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Everything’s Deflating And Nobody Seems To Notice
Everything’s Deflating And Nobody Seems To Notice
Whenever we at the Automatic Earth explain, as we must have done at least a hundred times in our existence, that, and why, we refuse to define inflation and deflation as rising or falling prices (only), we always get a lot of comments and reactions implying that people either don’t understand why, or they think it’s silly to use a definition that nobody else seems to use.
-More or less- recent events, though, show us once more why we’re right to insist on inflation being defined in terms of the interaction of money-plus-credit supply with money velocity (aka spending). We’re right because the price rises/falls we see today are but a delayed, lagging, consequence of what deflation truly is, they are not deflation itself. Deflation itself has long begun, but because of confusing -if not conflicting- definitions, hardly a soul recognizes it for what it is.
Moreover, the role the money supply plays in that interaction gets smaller, fast, as debt, in the guise of overindebtedness, forces various players in the global economy, from consumers to companies to governments, to cut down on spending, and heavily. We are as we speak witnessing a momentous debt deleveraging, or debt deflation, in real time, even if prices don’t yet reflect that. Consumer prices truly are but lagging indicators.
The overarching problem with all this is that if you look just at -consumer- price movements to define inflation or deflation, you will find it impossible to understand what goes on. First, if you wait until prices fall to recognize deflation, you will tend to ignore the deflationary moves that are already underway but have not yet caused prices to drop. Second, when prices finally start falling, you will have missed out on the reason why they do, because that reason has started to build way before a price fall.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Latest Evidence That Global Trade Has Collapsed: India’s Exports/Imports Plunge By 25%
The Latest Evidence That Global Trade Has Collapsed: India’s Exports/Imports Plunge By 25%
Late last month, India surprised 51 out of 52 economists when the RBI cut rates by 50bps.
Although economists have a reputation for being terrible when it comes to making predictions (getting it wrong perpetually is almost a job requirement), it’s difficult to understand how 51 of them failed to see a cut of that magnitude in the cards.
After all, it was just a little over a month earlier when the Indian government’s chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian told ET Now television that India may need to “respond” to China’s monetary policy stance. He also hinted at further export weakness to come.
Here’s what the REER picture and the export picture looked like going into the RBI meeting:
And here’s what Deutsche Bank had to say in August:
Currency competitiveness is an important factor in influencing exports performance, but global demand is even more important, in our view, to support exports momentum. Global demand remains soft at this stage which continues to be a key hurdle for exports momentum to gain traction.
Hence the outsized rate cut.
So that’s what the picture looked like going into Thursday’s export data and unsurprisingly, the numbers definitively show that global trade is in freefall. Here’s Reuters:
India’s exports of goods shrank by nearly a quarter in September from a year ago, falling for a 10th straight month and threatening Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s goal of boosting economic growth through manufacturing.
India’s economy, Asia’s third largest, is mostly driven by domestic demand, but the country has still felt the effects of China’s slowdown. Exports have dropped and consumer and industrial demand for imports has weakened.
Imports fell 25.42 percent in September from a year earlier to $32.32 billion.Exports stood at $21.84 billion, according to data released by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry on Thursday.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Overcapacity “will be even greater than in 2009.”
Overcapacity “will be even greater than in 2009.”
“I would be open to the possibility” of reducing the fed funds rate “even further” and go negative, explained Minneapolis Fed President Narayana Kocherlakota on Thursday. Some folks just don’t get it.
Here are the results of seven years of global QE and zero-interest-rate policies:
Global demand is going from sluggish to even more sluggish. Emerging market countries are leading the way, it is said, and China is sneezing. Brazil and Russia have caught pneumonia. Japan is feeling the hangover from Abenomics. Even if there is some growth in Europe, it’s small. And the US, “cleanest dirty shirt” as it’s now called, is getting bogged down.
And here’s what this is doing to the shipping industry, the thermometer of global economic growth.
On one side: lack of demand.
Due to the “recent slowdown in world trade” shipping consultancy Drewry on Thursday slashed its forecast for container shipping growth, in terms of volume, to 2.2% for 2015 and lowered its estimates for future years. BIMCO, the largest international shipping association representing shipowners, issued its own, even gloomier report also on Thursday:
On the US West Coast, it’s been slow all year, starting with the labor disputes that weren’t resolved until mid-March. Since then, year-on-year growth in the second quarter was almost on par with 2014. But for the first half year alone, inbound loaded volumes dropped by 2% according to BIMCO data.
