Showing posts with label denmark. Show all posts
Showing posts with label denmark. Show all posts

Sunday, February 08, 2015

Rationalizing the Record Phisix 7,700

If you look at the typical stock on the New York Stock Exchange, its high will be, perhaps, for the last 12 months will be 150 percent of its low so they’re bobbing all over the place. All you have to do is sit there and wait until something is really attractive that you understand. And you can forget about everything else. That is a wonderful game to play in. There’s almost nothing where the game is stacked in your favor like the stock market. What happens is people start listening to everybody talk on television or whatever it may be or read the paper, and they take what is a fundamental advantage and turn it into a disadvantage. There’s no easier game than stocks. You have to be sure you don’t play it too often. You need the discipline to say no. –Warren Buffett

In this issue:

Rationalizing the Record Phisix 7,700
-False Investment Flows and Blind Confidence
-Marking the Close as Confidence Booster?
-Record Phisix 7,700 Equals Overtrading!
-Phisix 7,700: BSP Chief Express Concerns Over External Forces
-China’s PBOC and Danish Central Bank Panics!

Rationalizing the Record Phisix 7,700

This week Phisix broke through the 7,700 levels. Record after record.

False Investment Flows and Blind Confidence?

The PSE’s press release on the ninth record streak (bold mine): Year-to-date, the PSEi has broken through new record highs 9 times. It has also posted a 6.9 percent gain since the start of the year. "We are pleased with the market's movement in the last five weeks. The record numbers registered by the index highlights the level of investor confidence in our market. We hope that our initiatives to raise awareness about investing at the PSE to fund managers here and abroad will see more investment inflows into our market," PSE President and CEO Hans B. Sicat said.

First of all, the fact is that there is NO such thing as investment flows. For every buyer of a security there is a matching seller, the matching is expressed via peso (buy) per peso (sell) trades. What changes is the composition of the stock market ownership. For instance if foreign funds are buying, then the sellers would be local entities and vice versa.

This is not meant to nitpick on the PSE but to show how real exchanges work.

What record prices have been indicating instead has been the degree of aggressiveness of buyers to bid up prices relative to sellers.

It’s not about flows.


Over the past 5 weeks, there has been an “improvement” in foreign participation, but this has mostly been from special block sales of FGEN (January 21), JGS (January 22) and GTCAP (February 3)

Yet the PSE has not clearly stated why record after record stock levels should highlight as foreign investment attraction. 


The year to date performance accompanied by the PER ratio of the entire Phisix basket demonstrates how the Phisix has reached the current levels. The arrangement in the chart has been ranked according to market weightings as of February 6 close.

The green rounded rectangle on the left reveals of the quality and quantitative aspects of 7,700

There have been 12 stocks (with 6% and above) that have buoyed the Phisix while the rest has been underperforming the bellwether. Remember the Phisix has posted 6.9% returns year to date.

The above implies that the pump and push has not only been in the most popular trades but on the biggest market caps! In short, these stocks have been mostly responsible for Phisix 7,700. The concentration of pump on the biggest market caps, which has been a continuation of the trend from 2014, has led to nose bleed PERs (see right boxes).

Basically the top 15 issues have PERs at celestial levels, ranging from 18 to 50!

Let me cite an example. Consumer stock URC declared that for 2014, profit growth came at 15.2%. In 2014, URC’s stock price generated 73.3%. This means that markets paid a shocking premium of 4.82% for every 1% earnings growth. Such pump has led to URC’s PER to 40+ (45.87 as of February 5 based on PSE data)!

As a side note, the reason I chose URC is because I just came across their first quarter performance (last quarter 2014) 12.6% performance.

Let us do some back of the envelop calculations and grant the past will project into the future where 2014 will repeat in toto this year.

At the end of year, URC’s stock price will be at 340 (196 * 73.3%) while EPS will jump from (Thursday’s close 204/ PER 45.87) 4.45 to 5.13 or 15.2% earnings growth. This implies PE at 66.28!

Such level of valuations will become an attraction for foreign investors? Perhaps for Wall Street high rollers or momentum traders financed by carry trades, but not serious fund managers.

As shown in the above, all these have nothing to do G-R-O-W-T-H, but about speculative orgies founded on the catchphrase of G-R-O-W-T-H. Domestic punters have become like Pavlov’s dogs, conditioned to pump and push at every citation of G-R-O-W-T-H. But instead of dogs drooling in the sound of ringing of the bells, when media, politicians and experts utter G-R-O-W-T-H, punters go into a blind hysteric bidding spree! Risk and valuations have been thrown under the bus!

Yet how much of these bidding orgies have been financed by debt?

Marking the Close as Confidence Booster?

Third, it doesn’t seem that 7,700 Phisix has been all about the “level of investor confidence”.

Record 7,700 Phisix as noted above has been about concentration of pumps on popular and biggest market cap stocks. The Phisix year to date performance can be squared with the “marking the close” activities or attempts at managing the index. 

“Marking the close” is supposed to be a violation of the Philippine Securities Code but yet such practice has become rampant.

Record 7,700 Phisix has now been seen as a ONE way street. Corrections are simply not tolerated. Last week’s major marking the close has been used during corrections.

Last Monday February 2 (see left pane), the Phisix fell by as much 99 points or by 1.3% but the index managers ensured that losses will have to be mitigated. So the last minute pump resulted to the Phisix down by only 59.2 point or by .77% or .53% of the losses evaporated from a manic buying spree at the last minute. (charts above from technistock and colfinancial)

The same has been applied to the session on February 5, where marking the close reduced losses to just .54% (see middle). A minor “marking the close” became part of 7,700.

