. The prospects for eastern Europe are bleaker, thanks to poorer infrastructure and economic prospects. Farmland in Ukraine fell by 75% to $125 a hectare."

The economist chart above doesn't cover much of farmland prices in emerging markets.

Yet not all farms are equal-there will always be the issue of infrastructure (farm to market), accessibility to water, government regulations, soil quality or structure, climate, security and etc...

Jim Rogers: Destruction of America as the World's Most Powerful Nation and Farming Boom

Once again the sensational Jim Rogers at CNBC last March 2 2009...

(hat tip: Jim Rogers Channel)

Some noteworthy excerpts...

``I think it’s astonishing they’re ruining the US economy, the ruining US government, the ruining the US Central bank and their ruining the US dollar, I mean this is…you’re watching in front of our eyes, very historically which is basically the destruction of New York as a financial center and the destruction of America as the world’s most powerful country."

``Power is shifting now from the money shifters, that got us to trade to paper and money, to people who produce real goods, whether it is agriculture or mining or whatever. This has happened many times in history, what you should do is become a farmer, or you should go and start a farming network. That’s what you do, because in the future the farmers are going to be one of the best professions you can possibly have."

Smelling Signs of Inflation: Stubborn High Food Prices and Shrinking Supplies

As we have been saying, media and experts have been insisting to us of the mutually reinforcing feedback loop of falling demand=falling prices centered on a global deflation theme.

But, we have been getting additional evidence of the obverse side, falling prices=falling supply!

This makes the entire episode a race to the bottom.

Courtesy of New York Times

The chart above shows of the stubbornly high food prices despite falling prices in the commodity sphere. Yet, food prices are projected to remain high next year even under an expected recessionary environment.

From the New York Times,

``Now, even though costs for ingredients like corn and wheat have dropped, meat and poultry providers say they still have not raised prices enough to cover their increased costs. And packaged food manufacturers are unlikely to lower prices because commodity costs remain relatively high and they are still trying to rebuild eroded margins.

``Michael Mitchell, a spokesman for Kraft Foods, said that the company’s food ingredient costs this year were running $2 billion higher than in 2007, a 13 percent increase, but that the company had raised its overall prices by only 7 percent.

William P. Roenigk, senior vice president and chief economist for the National Chicken Council, said his industry had been losing money for more than a year. Chicken producers are now trying to recover those costs by reducing production, which will eventually alter the balance between supply and demand. “The time is coming when we’re going to see a very significant increase in the retail price of chicken,” he said….

``When costs go up for livestock producers, they are often unable to immediately raise prices because those prices are set on the open market, which is dictated by supply and demand. Instead, they begin reducing the size of their herds or flocks, which eventually leads to less meat on the market and higher prices. But reducing livestock production can take months to years, and in the interim it can actually suppress prices as breeding animals are slaughtered to reduce production.

``The prospect of more food inflation is inflaming a debate over its causes. Many food manufacturers and economists maintain that one culprit is government policies promoting the use of ethanol fuel made from corn.

``About a third of the corn crop is used for ethanol, putting ethanol producers in competition with livestock farmers and food manufacturers. The result, they contend, is that prices for corn are now higher and more volatile.”

So aside from the unintended consequences from ethanol subsidies, news accounts omit the fact that global government has been throwing tons of money to rescue the global financial system and the world economy and should likely impact food prices overtime.

Same account of falling prices and tighter credit equals falling supply in Brazil.

This from Bloomberg (all highlight mine),

``The collapse of global credit markets that is pushing the U.S., Europe and Japan into simultaneous recessions for the first time since World War II also threatens farmers in Brazil, the world’s biggest grower of coffee, oranges and sugar cane, the second-largest producer of soybeans and third-biggest of corn. Smaller harvests in Brazil may increase costs of commodities next year, said Andre Pessoa, an analyst at Agroconsult who conducts the country’s broadest crop survey.

``Reduced fertilizer use will lower Brazil’s soybean output as much as 2.7 percent, while corn may decline 7.3 percent, the government said Nov. 6. Brazil’s coffee harvest may drop 26 percent next year, said Lucio Araujo, the commercial director at Cooxupe, a cooperative representing 11,000 growers in the Guaxupe region.

``Brazilian growers were short of at least 15 billion reais needed to invest in crops, Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes said Oct. 9. Banks and financial companies worldwide, suffering from $969.5 billion of losses and writedowns since the start of 2007, are restricting credit as they struggle to replenish reserves, according to data compiled by Bloomberg…

Ah, high Fertilizer costs has also been aggravating the supply woes, the same report from Bloomberg,

``Fertilizer costs remain high, even as funding dries up and prices fall. The price of the nitrogen-potash mix that Terra, the coffee grower, uses has more than doubled in the past year to 1,800 reais a metric ton, he said. Terra usually buys about 10 tons for his trees. This year he’ll go without.