On the Asia to Europe trades, volumes were down by 4.2% in the first half of the year as 7.4 million TEU (Twenty-foot container Equivalent Units) was transported. Northern European imports fell by 3.6%, while the East Med and Black Sea imports fell by 4.8%.
Intra-Asia shipments remain a stronghold with ongoing positive growth around 4-5%, but the increased uncertainty surrounding the economic development in China adds doubt as to whether such a strong growth rate can be sustained for the full year.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
China Provides Another Threat to Oil Prices
China Provides Another Threat to Oil Prices
First it was a stock market meltdown, now it’s a weakening currency.
China continues to present significant risks to the oil market. On August 11, China decided to devalue its currency in an effort to keep its export-driven economy competitive. The yuan fell 1.9 percent on Tuesday, the second largest single-day decline in over 20 years. The yuan dropped by another 1 percent on Wednesday.
Related: Bullish Bets On Oil Go Sour
The currency move followed shocking data that revealed that China’s exportsplummeted by 8 percent in July. A depreciation of the currency of 3 percent will provide a jolt to Chinese exporters, but will slam companies and countries that export to China.
China insisted that the devaluation was a “one-off” event. “Looking at the international and domestic economic situation, currently there is no basis for a sustained depreciation trend for the yuan,” the People’s Bank of China said in a statement.
Related: When Will Oil Prices Turn Around?
But it also appears to be a move to allow the currency to float more freely according to market principles, something that the IMF has welcomed. “Greater exchange rate flexibility is important for China as it strives to give market-forces a decisive role in the economy and is rapidly integrating into global financial markets,” the IMF said. Although there is still quite a ways to go, the move is also seen as a prerequisite for the yuan to achieve reserve-currency status.
For oil, the move has raised concerns that oil demand will take a hit. China is the world’s largest importer of crude, and a devalued currency will make oil more expensive. On August 11, oil prices dropped to fresh six-year lows, surpassing oil’s low point from earlier this year. But with China’s economy – once the engine of global growth – suddenly looking fragile, it would be difficult to argue with any certainty that oil has hit a bottom.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Will China Play The ‘Gold Card’?
Will China Play The ‘Gold Card’?
(See “Credit deflation and gold”.www.goldmoney.com/research/analysis.)
The thrust of the article is that China, at some point, will have to revalue gold in China; which means, in other words, that China will decide to devalue the Yuan against gold.
Since “mainstream economics” holds that gold is no longer important in world business, such a measure might be regarded as just an idiosyncrasy of Chinese thinking, and not politically significant, as would be a devaluation against the dollar, which is a no-no amongst the Central Bank community of the world.
However, as I understand the measure, it would be indeed world-shaking.
Here’s how I see it:
Currently, the price of an ounce of gold in Shanghai is roughly 6.20 Yuan x $1084 Dollars = 6,721 Yuan.
Now suppose that China decides to revalue gold in China to 9408 Yuan per ounce: a devaluation of the Yuan of 40%, from 6721 to 9408 Yuan.
What would have to happen?
Importers around the world would immediately purchase physical gold at $1,084 Dollars an ounce, and ship it to Shanghai, where they would sell it for 9408 Yuan, where the price was formerly 6,721 Yuan.
The Chinese economy operates in Yuan and prices there would not be affected – at least not immediately – by the devaluation of the Yuan against gold.
Importers of Chinese goods would then be able to purchase 40% more goods for the same amount of Dollars they were paying before the devaluation of the Yuan against gold. What importer of Chinese goods could resist the temptation to purchase goods now so much cheaper? China would then consolidate its position as a great manufacturing power. Its languishing economy would recuperate spectacularly.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
People’s Bank of China Freaks Out, Devalues Yuan by Record Amount, Vows to “Severely Punish” Capital Flight
People’s Bank of China Freaks Out, Devalues Yuan by Record Amount, Vows to “Severely Punish” Capital Flight
Everything has started to go wrong in the Chinese economy despite its mind-bending growth rate of 7%. Exports plunged and imports too. Sales in the world’s largest auto market suddenly are shrinking just when overcapacity is ballooning. The property market is quaking. Electricity consumption, producer prices, and other indicators are deteriorating. Capital is fleeing. The hard landing is getting rougher by the day. But Tuesday morning, the People’s Bank of China pulled the ripcord.