The serial “Marking the closes” has created a false perception of level of confidence. What it has really done has been to contribute to the ludicrous mangling of the pricing discovery system that has spawned outrageous mispricing of domestic securities.

As I have been saying the higher the Phisix, the greater the risks. This means that instead of sound market dynamics, Phisix 7,700 signifies a symptom of progressing financial instability.

Yet I am not sure that foreigners will see attractiveness in markets that have been gamed.

Record Phisix 7,700 Equals Overtrading!


The “I belong to the mainstream” crowd claims that the peso volume has been “heavy”. The claim is meant to justify the pump by appealing to the majority. Yet “heavy” really depends on data or reference points of comparison.

On an absolute level this has hardly been true or PSE data suggests the contrary. While peso volume (averaged on a daily basis) has been rising, peso volume remains off from the May 2013 levels. So far, current levels have reached the taper tantrum selloff volumes. And a significant chunk of current volume has been helped by huge special block sales.

What has really been a standout has been the number of daily trades. Trade churning has bloated by an astounding 50% from 2013 highs. The swelling of trade churning perhaps has likely been less about the growth of retail trades but more about, as I suspect, the managing of the index.

Historically, overtrading has been symptoms of a market top or market inflection points. Historian Charles Kindleberger sees overtrading as a symptom of a progressing “mania” where he noted[1],
The result of the continuation of the process is what Adam Smith and his contemporaries called ‘overtrading.’ This term is less than precise and includes speculation about increases in the prices of assets or commodities, an overestimate of prospective returns, or ‘excessive leverage.’ Speculation involves buying commodities for the capital gain from anticipated increases in their prices rather than for their use. Similarly speculation involves buying securities for resale rather than for investment income attached to these commodities. The euphoria leads to an increase in the optimism about the rate of economic growth and about the rate of increase in corporate profits and affects firms engaged in production and distribution
And how asset inflation tends to camouflage imbalances…
Even though bank loans are increasing, the leverage—the ratio of debt to capital or to equity—of many of their borrowers may decline because the increase in the prices of the real estate or securities means that the net worth of the borrowers may be increasing at a rapid rate.
And how asset inflation incites a bandwagon effect applied to social status and the credit system…
A follow-the-leader process develops as firms and households see that others are profiting from speculative purchases. ‘There is nothing as disturbing to one’s well-being and judgment as to see a friend get rich.’ Unless it is to see a nonfriend get rich. Similarly banks may increase their loans to various groups of borrowers because they are reluctant to lose market share to other lenders which are increasing their loans at a more rapid rate. More and more firms and households that previously had been aloof from these speculative ventures begin to participate in the scramble for high rates of return. Making money never seemed easier. Speculation for capital gains leads away from normal, rational behavior to what has been described as a ‘mania’ or a ‘bubble.’
Phisix 7,700: BSP Chief Express Concerns Over External Forces

And yet while officials of the PSE have been patting their backs on the record after record levels, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas honcho, Amando Tetangco Jr., continues to raise the prospects of risks from the external environment.

In a recent speech he said[2]: (bold mine)
The steep decline in oil prices has complicated the market appreciation of the outlook for monetary policy in 2015.  Some analysts say, the Fed would be hard-pressed to hike rates by any significant measure (as in June this year) if oil prices continue to drop because inflation in the US will be soft.

In addition, low oil prices increase the risk of deflation in the EU and Japan, raising the likelihood that more easing measures would be put in place.

In other words, ladies and gentlemen, whereas markets used to have the confidence in the trend of monetary policies, this new uncertainty from oil price movements is now seen to heighten volatility in financial markets by unsettling investor risk appetite and unseating inflation expectations.

Further, a continued decline in oil price could also change the balance of global growth prospects. There will be winners and losers if low oil prices persist.  While the decline in oil is a dampener to inflation and could raise purchasing power for oil importers, it could also result in a loss of revenues for oil producers and lead to weak aggregate demand. With overall global growth still fragile, the significant drop and the weak prospects in oil prices have gotten more analysts discussing the risk of deflation in recent weeks.
Nonetheless while the BSP chief sanitizes and downplays the risks to the Philippine economy due to the alleged “strong environment”, he sees a potential reemergence of market volatility. 

Also the BSP chief seems to signal the possibility for them to lower interest rates.
Our initial projections using lower oil prices show that inflation would still be within the target range for 2015, which is now lower at 2-4 percent compared to the previous year’s target of 3-5 percent. Indications of easing inflationary pressures owing in part to the decline in international oil prices as well as signs of robust domestic economic growth allow the BSP some room to maintain its current monetary policy stance. Even so, we do not pre-commit to a set course of action. As I have always said, the stance of monetary policy will remain data-dependent.

One thing we keep in the back of our minds is that prices can reverse and often very quickly. If you have been in this market long enough – as I believe some in the audience have – you know that markets tend to get ahead of themselves.  So, we continue to watch developments in the oil market carefully and how these affect inflation and growth dynamics, to see if there is any need to make adjustments in the stance of policy.

Remember what I wrote last week on the 4Q 6.9% GDP[3]?
if the BSP, suddenly cuts rate for one reason or another, say below inflation target, or external based alibis, then this proves that 4Q 6.9% GDP 2014 has all been a Potemkin Village.

In the same speech, the BSP chief denies the risks of deflation, supposedly due to the “ramping up of government spending”, yet this outlook overlooks Japan’s experience.