``The lack of sufficient fertilizer will compound an already smaller crop in Brazil as trees enter the lower-yielding half of the two-year cycle for coffee harvests.

“A lot of people are ceasing to plant because it’s not viable,” the corn association’s Barbieri said. “People have lost hope.”

So of the two competing reflexivity feedback loop premises one will be umasked as a false premise.

Our guess: prepare for inflation.

More Compelling Evidence For An Inflection Point in Commodities!

``We have had 8-9 periods of forced liquidation over the past 100-150 years wherein everything was liquidated without regard to fundamentals. This is such a period…Historically the things which have come out best on the other side are things where the fundamental have been unimpaired. Commodities are the only thing I know with unimpaired fundamentals…The cyclical demand for commodities may slow, but the secular supply will be badly affected so the commodity bull market will last longer and go further in the end-Jim Rogers, Commodity Bull Market Will Last Longer”

In last week’s A Fear Driven Meltdown, we described how commodities have been pummeled on the account of forcible selling.

As we wrote, ``The meltdown has been focused on the assumption of a dramatic decline of global demand. They seem to forget that with the current credit crisis, many of the planned projects will be put on hold or shelved or cancelled, giving way to constriction of supply. If supply falls far larger than the rate of decline in demand then you end up having lack of supply thus higher prices.”

A report from Danske Bank recently validates our premise (emphasis mine), ``But now another side-effect of the ongoing financial crisis and slide in commodity prices is emerging in the form of an increasingly serious negative impact on the supply of commodities and investment plans. Based on cost estimates from analysts Brook Hunt and the lowest prices we have seen in recent weeks, it would appear that up to 50% of world aluminium production, 30% of world nickel production, 10% of world zinc production and 5% of world copper production are now running at a loss. Since the summer there has been a massive shift in cash flow at metal producers, which have gone from raking in profits to producing at a loss.”

When selling prices of commodities fall below the cost of production, losses will account for reduced supplies and eventually prices will have to readjust higher.

Even farmers are getting squeezed by higher credit cost, declining value of land as collateral, and declining commodity prices, the following excepts from Bloomberg,

``The credit crunch is compounding a profit squeeze for farmers that may curb global harvests and worsen a food crisis for developing countries.

``Global production of wheat, the most-consumed food crop, may drop 4.4 percent next year, said Dan Basse, president of AgResource Co. in Chicago, who has advised farmers, food companies and investors for 29 years. Harvests of corn and soybeans also are likely to fall, Basse said.

``Smaller crops risk reviving prices of farm commodities that sank from records in 2008 after a six-year rally that spurred inflation and sparked riots from Asia to the Caribbean. Futures contracts on the Chicago Board of Trade show wheat will jump 16 percent by the end of 2009, corn will rise 15 percent and soybeans will gain 3 percent…

``The number of hungry around the world is at risk of increasing as the financial crisis cuts investment in agriculture and crops, said Abdolreza Abbassian, secretary of the Intergovernmental Group on Grains at the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. The total increased by 75 million last year to 923 million, the UN estimates.

``In Brazil, the world's third-biggest exporter of corn after the U.S. and Argentina, production may fall more than 20 percent because farmers can't get loans to buy fertilizer, said Enori Barbieri, a National Corn Producers Association vice president. The nation's coffee harvest, the world's largest, may drop 25 percent for the same reason, said Lucio Araujo, commercial director at farmer cooperative Cooxupe, located in Guaxupe….

``Minnetonka, Minnesota-based Cargill and Decatur, Illinois- based Archer Daniels, the world's largest grain processors, are among the crop buyers to halt financing for growers in Brazil, said Eduardo Dahe, who represents the companies as president of the National Association of Fertilizer Distributors…

``In Russia, loan rates for farmers have jumped by half in some cases to more than 20 percent in the past few months, Arkady Zlochevsky, president of the Russian Grain Union, said in an interview earlier this month…

``The value of the collateral farmers use to secure loans -- crops and land -- is diminishing. Lenders are demanding more equity for farm loans used to run operations or acquire land and equipment.”

The contraction in supplies of the base metals and soft or agricultural commodities strongly suggests of an imminent inflection point in the commodity markets.

The high profile market savant Jim Rogers in a recent Bloomberg interview screamed for a buy in Agriculture (see video Jim Rogers: Massive Inflation Ahead, Buy Agriculture!)