In a big way.
It lowered the yuan’s daily reference rate by a record 1.9%. The yuan plunged instantly, and after a brief bounce, continued to plunge. Now, as I’m writing this, it is trading in Shanghai at 6.322 to the dollar, down 1.8% from before the announcement. A record one-day drop.
The PBOC had kept the yuan stable against the dollar. As the dollar has risen against other major currencies, the yuan followed in lockstep. Over the past week, the Yuan’s closing levels in Shanghai were limited to vacillating between 6.2096 and 6.2097 against the dollar. Over the past month, daily moves were limited to a maximum 0.01%. The PBOC controls its currency with an iron fist.
Hence the shock to the currency war system.
The Nikkei, beneficiary of the most aggressive currency warrior out there, had been up, nearly kissing the magic 21,000 at the open for the first time in a generation, but plunged 200 points in one fell swoop when the news hit. Then the Bank of Japan jumped in with its endless supply of freshly printed yen, furiously buying Japanese ETF to stem the loss. The lunch break put a stop to all this. Then the Nikkei plunged again. Maybe the folks at the BOJ were late getting back to their trading stations. But now they’re back at work, mopping up ETFs.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
China’s Hard Landing Suddenly Gets a Lot Rougher
China’s Hard Landing Suddenly Gets a Lot Rougher
This has become a sign of the times: Foxconn, with 1.3 million employees the world’s largest contract electronics manufacturer, making gadgets for Apple and many others, and with mega-production facilities in China, inked a memorandum of understanding on Saturday under which it would invest $5 billion over the next five years in India!
In part to alleviate the impact of soaring wages in China.
Meanwhile in the city of Dongguan in China, workers at toy manufacturer Ever Force Toys & Electronics were protesting angrily, demanding three months of unpaid wages. The company, which supplied Mattel, had shut down and told workers on August 3 that it was insolvent. The protests ended on Thursday; local officials offered to come up with some of the money owed these 700 folks, and police put down the labor unrest by force.
These manufacturing plant shutdowns and claims of unpaid wages are percolating through the Chinese economy. The Wall Street Journal:
The number of labor protests and strikes tracked on the mainland by China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based watchdog, more than doubled in the April-June quarter from a year earlier, partly fueled by factory closures and wage arrears in the manufacturing sector. The group logged 568 strikes and worker protests in the second quarter, raising this year’s tally to 1,218 incidents as of June, compared with 1,379 incidents recorded for all of last year.
The manufacturing sector is responsible for much of China’s economic growth. It accounted for 31% of GDP, according to the World Bank. And a good part of this production is exported. But that plan has now been obviated by events.
Exports plunged 8.3% in July from a year ago, disappointing once again the soothsayers surveyed by Reuters that had predicted a 1% drop. Exports to Japan plunged 13%, to Europe 12.3%. And exports to the US, which is supposed to pull the world economy out of its mire, fell 1.3%. So far this year, in yuan terms, exports are down 0.9% from the same period last year. As important as manufacturing is to China, this debacle is not exactly conducive to economic growth.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Currency Devaluation: The Crushing Vice of Price
Currency Devaluation: The Crushing Vice of Price
Devaluation has a negative consequence few mention: the cost of imports skyrockets.
When stagnation grabs exporting nations by the throat, the universal solution offered is devalue your currency to boost exports. As a currency loses purchasing power relative to the currencies of trading partners, exported goods and services become cheaper to those buying the products with competing currencies.
For example, a few years ago, before Japanese authorities moved to devalue the yen, the U.S. dollar bought 78 yen. Now it buys 123 yen–an astonishing 57% increase.
Devaluation is a bonanza for exporters’ bottom lines. Back in late 2012, when a Japanese corporation sold a product in the U.S. for $1, the company received 78 yen when the sale was reported in yen.
Now the same sale of $1 reaps 123 yen. Same product, same price in dollars, but a 57% increase in revenues when stated in yen.