Following the bursting of the stock market and property bubble, in the 90s Japan’s government engaged into a spending spree but failed to create meaningful growth. Reason? Japan’s economy had been shackled by a mountain of non-performing loans and by a refusal to let the markets clear. Japan’s economy stagnated for decades (continuing until today, hence Abenomics) with CPI prices fluctuating between marginal increases and slight decreases. Such ‘lost decade(s)’ have been misinterpreted by the mainstream as ‘deflation’ when this has been about stagnation.

As a side note, record Phisix 7,700 came as Bank of Japan’s governor Haruhiko Kuroda rang the opening bell for the PSE last Friday. The BoJ’s chief has been the architect of Japan’s incredible divergence, milestone stock market performance in the face of an economic recession! The BoJ’s visit to the Philippines has reportedly been about arranging for peso credit facilities for Japanese companies backed by yen as collateral. With the BoJ so far intent on destroying the yen, the BoJ wants the BSP to accept Japanese collateral with vastly diminishing value. The peso has been climbing against the yen since January of 2012 and has gained 57% as of Friday’s close from the same period. [I understand that currencies may be hedged, what this does is to spread the risks but not to diminish it]. Yet local punters seem to project to BoJ’s Kuroda: if you can do it we can do it! Be careful of what you wish for.

Going back to the BSP, statistics isn’t economics. 

Debt represents the intertemporal distribution of spending activities. Borrowing money to spend simply means the frontloading of spending. The cost of debt financed spending today is spending in the future. Debt will have to be repaid at the expense of future spending. Of course there are productive and non-productive debts. But policies of financial repression via zero bound rates tend to promote non-productive ‘speculative’ and consumption debts.

The BSP fails to understand that having too much debt, which constrains balance sheets, will undermine real economic growth. The transmission mechanism from balance sheet problems will affect prices and subsequently the economic coordination process. The mainstream sees this as lack of aggregate demand when they are in fact balance sheet imbalances. Debt is not a free lunch, not even government debt. McKinsey Quarterly estimates that global debt grew by $57 trillion since 2007 where debt to GDP has reached 286%! Why do you think the negative interest rate policies adapted by many central banks? 


And one only needs to look at the growth conditions of loan and statistical GDP to see how disproportionalities have been mounting in the Philippines.

From end of the year 2008 to end of the year 2014, or in 6 years, production or supply side banking loans has inflated 125% (CAGR 14.51%) whereas gdp (at current prices) has only amassed 70.2% (CAGR 9.3%). The bigger buildup of debt relative to gdp means slower real economic growth ahead. This is regardless whether debt based spending has been due to government or private sector. The government can pump statistical economy but not the real economy.

And since consumer spending accounts for about 70% of the expenditure GDP, HFCE has grown by about a similar rate to statistical gdp of 73.43% (CAGR 9.61%) over the same period.

Yet from the same timeframe, supply side GDP has swelled by outlandish rates as follows: construction 135.1%, trade 105.71%, finance 142.94% and real estate 273.38%. This has been financed mostly by bank credit growth with incredulous growth rates for the said industries at 200.85%, 176.92%, 194.68% and 178.77% respectively. 

So even if Real Estate GDP has ballooned more than the rate of credit growth, the huge disparity between consumer growth and industry growth means severe accumulation of excess capacity in motion. And this will become evident when credit growth slows.

Oh by the way, as possible symptom of excess capacity combined with a slump in retail 4Q GDP—have you seen the dramatic surge in store vacancies in many of the major malls at the metropolis? The vacancy rates of a high end mall have recently soared and appear to have already exceeded 10% of their total retail space! 6.9% 4Q GDP in the face of soaring vacancies in shopping malls! Duh!

And I’m not sure if the BSP chief has merely been just parroting what the central bank of central banks, the Bank for International Settlement has been saying, or if he is just underwriting an escape clause to exonerate (him and the BSP) when risks transforms into reality, nevertheless, the concerns of the BSP chief (or by the BSP) seem at material odds with the heady outlook of PSE officials.

Statistics isn’t economics. What seems as may not be what’s real. Notice how “strong” statistics have often been masked by an inflation boom as indicated by historian Charles Kindleberger? Warren Buffett’s alternative axiom has been: Only when the tide goes out do you discover whose swimming naked.

Two recent examples of “swimming naked” exposed.

Remember Brazilian tycoon Eike Batista whose worth was once quoted as anywhere from $25 to $35 billion in 2012 and was named as the 8th richest man in the world by Forbes Magazine in 2011? Well he is now a “negative” billionaire. Now, Mr. Batista reportedly owes $1.2 billion. Thus authorities have been seizing his assets, which includes white Lamborghini and $32,490 in cash, computers, and watches — as well as any real estate, six other cars, his boat and his airplanes, according to the Businessinsider.com

Worst, compounding his financial woes, the erstwhile mining and oil tycoon has now been faced with charges of insider trading and stock market manipulation.

Mr. Batista’s financial crash took only less than two years to happen. Who would have thought that billions worth of wealth (paper) can vaporize so fast? And yet when revulsion and discredit sets in, the blaming part begins.

At the turn of the business cycle, I believe that there will many miniature Eike Batistas, here and abroad.

For the domestic setting, I predict that “when the tide goes out”, the serial “marking the closes” will likely become a future legal issue.