And we shouldn’t forget that commodity markets move in secular waves see figure 4.

Figure4: Moneyandmarket.com: Long Term Commodity Moves

To quote Sean Brodrick of Moneyandmarket.com (highlight mine),

``The upswings, or commodities supercycles, can last 20 to 25 years, according to Morgan Stanley’s research. And if the current one follows the pattern, we have many years to go before it plays out. The key drivers are the rapid economic growth in China and infrastructure spending in other large emerging markets.

``The fact is, commodity bull markets can see corrections that will make your head spin.

``Other commodity bull markets in modern history — roughly spanning 1906 to 1923, 1933 to 1955 and 1968 to 1982 — lasted more than twice as long as the current run. They included some sharp corrections before they ran their course, suggesting that the current drop, however sharp, could be temporary.”

So with global central banks collectively running the printing presses on a 24/7 basis into the global financial system plus the severity in the contraction of supply gaining an upper hand vis-à-vis the degree of decline in demand, fundamentals suggest a likely forthcoming inflection point on the commodity markets.

And perhaps a rising commodity markets will reinforce the recovery in global equity markets.

Jim Rogers: Massive Inflation Ahead, Buy Agriculture!

This great Bloomberg interview with Jim Rogers..

Some noteworthy end quotes...

On Government bailouts: ``It’s like an insanity if you ask me; the government is going to run the banking system now? They can’t even run the postal. What’s wrong with these people? Why don’t they just let them fail and start over? That's the way the system works out."

On market bottom: ``When people say it is over and when we you see more bad news and stocks stop going down. But when they go up on bad news, that’s when we are gonna hit bottom. We are not gonna scream I don't know." (Hat tip: goldofthemoon)

Panics: Die of Exhaustion Or From Policy Overdose?

``Word to the wise - don't accept advice or analysis about this crisis from anyone who failed to anticipate it in the first place! The people warning about Depression now are the same reckless jackasses who told investors that stocks were cheap and “resilient” at the highs.”- John P. Hussman, Ph.D. Four Magic Words: "We Are Providing Capital"

Let me offer a non-sequitur argument: Because we could be destined for doom, we might as well bet on hope.

In other words, with so much of the prevailing gloom in the atmosphere this could, by in itself, possibly signify an end to the panic.

As Morgan Stanley’s Stephen Roach eloquently articulated in the International Herald Tribune (hightlight mine), ``The most important thing about financial panics is that they are all temporary. They either die of exhaustion or are overwhelmed by the heavy artillery of government policies.”

True enough, as we have always pointed out, doom or boom or market extremes have simply been accounted psychological phases of the market cycles.

Nevertheless, Mr. Roach uses the Professor Charles Kindleberger’s “revulsion stage” as a paragon for the possible panic endgame.

Professor Charles Kindleberger in Manias Panics, and Crashes A History of Financial Crisis identifies the phase as [p.15] ``Revulsion and discredit may go so far as to lead to panic (or as the Germans put it, Torschlusspanik, “door-shut-panic”) with people overcrowding to get through the door before it slams shut. The panic feeds on itself, as did speculation, until one or more of the three things happen: (1) prices fall so low that people are tempted to move back into less liquid assets: (2) trade is cut off by setting limits on price declines, shutting down exchanges or otherwise closing trading, or (3) a lender of last resort succeeds in convincing the market that money will be made available in sufficient volume to meet demand for cash.” (highlight mine)

While low prices and lender of last resort could likely be more pragmatic solutions, it is doubtful if the cutting of trades or closing exchanges will succeed in limiting the panic phase. As the recent examples of Indonesia and Russia manifested, temporary suspensions of bourse activities have not deterred the onslaught of a rampaging bear.

It would be more suitable for the markets to discover the price clearing levels required to set a floor than to applying stop gap solutions that only delays the imminent or worsens the scenario. Price controls rarely work especially over the long term and could lead to extreme volatility.

Nonetheless, with the successive coordinated barrage of heavy systemic stimulus by global central banks, possibly attempting to err on the side of a policy overkill, we might as well hope that 1) these efforts could somehow jumpstart parts of the global markets and or economies that have not been tainted by the US credit bubble dynamics or 2) that market levels could be low enough to attract distressed asset buyers which could provide the necessary support to the present levels.

While it likely true that the credit system in the US and parts of Europe have been severely impaired and will unlikely restore the Ponzi dynamics to its previous levels that has driven the massive buildup of such bubble, the most the US can afford is probably to buy enough time for the world economies to recover and pick up on its slack and hope that they can the recovery would be strong enough to lift the US out of the rut.