No wonder depreciation is widely viewed as the magic panacea for stagnant revenues and profits. There’s just one tiny little problem with devaluation, which we’ll cover in a moment.
One exporter’s depreciation becomes an immediate problem for other exporters: when Japan devalued its currency, the yen, its products became cheaper to those buying Japanese goods with U.S. dollars, Chinese yuan, euros, etc.
That negatively impacts other exporters selling into the same markets–for example, South Korea.
To remain competitive, South Korea would have to devalue its currency, the won. This is known as competitive devaluation, a.k.a. currency war. As a result of currency wars, the advantages of devaluation are often temporary.
But as correspondent Mark G. recently observed, devaluation has a negative consequence few mention: the cost of imports skyrockets. When imports are essential, such as energy and food, the benefits of devaluation (boosting exports) may well be considerably less than the pain caused by rising import costs.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
China Could Face “Sharp” Rise In Capital Outflows If Stocks, Economy Lose Momentum
China Could Face “Sharp” Rise In Capital Outflows If Stocks, Economy Lose Momentum
We’ve written quite a bit over the past two months about capital outflows from China. Last week for instance, we documented how the country saw its fourth consecutive quarter of outflows in Q1, bringing the 12 month running total to some $300 billion. Why, beyond the obvious, is this a problem for China? Because pressure is mounting to devalue the yuan as the currency’s peg to the recently strong dollar is becoming costly for the country’s export-driven economy.
Here’s Soc Gen’s Albert Edwards on the subject:
In the current deflationary environment the Chinese authorities simply can no longer tolerate the continued appreciation of their real exchange rate caused by the dollar link.
And from Barclays:
Amid slowing inflation and rising outflows, the costs of limiting CNY weakness are growing – including the unintended effect of placing more stress on CNY market liquidity and interest rates, rendering liquidity easing efforts less effective.
And here is how we summed up the situation last month:
China is suddenly finding itself in an unprecedented position: it is losing the global currency war, and in a “zero-sum trade” world, in which global commerce and trade is slowly (at first) declining, and in which everyone is desperate to preserve or grow their piece of the pie through currency devaluation, China has almost no options.
At issue is the fact that expectations about the direction of the yuan may be contributing to capital outflows and any indication on the part of Beijing that devaluation is in the cards could exacerbate the problem. Now, data from SAFE suggests nearly $24 billion left China in March alone. Here’s more, via Bloomberg:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Monetary Illusion Again in Trade
The Monetary Illusion Again in Trade
Just as a follow-up to further highlight and emphasize the “monetary illusion” of currency devaluation in this closed environment, the yen’s returned devaluation against the “dollar” more recently has renewed confusion (or intentional misdirection) about what Abenomics is supposedly accomplishing. Taken solely from the perspective of the Japanese internally, exports to the US are once more growing, and doing so rather sharply. December’s year-over-year gain, in yen, was almost 24% while January came in at an equally robust 16.5%.
Taken by themselves without context, it would seem great fortune and monetary capability to gain in exports at such huge growth rates. But, as I have shown time and again, what goes out of Japan is matched by what comes in to the US. For all that buzz over huge export growth, nothing much shows up on this end.
Both months were positive in “dollars” but barely and thus no actual growth took place. Economists and central bankers even concede the disparity, but don’t much care about it. They simply assume that Japanese exporters now flush with more yen will hire more workers and pay the ones they have even more, igniting that virtuous circle of “aggregate demand.” In reality, why would they do that?
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
UK trade deficit narrows after oil price falls
UK trade deficit narrows after oil price falls
The falling price of oil helped to narrow the UK’s trade gap with the rest of the world in November to its lowest since June 2013, official figures show.
The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said the UK’s deficit in goods and services was £1.4bn in November, compared with £2.2bn in October.
But it said this reflected a fall in the value of imports rather than an increase in export activity.
Imports fell £1.1bn in the month, which included a £0.7bn fall in oil imports.
The price of Brent crude oil has fallen by more than 50% since August. The drop has been blamed on oversupply, in part as a result of increased domestic oil production in the US, and slowing demand, particularly in China.
The UK’s £8.8bn deficit in goods was partly offset by its £7.4bn surplus in the supply of services.
The trade gap represents the difference between the value of goods and services we export around the world against the value of those we import.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