Next, another account of what seems as, may not really be: Brazil’s state firm Petrobas

From Bloomberg: (bold mine) When Brazil emerged from the global financial crisis as one of the world’s great rising powers, Petrobras was the symbol of that growing economic might. The state-run oil giant was embarking on a $220 billion investment plan to develop the largest offshore crude discovery in the Western hemisphere since 1976 and was, in the words of then-President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the face of “the new Brazil.” Today the company epitomizes everything that is wrong with a Brazilian economy that has been sputtering for the better part of four years: It’s mired in a corruption scandal that cost the CEO her job this week; it has failed to meet growth targets year after year; and it’s saddling investors with spectacular losses. Once worth $310 billion at its peak in 2008, a valuation that made it the world’s fifth-largest company, Petroleo Brasileiro SA is today worth just $48 billion.

The face of “New Brazil”—another slogan highlighting euphoric “this time is different” demolished!

Rings a bell?

China’s PBOC and Danish Central Bank Panics!

Two central banks seem as in a panic mode. 

In Denmark, the Danish Central Bank cut interest rates by another 25 basis points which brings Danish interest rates deeply into negative territory -.75. This marks the fourth cut in less than 3 weeks intended to defend the Danish krone-euro peg which has reportedly been under heavy assault from speculators. Will the krone-euro peg break soon? Will there be a huge demand for cash too…reinforcing deflation?

China’s PBoC seems to have panicked too. The PBoC suddenly cut reserve requirements in the wake of a slower than expected bank lending, an unexpected contraction of factory activities and a slowdown in the service industry.

Government economists as quoted by media say that the cut, which injects $96 billion to the economy, has been aimed at curtailing the yuan’s slide as a result of accelerating capital outflows. Capital flight hit a record $91.2 billion in the fourth quarter according to a report from Bloomberg. The said report also noted that PBoC injected $31 billion over the past three weeks. 

If cutting reserves had been intended to defend the yuan then this will hardly work.

First some data. Chinese credit to GDP has been reported by McKinsey Quarterly at 282% as of 2Q 2014. Corporate debt has been estimated by McKinsey at 125% of GDP the highest level in the world! In addition, Chinese debt has been concentrated to the real estate sector, along with a massive growth in Shadow Banking and in local government debt.

Given the sustained downturn in housing prices, which continues to put pressure on the economy and on credit conditions, capital flight would be a natural response for investors and currency holders anticipating a far worse outcome.

Cutting reserve requirements would free up resources for banks to lend but this will hardly attract credit activities if the balance sheets of Chinese residents and companies have been hocked to the eyeballs with debt.

Given the above statistics, what happens instead will be more access to credit in order to pay off existing loans (debt rollover) rather than for investment. The end result of the ‘extend and pretend’ strategy will be to increase debt levels as GDP cascades.

The Chinese government seems in a bind to desperately defer the inevitable distressing adjustments.

Interestingly, Hong Kong’s tourism seems as suffering from a facelift. Chinese tourists have become dominated by ‘Day Trippers’ which now accounts for a record 60%of Chinese tourists. According to a report from Bloomberg, Day-trippers spent an average of around HK$2,700 ($350) per capita in Hong Kong in 2013, compared with about HK$8,800 by overnight tourists, according to government data.

Wow, that’s a 69% collapse in spending budget by tourists! And this has resulted to a slump in luxury brand sales but a surge in medicine and cosmetic sales! What the report suggests has been that China’s economic slowdown and the government’s anti-corruption drive (political persecution) have changed the character of Hong Kong based Chinese tourists.

Well if the trend continues, then this will radically shake up the Hong Kong economy!

Now the report also says that the wealthy have been shifting visits to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, but they didn’t give the numbers.

Anyway, Hong Kong’s dilemma seems to have been shared by the miseries of Macau as expressed by the crashing share prices and earnings of casinos. 

And applied to the Philippines, if those wealthy Chinese high rollers don’t come streaming into the Philippine casinos soon, excess capacity will lead to losses and subsequently credit troubles.

The effects of the looming shortage of Chinese gamblers will not be isolated to casinos but will extend to creditors, suppliers and workers of the industry. The chain reaction will spread to the economy. If you add other risks areas like shopping mall or other property related industries the direct and indirect effects will be magnified.

In addition, a radical makeover of the Hong Kong’s economy may jeopardize domestic OFWs working there.

But then, according to the record Phisix 7,700 risks and valuations have all been expunged out of existence! Stocks and economic conditions are a one way street! So for the mainstream, we should not only buy, buy, buy!...but also borrow borrow borrow to buy, buy, buy! Money’s free!



[1] Charles Kindleberger, Manias, Panics, and Crashes A History of Financial Crises Fifth Edition, Now and Futures

[2] Amando M. Tetangco Jr. Working Together towards a Stronger Economy January 30, 2014 Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas

Friday, January 23, 2015

ECB’s QE Effect; Danish Central Bank Cuts Interest Rates Twice this week

Here is one interesting ramification from the ECB’s QE, the Danish central bank cut interest rate twice this week:

Denmark cut its main interest rate on Thursday for the second time this week as it sought to dampen interest in its currency among investors selling the euro after the European Central Bank announced a stimulus package.

The Danish central bank lowered its deposit rate to minus 0.35% from minus 0.2% after cutting from minus 0.05% on Monday. It left its other main interest rates unchanged.

The Danish move came ninety minutes after ECB President Mario Draghi announced an expansion of an ECB bond-buying program aimed at supporting growth and lifting inflation expectations in the eurozone. Mr. Draghi said the ECB will buy a total of €60 billion ($69 billion) a month in assets including government bonds, debt securities issued by European institutions and private-sector bonds.
The Danish currency the krone has been pegged to the euro, which means that Denmark has de facto part of the EMU via the ECB’s policies

And considering that the Swiss SNB abandoned the franc-euro cap last week, speculations have been rife that Denmark might do the same.