Divergences of Policy Approaches: Asia’s Market Oriented Response

One thing that has yet kept the world out of pangs of the 1930s global depression is that global economies have remained opened and that actions of policymakers have been constructively collaborative instead of protectionist.

Put differently, the world has been using most of its combined resources to deal with such a systemic problem. While such grand collaborative efforts may lead to the risks of huge inflation in the future, the scale of cooperation should likely diminish the menace of “deflationary meltdown”.

So while the US and Europe have closed ranks and concertedly used governments to assume the multifarious roles of “lenders of last resort”, “market makers of last resort”, “guarantors of last resort” or “investors of last resort” to shield its financial system from a downright collapse, Asia’s approach has been mostly “market-oriented”.

Some of the recent developments:

1) Taiwan removed foreign ownership restrictions or opened its doors to the global marketplace (Businessweek) encouraging overseas companies to list, aside from attracting potential foreign investors (particularly China’s resident investors) to participate in Taiwan’s financial markets.

2) Taiwan slashed estate and gift taxes from 50% to 10% (Taipei Times)

3) The Indian response: From the Economist ``On October 6th the Securities and Exchange Board of India removed its year-old restrictions on participatory notes (offshore derivative instruments that allow unregistered foreign investors to invest in Indian stockmarkets). The next day, external commercial borrowing rules were liberalised to include the mining, exploration and refining sectors in the definition of infrastructure. That raised the cap on overseas borrowing for companies in these sectors from US$50m to US$500m—although there may be little international money to borrow.” (highlight mine)

4) To cushion the effects of a global growth slowdown, China’s leaders are presently deliberating to allow its rural farmers to sell or trade state owned land rights and possibly also extending the tenure of land rights ownership from 30 to 70 years.

According to the New York Times, ``The new policy, which is being discussed this weekend by Communist Party leaders and could be announced within days, would be the biggest economic reform in many years and would mark another significant departure from the system of collective ownership and state control that China built after the 1949 revolution….Chinese leaders are alarmed by the prospect of a deep recession in leading export markets at a time when their own economy, after a long streak of double-digit growth, is slowing. Officials are eager to stoke new consumer activity at home, and one potentially enormous but barely tapped source of demand is the peasant population, which has been largely excluded from the raging growth in cities.”

So what could be the potential impact for such a major reforms to China’s rural population? See figure 4.Figure 4: Matthews Asia: China’s Rural and Urban Incomes

According to Matthews Asia, ``This reform is timely as a growing wealth disparity between China’s rich and poor is becoming a concern. China’s rural economy, despite representing over half of China’s population, has lagged behind urban economic development. The agriculture sector currently accounts for less than 12% of the nation’s GDP compared to 25% two decades ago. The top 10% of wealthy individuals command more than 40% of total private assets in the country. The impact of this reform is likely to benefit both the agricultural sector and rural areas by increasing agricultural investment and rural consumption. Enhanced rural standards of living should also help improve farm productivity and yields, important aspects for China to continue its self-sufficiency in grain production.” (highlight mine)

In other words, we shouldn’t underestimate the reforms undertaken by Asian governments out to achieve productivity advantages by tapping into market oriented policies while their western counterparts are presently burdened with restoring credit flows and in the future paying for the cost of such rescue missions.

Inflation As The Next Crisis?

So while the risks are real that the US banking sector could collapse and ripple to the world as global depression, the lessons from Professor Kindleberger shows that panics either exhaust itself to death or will likely get overwhelmed by an overdose of inflationary policies.

Basically all we have to watch for in the interim are the actions in the credit markets. So far we have seen some marginal signs of improvement, but not material enough to declare an outright recovery, see figure 5

Figure 5: Bloomberg: Overnight Libor (left), and TED spread (right)

Yes, markets almost always tend to overshoot, especially when driven to the extreme ends by psychology spasms, but ultimately credit flows are likely to determine the transitional shifts.

If credit markets do recover, market concerns will likely move from threats of a systemic meltdown brought about by “institutional or silent bank runs” to one of the economic impact emanating from the recent crisis.

Besides, the policymakers are likely to keep up with such aggressive pressures to reinflate the system and possibly engage the present crisis with a zero bound interest rate policy which basically adds more firepower to its various arsenals to combat deflation.

It isn’t that we agree to such today’s policy actions but it is what they have been doing and what they will probably do more under present operating conditions. This means that if they succeed in reinflating the system the next crisis would likely be oil at $200!

Figure 7: iTulip: Inflation Is The Menace

According to Eric Janzen of iTulip ``Since the international gold standard was abrogated by the US in 1971, ushering in the second era of floating exchange rates in 100 years – the last one ended badly as well – no deflation has occurred. Japan's experience with "deflation" would not show up on this graph because in no year since 1990 has deflation in Japan exceeded 2%.

“We continue to expect that the actions of central banks to halt deflation will, as usual, in the long run work too well.”

So hang on tight as the next few weeks will possibly determine if our doomsday emerges (and I thought they said that the scientific experiment of the Large Hardon Collider risks a true to life Armageddon) or if the impact from the inflationary overdrive of the collective powers of global central banks materializes.

Philippine Peso Wilts Under The Unwinding Short US Dollar Carry Trade!

``The world is changing and how we measure that change economically and financially is clearly a challenge and an opportunity. We have seen a re-weighting of risk around the world, but the world itself is being economically re-rated and so we need an index that allows investors to take advantage of these changes. Indian companies will obviously have a place in The Global Dow as will companies from other emerging countries where we have seen an unprecedented economic emancipation over the past two decades.” Rupert Murdoch, owner Dow Jones, on the Global Dow plan, in Mumbai, India.

So what ails the Philippine Peso?

After a fierce rally following the Philippine central Bank the (Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas) BSP’s move to raise policy interest rates to quell “inflation”, the Philippine currency made a 180° turn and dived. The Peso lost 2.19% over the week to 45.13 to a US dollar see figure 1, Asia’s second biggest loser after India’s Rupee.

Figure 1: Yahoo.com: USDollar/Philippine Peso: Ailing Peso?

Local mainstream media ascribes the recent activities on several factors as foreign portfolio outflows “on jitters over rising inflation”, “heightened concerns over global economic growth”, “lower commodity prices”, “hedge against potential recovery in oil prices” and “low levels of liquidity” in the financial markets.

There seems to be some confusion about “rising inflation” and “lower commodity prices” (which is which? Isn’t rising inflation supposed to be represented by higher commodity prices?), aside from concerns about global economic growth as a causal factor to Peso’s steep loss (how does slower “global” economic growth translate to lower Peso?).

So from previous concerns over “inflation” to now “global economic growth”, media and the local experts appear to be lost on what truly is driving the Peso’s decline.

The Inflation Bogey Revealed

While it is true that foreign portfolio continued to account for outflows that have weighed on the Peso, we doubt if the premise is indeed ALL about “inflation”.

Proof? See Figure 2.

Figure 2: AsianBondsonline.com: What Inflation? Where?

ADB’s Asianbondsonline depicts of the Philippine Peso denominated sovereign instruments in 2 year (green line) and 10 year (red line) yields. As the chart shows, the sharp drop in the yields last month seems to be validating our arguments that inflation concerns have been abating as discussed in Philippine Economy: World Financial Markets Allude To Diminishing Risks of Inflation.

With LOWER food prices, which is our MAIN concern (over 45% of our Consumer Price Index basket is in food while energy is just about 3%), manifested by sharply falling broad based commodity prices, via moderating “global and local” demand compounded with supply side responses from market forces and from policy directives emanating from political pressures (subsidies, interest rate hikes, added investments and etc.), the falling yields reflected in Philippine debt papers have equally signified diminishing inflation risk over the interim.

Since government “inflation” figures represent past data, this accounts as a LAGGING indicator. So when you read of Philippine inflation rates nearing a 17 year high in July at 12.2% (xinhua.net), we should expect these figures to drop significantly in the coming months. In short, consumer goods and services inflation has peaked!

So from this angle, inflation as a risk variable hasn’t been the MAIN impetus for the Peso’s decline.

Slowing Global Economic Growth Weighs On The Peso? Not Likely

Now if the argument swings to one of global growth, economic data doesn’t seem to support such a premise either.

One must be reminded that the currency values are ALWAYS priced in pairs. That’s why currency markets function as a zero sum game because when one wins, the other loses.

This means that the conventional measure of the Philippine Peso is relative to the US dollar, since the US dollar represent as the de facto world currency reserve. This also means that if we allude to the world economic growth’s impact on the Philippines, then we must also account for how the same factors will affect the US.

Let us see how the downturn abroad has impacted the Philippine Economy…

According to the latest remittance trends, June’s money flows from overseas foreign workers set a NEW record in the face of a SLOWING global economy! (Yeah…“decoupling is a myth”??!!)

This from Bloomberg (highlight mine),

``Remittances from Philippine citizens working overseas rose at the fastest pace in 14 months in June as more people found jobs as nurses, seamen and engineers abroad.