Back to the article:
Since last week’s surprise retreat by the Swiss central bank from its policy of limiting the rise of the Swiss franc against the euro, analysts have been wondering who might be next and focus has been on Denmark.

“It’s very clear that the Danish central bank is feeling the pressure,” said Peter Kinsella, a foreign-exchange strategist at Commerzbank. “The fact that they have acted twice in the space of just a single week shows that they are indeed very concerned.”

Some have wondered if Denmark’s peg might be vulnerable and the central bank has been quick to show it won’t shy away from cutting its main rate well into negative territory and intervening in the currency market if that is what is needed.

“We have the instruments necessary to maintain the peg, we have done today what we have done on previous occasions,” said central bank spokesman Karsten Biltoft by phone from Copenhagen. “First we intervene in the foreign exchange market, then we change the interest rate,” Mr. Biltoft said.
image

Interestingly, for Denmark household debt has been the largest in the OECD.

From a January 2014 Bloomberg report
Denmark is reining in its $550 billion home loan industry, the world’s biggest per capita, after cheap credit fed a borrowing spree. Danes owe their creditors 321 percent of disposable incomes, a world record and a level that warrants a policy response, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said in November.

Denmark’s consumers are backed by some of Europe’s biggest pension savings, at about 1 1/2 times gross domestic product, central bank figures show. While the structure of the nation’s housing market and pension system mitigates some of the credit risks, Noedgaard said debt levels are hampering consumer spending, which makes up half Denmark’s $340 billion economy…

Household borrowing from mortgage lenders and banks stood at 1.88 trillion kroner ($345 billion) in October, the majority of it home loans, after peaking at 1.91 trillion kroner in December 2012, according to central bank statistics.
Media notes that Denmark's debt levels have been hampering consumer spending. Of course, debt enables the frontloading of spending to the present. This has a cost: future spending. But the future has arrived, debt has to be paid at the cost of present spending. There is no such thing as a free lunch. If income doesn't grow debt levels will be a problem.

And according to a report from the European commission (March 2014):
Denmark's mortgage system is characterised by a high share of variable-rate and deferred amortisation loans. The share of variable-rate (or "adjustable rate") loans by mortgage banks remains high at 72% of total lending in November 2013. The variable rate loans are particularly widespread among families in the top 10% and the bottom 10% of the income distribution. The share of deferred-amortisation loans, i.e. loans with interest-only payments in the initial phase of the contract, is also high, amounting to 53% of total mortgage lending in November 2013.
The above highlights the sensitivity by Denmark's household balance sheets to changes in interest rates even if part of this has been "backed by pensions".

In other words, a surge in inflation expectations may spike interest rates which may may render Denmark’s economy vulnerable to a margin call. Add to this the fragile confidence on Denmark’s credit conditions which increases the possibility of markets to speculate against the peg.

This one reason why the Danish central bank will eventually follow the SNB.

Monday, September 23, 2013

Phisix: Will the Fed’s Spiking of the Punchbowl Party Be Sustainable?

Right now, the FOMC has “a tiger by its tail” - it has lost control of monetary policy.  The Fed can’t stop buying assets because interest rates will rise and choke the recovery.  In short, today’s decision not to taper was driven by unimpressive economic data, the fear of a 3% yield on the 10 year Treasury and gridlock in Washington.  If the economy cannot handle a 3% yield on the 10 year, then the S&P 500 should not be north of 1700.  It is remarkable that the equity market continued to buy into easy money over economic growth.  QE3 has been ongoing for nearly a year and the economy is not strong enough to ease off the accelerator (forget about applying the brake).  Simultaneously, the S&P 500 is up 21% year to date and the average share gain in the index is over 25%.  Maybe today’s action will turn out to be short covering, but if it was not then paying continually higher prices for equities in a potentially weakening economy is a very dangerous proposition.  Mike O'Rourke at JonesTrading

How promises to extend credit easing (inflationist) policies can change the complexion of the game in just one week.

Spiking the Punchbowl Party, Negative Rates


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In a classic Pavlovian response to the intense fears in May-June where central bank policies led by the US Federal Reserve would have the “punch bowl removed just when the party was really warming up”[1], to borrow the quote from a speech of the 9th and longest serving US Federal Reserve chairman William McChesney Martin[2], retaining the “punch bowl” electrified the markets across the oceans.

Badly beaten ASEAN market made a striking comeback this week.

A week back, sentiment rotation from falling global bond and commodity markets have begun to spur a shift of the rabid speculative hunt for yields towards equities. This has been justified by discounting the impact from the FED’s supposed taper


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Yet this week’s dual events of the Larry Summer’s controversial withdrawal[3] from the candidacy of the US Federal Reserve chairmanship and the FED’s stiffing of the almost unanimous expectations of a pullback on central bank stimulus which proved to be the icing on the cake that spiked this week’s punch bowl party. 

The above highlights much of how financial markets have been hostaged to policy steroids

The markets apparently saw Larry Summers as a “hawk” and a threat to the punch bowl party. This is in contrast to the current the Fed’s Vice Chairwoman Janet Yellen who has been seen as even more a “dove” than the outgoing incumbent Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Ms. Yellen, according to celebrated Swiss contrarian analyst and fund manager Dr. Marc Faber[4], will make Dr. Bernanke “look like a hawk”, because the former subscribed to negative interest rates.