``Money sent back to the Philippines jumped 30 percent from a year earlier to $1.5 billion, the highest since records began in 1989, the central bank said in a statement in Manila today. Remittances grew 15.6 percent in May.

``The number of Filipinos who got jobs overseas rose 33.5 percent to 640,401 in the first six months of the year, the central bank said today…

``Slowing global growth may limit jobs abroad as companies lay off workers and freeze expansion, reducing the amount of money expatriates can send home in the coming months. Half of the Philippines' remittances come from the U.S., where tumbling home prices, mounting job losses and credit restraints are threatening growth.

``Funds sent home by the more than 8 million Filipinos living abroad climbed 17.2 percent to $8.2 billion in the first half of 2008 from a year earlier.”

Remember, remittances account for about 10% of the local economy and have SUPPORTED consumption patterns in the Philippines. The fact that 3 of the 10 largest malls in the world are in the Philippines (see our blog post A Nation Of Shoppers??!!) could be seen as partly being propped up by these fund flows from our migrant workers. Thus as far as labor and financial links are concerned, the global economic slowdown hasn’t been reflected YET in these accounts.

Although it is true that the risks of a negative impact to remittances from a slowing global economy may have a lagging effect, as in the case of Mexico which reported a slight decline during the 2^nd quarter and the first semester of 2008 (Wall Street Journal), these would actually depend on the sectors from which our OFWs are exposed to.

According to the BSP, ``Filipino workers continue to be in strong demand overseas due to the diversity and quality of skills they offer. The conduct of bilateral talks with host countries also continues to open up new employment opportunities abroad for Filipinos.” (emphasis mine)

Much to our knowledge, health (caregivers and nurses) and science based industries (engineers) aside from education (teachers) could be seen as defensive sectors that are least likely to be affected by the ongoing economic and financial slump in the US, thus the seeming resilience.

Aside, as the BSP has noted, bilateral agreements has effectively widened the opportunities for more of our labor/manpower exports.

Paradoxically, it appears that the so-called “Peso-driven-remittance” premise formerly touted by media and our experts has vanished altogether! Why? Just because the Peso is down and seems not to be supported by the remittance flows doesn’t mean this has no contribution. This goes to show how media and the highly paid institutional “experts” frequently resort to specious analysis based on AVAILABLE Bias.

Might as well abide by Nassim Taleb (author of the Black Swan) advise, ``Don’t read newspapers for the news (just for the gossip and, of course, profiles of authors). The best filter to know if the news matters is if you hear it in cafes, restaurants... or (again) parties.”

Going back to the local economy, if we look at the performances of publicly listed companies, we hardly notice any significant slowdown. Yes while earnings fell (from a jump in input costs or “inflation” and from mark down on equity investments), revenues from business operations jumped!

This from ABS-CBN (emphasis mine), ``Companies whose shares are listed on the local bourse saw their total earnings fell in the first quarter of the year due to rising inflation and lower trading gains, a new study by the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) showed.

``According to PSE data, the combined profits of listed firms amounted to P66.68 billion in the first three months, a 4.3-percent decrease over the previous year's P69.67 billion. The same study showed that their combined revenues expanded by 10.4 percent to P589.71 billion from P534.05 billion a year ago.

``The findings were based on the unaudited financial statements of 221 listed companies received by the PSE as of June 11.”

Of course past performance doesn’t imply the same prospective outcome, but the point is if the largest companies in the Philippines have been seeing strength in the revenue context, then a material slowdown (or even a recession) isn’t likely to be in the cards. So the world may go into a recession alright but we are unlikely to join the bandwagon.

Besides, except for the trade linkages seen via the export and export related manufacturing channels, which supposedly accounts for as the most sensitive or the weakest link to a global slowdown (ironically exports grew 8.3% in June year on year, and 4% from January to June over the same period last year), the rest of the other industries should remain resilient.

As evidence, we can get some clues from the latest export figures (Inquirer.net)…

``Exports of clothing and accessories, the second-biggest export item after electronics in June, were down 7.6 percent year-on-year at $172.33 million.”

``Other top exports in June were petroleum (down 1.0 percent at $138.71 million), cathodes of refined copper (up 97 percent at $122.16 million), and coconut oil (up 105 percent at $116.97 million).

So there…a downturn in global consumer spending is reflected through the decline in clothing and accessories exports. Meanwhile, agriculture (coconut oil) and mining and related (refined copper) industries should continue to experience robust growth. As reminder, agriculture accounts for a substantial-over one third of the Philippine employment profile.

Not only that…the ongoing economic slack in the OECD economies have been prompting more firms to consider the outsourcing avenue as a way of cost cutting.

In the US, investment banks suffering from the housing and mortgage backed securitization meltdown is seen accelerating the outsourcing of jobs or in the vernacular- “knowledge process outsourcing,” “off-shoring” or “high-value outsourcing-to emerging markets.

This from the New York Times (underscore mine),

``Cost-cutting in New York and London has already been brutal thus far this year, and there is more to come in the next few months. New York City financial firms expect to hand out some $18 billion less in pay and benefits this year than 2007, the largest one-year drop ever. Over all, United States banks will cut 200,000 employees by 2009, the banking consultancy Celent said in April.

``The work these bankers were doing is not necessarily going away, though. Instead, jobs are popping up in places like India and Eastern Europe, often where healthier local markets exist.

``In addition to moving some lower-level banking and research positions to support bankers and analysts in New York and London, firms are shipping some of their top bankers from those cities to faster-growing developing markets to handle clients there…

``After research, the next wave may include more sophisticated jobs like the creation of derivative products, quantitative trading models and even sales jobs from the trading floors.

``Proponents of the change say Wall Street’s wary embrace of the activity may signal the beginning of a profound shift in the way investment banks are structured, with everyone but the top deal makers, client representatives and the bank management permanently relocated to cheaper locales like India, the Philippines and Eastern Europe.”

We don’t like to sound like engaging in a schadenfraude but the article message is crystal clear-someone’s loss is somebody’s gain; very much like the tradeoff between the Peso and the US dollar.

So, in addition to the milestone remittance volume in June and the prospects of a lower “inflation”, plus a calibrated upswing in the rest of the other industries economic growth figures to the upside (Government expects the country to grow by 5.7% for the year (inquirer.net))!!!

Figure 3: San Francisco Federal Reserve: World Real Economic Growth and US Real GDP

So under the context of economic growth, we don’t expect the US to OUTPERFORM emerging markets including the Philippines, as shown in Figure 3 from the San Francisco Federal Reserve even under a very OPTIMISTIC scenario of a NO-recession economic recovery in the US (right pane), an outlook which seems as questionable for us.

Besides, even under a moderation in economic growth it is unlikely that emerging markets will undergo the same penance as those in the debt to the eyeballs OECD economies. Even during the Dot.com bust of 2000-2002, emerging markets contributed 75% to the world economic growth as seen on the left pane. Lately, the emerging countries or developing countries accounted for almost 70% of world real GDP and should remain as an important driver going forward.

Thus, the recent fall by the Peso isn’t also supported by the slow economic growth thesis.

The Unraveling Short US Dollar Carry Trade!

So if it is not inflation and it is not slowing global economic growth then what is?

The recent strength of the US dollar hasn’t been a Philippine Peso only phenomenon. It has been a broad based rally seen in Asia (except Indonesia) including the redoubtable Singapore or for much of the world as shown in Figure 3 as measured by the US dollar “trade weighted” Index.

Figure 4: stockcharts.com: US dollar rally

As shown in Figure 4 the US dollar (main window) has massively rallied against its major trading partners (except the Canadian Loonie) which apparently coincided with the collapse of commodity prices, CRB Index (pane below main window), Gold (pane below CRB) and Oil prices (lowest pane).

While others have imputed these to “deflationary” pressures which may be partly responsible for the recent events, but has been inconsistent with the activities seen in the equity markets, we think that today’s volatile actions in the currency market signify the rotating process of “deleveraging”.

Perma bears cheerfully claim that the breakdown of commodities signifies a collapse in EM demand-which we think is unproven yet- and not evident in the Philippines anyway.

While others may call it the “global margin call” we call it the unwinding “short US dollar carry trade”.

Said differently, the US dollar has almost functioned as a ONE WAY BET or one huge crowded trade where international investors have massively “borrowed” against (because of relative lower rates) or “shorted” the US dollar (in expectations of a lower US dollar because of the years of continued decline) to buy commodities or emerging market assets or ex-US currencies in the hunt for added yields.

When central banks intervened (as we pointed out in Global Markets: The End Of The World? Or Overestimating Global Consequences?) to put a floor on the US dollar, the entire short US dollar short phenomenon unraveled spectacularly!

The attendant margin calls from the US dollar carry spurred forced liquidations in the positions of the commodity trade or in emerging markets or even among the currencies of the major trading partners of the US which had morphed into a dysfunctional rout. Hence, the almost synchronous inverse actions of the US dollar relative to commodities and the rapid disorderly panic stricken selloffs involving many currencies including the Philippine Peso!