Instead of the banks paying depositors, in negative rates, it is the reverse; depositors who pay the banks. And as likewise as analyst Gerard Jackson noted[5] “It is a situation in which the buyer of treasuries pays the government interest for the privilege of having loaned it money; a state of affairs in which a person's real savings are being continuously reduced”. In short, creditors will pay borrowers interest rates. This puts the credit system upside down.

If savers today are being punished under zero bound rates, negative rates will likely worsen such conditions. In a world where only spending drives the economy, ivory tower theorists mistakenly assume that savings will be forced into “spending” in the economy.

And Wall Street loves this because they presuppose that this will magnify the transfer or subsidies that they have been benefiting at the expense of the Main Street. In the real world, money that goes into speculating stocks represents as foregone opportunities for productive investments.

While the amplification of Wall Street subsidies may be the case, this may also prompt for an upside spiral of price inflation.

But on the other hand, if creditors (savers) will be compelled to pay debtors interest rates, assuming that under normal circumstances interest rates incorporate premium for taking on credit risk which will be reversed by edict, then why will creditors even lend at all? Why would depositors pay banks when they can keep money under the mattress? Or simply, why lend at all?

Denmark has adapted a negative deposit rate for the banking system in July of 2012[6] But this has not been meant to encourage spending but as a form of capital controls, viz prevent influx.

While the Danish central bank claims that this has been a policy success story, indeed capital flows have declined, the other consequence has been a sharp drop in net interest income (lowest in 5 years[7]) which has been due to the marked contraction in loans extended to the private sector

Economic wide, the Danish negative rates has been a drag on money aggregates (M3), sustained “spending” retrenchment as shown by retail sales (monthly and yearly) and a growth recession based on quarter and annualized rates. So instead of inflation, in Denmark’s case it has been disinflation.

The problem is that once the US assimilates such policies, such will likely be adapted or imported by their global counterparts. The European Central Bank has already been considering such policies[8] last May.

The Denmark episode may or may not be replicated elsewhere. The point is that such adventurous policies run a high risk of unintended consequences.

The Fed’s UN-Taper: Spooked or Deliberately Designed?

The consensus has declared that the US Federal Reserve has been “spooked”[9] by the bond vigilantes as for the reason for withholding the taper.

They can’t be blamed, the FOMC’s statement underscored such concerns, “mortgage rates have risen further and fiscal policy is restraining economic growth” and “but the tightening of financial conditions observed in recent months, if sustained, could slow the pace of improvement in the economy and labor market”[10]

However, I find it bizarre how stock market bulls entirely dismiss or ignore the impact of interest rates when the Fed authorities themselves appear to have been revoltingly terrified by the bond vigilantes.

But if the FED has been petrified by the bond vigilantes then this means that they likewise seem to recognize of the fragility of whatever growth the economy has been experiencing. In other words they have been sceptical of the economy’s underlying strength.

Some economic experts have even been aghast at the supposed loss of credibility by the US Federal Reserve’s[11] non transparent communications.

But I have a different view. I have always been in doubt on what I see as a poker bluff by the FED on supposed exit or taper strategies since 2010, for four reasons.

1. The US government directly benefits from the current easing environment. Credit easing represents a subsidy to government liabilities via artificially repressed interest rates. In addition, the current inflationary boom has led to increases in tax revenues. Both of these encourage the government to spend more.

As I previously wrote[12],
Given the entrenched dependency relationship by the mortgage markets and by the US government on the US Federal Reserve, the Fed’s QE program can be interpreted as a quasi-fiscal policy whose major beneficiaries have been the political class and the banking class. Thus, there will be little incentives for FED officials to downsize the FED’s actions, unless forced upon by the markets. Since politicians are key beneficiaries from such programs, Fed officials will be subject to political pressures.

This is why I think the “taper talk” represents just one of the FED’s serial poker bluffs.
2. The second related reason is that by elevating asset prices, such policies alleviates on the hidden impairments in the balance sheets of the banking and financial system. The banking system function as cartel agents to the US Federal Reserve, which supervise, control and provides relative guarantees on select elite members. The banking system also acts as financing agent for the US government via distribution and sale of US treasuries, and holding of government’s debt papers as part of their reserves.

For instance the reserves held by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporations (FDIC) are at only $37.9 billion, even when it insures $5.25 trillion of ‘insurable deposits’ held in the US banking system or about .7% of bank deposits. According to Sovereign Man’s Simon Black[13], the FDIC names 553 ‘problem’ banks which control nearly $200 billion in assets or about 5 times the size of their reserve fund.

In short should falling asset markets ripple across the banking sector, the FDIC would need to tap on the US treasury.

Essentially the UN-taper seem to have been designed to burn short sellers with particular focus on the bond vigilantes, where the latter may impact the balance sheets of the banking system.

3. Credit easing policies have been underpinned by the philosophical ideology that wages war against interest rates via the “euthanasia of the rentier[14]”. Central bankers desire to abolish what they see as the oppressive nature of the “scarcity-value of capital” by perpetuating credit expansion. So zero bound rates will be always be the policy preference unless forced upon by market actions in response to the real world dynamic of “scarcity-value of capital”

4. In the supposed May taper, where the markets reacted or recoiled with vehemence, the markets selectively focused on the taper aspect “moderate the monthly pace” even when the FED explicitly noted that “our policy is in no way predetermined” and even propounded of more easing[15].

This dramatic volatility from the May “taper talk” even compelled Fed chair Dr. Ben Bernanke to explicitly say “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”[16]

In other words, the taper option functioned as a face saving valve in case the rampaging bond vigilantes would force their hand.

For me Dr. Bernanke’s calling of the Poker “taper” Bluff has been part of the tactic.