This has not been a new phenomenon. About a year earlier, the advent of the credit crisis resulted to a wallop in global equity assets as many financial institutions who were caught in the subprime mortgage shakeout were compelled to raise capital via forcible liquidations. Most of these were vented in the global equity markets including the Philippine Stock Exchange.

We are seeing it happen today again, but this time involving ex-US assets. Hence the rotating disorder of delevaraging from a system that greatly relies on leveraging.

In May of 2006, the Gavekal Team wrote about the parallelism of a short US dollar phenomenon which had contributed to the imbalances or bubble formation that became what is known as the Asian Crisis (emphasis ours)…

``We had an echo of this very same phenomenon in Asia in the period 1995 to 2000. In 1995, everyone was convinced that the THB, MYR, KRW were massively undervalued and due a large revaluation. Everyone borrowed US$ (since rates were cheaper than local rates) to finance local projects (usually real estate). As money continued to plow in, returns on capital weakened. Soon the returns on capital moved below its cost and Asian currencies were forced to devalue. Asian banks, and the OECD banks that had lent to them, found themselves de facto “short the US$”. As Asia repaid its US$ borrowing in the period 1997-2000, the US$ rose higher than anyone expected (including ourselves) and central bank reserves barely grew (despite large current account deficits).”

Deleveraging and Probable Policy Goals Behind Interventions

The process of forcible liquidations almost always involves indiscriminate selling regardless of the fundamentals of an asset. This is because the antecedent of deleveraging is overleveraging which constitutes inflation, excessive speculation and reckless risk taking.

And deleveraging of overvalued or overextended markets means raising capital to fund margin deficits by closing out positions which usually is directed at the most liquid or most profitable positions. Hence deleveraging is commonly seen within a universe of a specified asset class. In today’s case: currencies and commodities.

Even gold, which traditionally functioned as hedge against volatility, inflation or financial or economic distress, became a downright victim to the latest market carnage.

An added view is our suspicion of the coordinated Central Bank-government efforts to prop the US dollar to force down commodity prices so as to reflect a peak in “inflation”, thereby relieving them of the political pressures from the responsibilities of policy errors (e.g. Biofuel subsidies).

Also we suspect that the same political forces could be conditioning markets for further policy easing measures (more rate cuts) in view of the still recalcitrant gridlock in the credit markets whose adverse impact has begun to spread into the real economy.

Finally in understanding of the guiding principles of US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke policymaking, it is likely that such actions could have been designed to bolster or cushion equity markets especially under the seasonal conditions of August to October which have been prone to “crashes”!

In 2000, Chairman Ben Bernanke wrote a treatise entitled “A Crash Course for Central Bankers” which we quote Mr. Bernanke…

``There’s no denying that a collapse in stock prices today would pose serious macroeconomic challenges for the United States. Consumer spending would slow, and the U.S. economy would become less of a magnet for foreign investors. Economic growth, which in any case has recently been at unsustainable levels, would decline somewhat. History proves, however, that a smart central bank can protect the economy and the financial sector from the nastier side effects of a stock market collapse.”

Figure 5: BBC US Market Crashes Through Ages

Figure 5 which we featured almost at the same time last year (see A “Normal” Correction in the FACE of Massive Government Interventions? No Can Do!) exhibits the worst crashes and bear markets in the US.

Given the cognizance of the unfolding weaknesses in the economy, US markets could be deemed as sensitive or vulnerable to a stock market crash, hence Mr. Bernanke alongside with other central banks could be attempting to create conditions that could avoid a similar situational risk.

Conclusion

In finale, we don’t share the mainstream view that the Philippine Peso’s recent downside jolt emanates from either the popular premises of being “inflation” impacted or as corollary to a global economic slowdown, both of which seems to have inadequate evidences and rests on tenuous logic in support such claims.

Much of the inter-market activities reflect on the process of deleveraging from an overextended-ONE way bet market (US DOLLAR) that has led to unruly forcible liquidations involving cross volatilities in the currency and commodity markets.

We suspect that political entities have had a hand in the present market actions were aimed at mitigating the political cost owing to adverse impacts of policy errors or US policymakers could be conditioning global financial markets for further policy easing measures (more rate cuts) or that alleged market intervention had been designed to bolster or cushion equity markets especially under the seasonal conditions of August to October which have been prone to “crashes”!

We further suspect that the unfounded serial bouts of forced selling should also translate to opportunities similar to that seen in the Phisix-that the Philippine Peso should rebound after the smoke from the battle clears.