The bond vigilantes have gone beyond the Fed’s assumed control over them. And since the Fed construes that the rising yields has been built around the expectations of the Fed’s pullback on monetary accommodation, what has been seen a Fed “spook” for the mainstream may have really been a desperate ALL IN ante “surprise strike” gambit against the bond vigilantes. The Un-taper was the Pearl Harbor equivalent of Dr. Bernanke and company against the bond vigilantes.

The question now is if the actions in the yield curve have indeed been a function of perceived “tapering”. If yes, then given the extended UN-taper option now on the table, bond yields will come down and risk assets may continue to rise. But if not, or if yields continue to ascend in the coming days that may short circuit the risk ON environment, then this may force the FED to consider the nuclear option: bigger purchases.

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But of course there have been technical inhibitions that may force the Fed to taper.

With shrinking budget deficits, meaning lesser treasury issuance and with the FED now holding “$1.678 trillion in ten year equivalents, or 31.89% as of August 30th total according to Zero Hedge[17], the Fed’s size in bond markets have been reducing availability of collateral. Reduced supply of treasuries, which function as vital components of banking reserves will only amplify volatility.

The Fed’s policies are having far wider unintended effects on the bond markets.

Should the Fed consider more purchases it may expand to cover other instruments.

The Fed has Transformed Financial Markets to a Giant Casino

While targeting the bond vigilantes, the FED’s UN-taper has broader repercussions; this served as an implied bailout to emerging markets and Asia.

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Mainstream analysts have been quick to grab this week major upside move as an opportunity to claim that the Fed’s actions vastly reduced risks to the global economy. They conclude without explaining why despite the huge (more than double) expansion of assets by the major central banks since 2008 which now accounts for about 12-13% of the global GDP, economic growth remains highly brittle.

They even point out that current conditions seem like a replay of the May 2012 stock market selloff (green ellipses) where emerging markets stocks (EEM) and bonds (CEMB Emerging Market Corporate bonds) as well as ASEAN stocks (ASEA) eventually climbed.

They forgot to say that the selloff in May 2012 had been one of a China slowdown and signs of market stress from the dithering of the Fed’s on QE 3.0[18]. Importantly markets sold off as yields of 10 year US notes trended to its record bottom low in July.

Today has been immensely a different story from 2012. UST yields have crept higher since June 2012 (red trend line). The effects on UST yield by QE 3.0 a year back (September 13, 2012) had been a short one: 3 months. This means in spite of the program to depress bond yields, bond yields moved significantly higher.

The upward ascent accelerated a month after Abenomics was launched and days prior the sensational taper talk. Nonetheless, media and authorities believe that rising yields have been a consequence of a purported Fed slowdown and from ‘economic growth’

What has been seen as economic growth by the mainstream has really been an inflationary boom which indeed contributes to higher yields. Yet the consensus ignores that rising yields may also imply of diminishing real savings and deepening capital consumption via implicit revulsion towards more easing policies that has only been fueling an acute speculative frenzy on asset markets driving the world deeper into debt.

As analyst Doug Noland at the Credit Bubble Bulletin notes[19]
Last week set an all-time weekly record for corporate debt issuance. The year is on track for record junk bond issuance and on near-record pace for overall corporate debt issuance. At 350 bps, junk bond spreads are near 5-year lows (5-yr avg. 655bps). At about 70 bps, investment grade Credit spreads closed Thursday at the lowest level since 2007 (5-yr avg. 114bps). It's a huge year for M&A. And with the return of “cov-lite” and abundant cheap finance for leveraged lending generally, U.S. corporate debt markets are screaming the opposite of tightening.

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And such “all-time weekly record for corporate debt issuance” has coincided with the equity funds posting the “second largest weekly inflow since at least 2000” according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch as quoted by the Zero Hedge[20]. The year 2000 alluded to signified as the pinnacle of the dot.com mania.

How will rising stock prices reduce risks in the real economy?

In the case of India, the Reserve Bank of India led by Chicago School, former IMF chief and supposedly a free market economist Raghuram Rajan sent a shocker to the consensus by his inaugural policy of raising repurchase rate rates by a quarter point to 7.5, which is all not bad.

However Mr. Rajan contradicts this move by relaxing liquidity curbs by “cutting the marginal standing facility rate to 9.5 percent from 10.25 percent and lowering the daily balance requirement for the cash reserve ratio to 95 percent from 99 percent, effective Sept. 21. The bank rate was reduced to 9.5 percent from 10.25 percent.”[21]

So the left hand tightens while the right hand eases.

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Sure India’s stocks as indicated by the Sensex have broken into the year’s highs and is at 2011 levels, but it remains to be seen how much of the record highs have factored in the risks from such policies and how of the current price levels have been from the Summer-Fed UN-taper mania.

As one would note in the Sensex or from ASEAN-Emerging Markets stocks, current market actions have been sharply volatile in both directions. And volatility in itself poses as a big risks. Financial markets have become a giant casino.

QE Help Produce Boom-Bust Cycles and is a Driver of Inequality

It is misguided to believe that QEternity extrapolates as an antidote to an economic recession or depression. 

The reality is Quantitative Easing extrapolates to discoordination or the skewing of consumption and production activities which leads to massive misallocation of capital or “malinvestments”. QE also translates to grotesque mispricing of securities and maladjusted price levels in the economy benefiting the first recipients of credit expansion.

And all these have been financed by a monumental pile up on debt and equally a loss of purchasing power of currencies.

Eventually such imbalances will be powerful enough to overwhelm whatever interventions made to prevent them from happening, specifically once real savings or capital has been depleted.

As the great Austrian Ludwig von Mises warned[22]
But the boom cannot continue indefinitely. There are two alternatives. Either the banks continue the credit expansion without restriction and thus cause constantly mounting price increases and an ever-growing orgy of speculation, which, as in all other cases of unlimited inflation, ends in a “crack-up boom” and in a collapse of the money and credit system. Or the banks stop before this point is reached, voluntarily renounce further credit expansion and thus bring about the crisis. The depression follows in both instances.
QE also means a massive redistribution of wealth.
 
Rising stock markets have embodied such policy induced inequality.

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US households have the biggest exposure on stocks with 33.7% share of total financial assets according to the Bank of Japan[23].

In Japan, only 7.9% of financial assets have been allocated to equities. This means that Abenomics will crater Japan’s households whose biggest assets have been currency and deposits. The Japanese may pump up a stock or property bubble or send their money overseas.

In the Eurozone, stocks constitute only 15.2% of household financial assets.

The above figures assume that each household has exposure in stocks. But not every household has exposure on stocks.

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In the US for instance, while 51.1% of families have direct or indirect holdings on the stock markets as of 2007[24], a significant share of stock ownership have been in the upper ranges of the income bracket (green rectangle).

Since the distribution of ownership of stocks has been tilted towards the high income groups, FED policies supporting the asset markets only drives a bigger wedge between the high income relative to the lower income groups.

This is essentially the same elsewhere.

In the Philippines, according to the PSE in 2012 there have been only 525,850 accounts[25] of which 96.4% has been retail investors while 3.6% has been institutional accounts.

And of the total, 98.5% accounted for as domestic investors while foreigners constituted 1.5%.

Amazingly the 2012 data represents less than 1% (.54% to be exact) of the 96.71 million (2012 estimates) Philippine population.

Meanwhile online participants comprised 78,216 or 14.9%[26].

In 2007 the PSE survey reported only 430,681 accounts[27]. This means that the current stock market boom has only added 22.1% of new participants or 4.07% CAGR over the past 5 years.

The media’s highly rated boom hasn’t been enough to motivate much of the public to partake of FED-BSP manna.

One may add that some individuals may have multiple accounts, or members of the one family may all have accounts. This means that the raw data doesn’t indicate how many households or families have stock market exposure. Under this perspective, the penetration figures are likely to be even smaller.

This also means that in spite of the headline hugging populist boom, given the sluggish growth of ‘new’ stock market participants most of pumping up of the bull market activities have likely emanated from recycling of funds or increased use of leverage to accentuate returns or the deepening role of ‘fickle’ foreign funds. I am sceptical that the major stockholders will add to their holdings. They are likely to sell more via secondary IPOs, preferred shares, etc…

And this means that for the domestic equity market to continue with its bull market path would mean intensifying use of leverage for existing domestic participants and or greater participation from foreigners. That’s unless the lacklustre growth in new participants reverses and improves significantly.

And it is surprising to know that with about half of the daily volume traded in the PSE coming from foreigners, much of this volume comes from the elite (1.5% share) of mostly foreign funds.

So who benefits from rising stock markets?

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As pointed out in the past[28], the domestic elite families who control 83% of the market cap as of 2011.

The other beneficiary has been foreign money which accounts for the 16% and the residual morsel recipients to the retail participants like me.

So the BSP’s zero bound rates, whose credit fuelled boom inflates on statistical growth figures, likewise drives the inequality chasm between the “haves” and the “havenots” via shifting of resources from Mang Pedro and Juan to the Philippine version of Wall Street.

Interviewed by CNBC after the Fed’s surprise decision to UN-Taper, billionaire hedge fund manager Stanley Druckenmiller, founder of Duquesne Capital commented[29]
This is fantastic for every rich person…This is the biggest redistribution of wealth from the middle class and the poor to the rich ever.
Such stealth transfer of wealth enabled and facilitated by central bank policies are not only economically unsustainable, they are reprehensively immoral.



[1] Wm. McC. .Martin, Jr . Chairman, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System before the New York Group of the Investment Bankers Association of America Punch Bowl Speech October 19, 1955 Fraser St. Louis Federal Reserve







[8] Bloomberg Businessweek Are Negative Interest Rates in Europe's Future? May 2, 2013

[9] Wall Street Journal Real Economics Blog Economists React: Fed ‘Was Clearly Spooked’ September 18, 2013

[10] Reuters.com TEXT-FOMC statement from Sept. 17-18 meeting September 18, 2013









[19] Doug Noland, Financial Conditions Credit Bubble Bulletin Prudentbear.com September 20, 2013



[22] Ludwig von Mises III. INFLATION AND CREDIT EXPANSION 1. Inflation Interventionism An Economic Analysis


[24] Census Bureau 1211 - Stock Ownership by Age of Family Head and Family Income Banking, Finance, & Insurance: Stocks and Bonds, Equity Ownership Department of Commerce.

[25] Philippine Stock Exchange Retail investor participation grows by six percent in 2012, June 20, 2013

[26] Philippine Stock Exchange PSE Study: Online investing rose 48% in 2012 April 30, 2013

[27] Philippine Stock Exchange, Less than half of 1% of Filipinos invest in stock market, PSE study confirms 16 June 2008 News Release Refer to: Joel Gaborni -- 688-7583 Nina Bocalan-Zabella – 688-7582 (no available link)


[29] Robert Frank Druckenmiller: Fed robbing poor to pay rich CNBC.com September 19, 2013