Home » Posts tagged 'liquidity' (Page 2)
Tag Archives: liquidity
Brace for impact
Brace for impact
What a week we just had in the precious metals market.
From a huge drop last Friday–which in the past would have presaged further declines the following week–to a significant rebound in the gold price, coupled this time with a major drop in the US dollar–which I will argue may be the signal for a switch to inflationary conditions.
First the chart
We see the nice deflationary trend of the past 18 months looks to have been decisively broken by last week’s action. Although it will be a few weeks before we can be absolutely sure, last week suggests that we are about to embark on another bout of inflation, no doubt as carefully calibrated by the Masters of the Universe as they can fill a shot-glass of whiskey from a pool of liquidity the size of a football field. Either, like a small child pouring verycarefully, they have poured only too much, or they have sloshed out enough whiskey to fill a large swimming pool, and we are about to see what happens when it all lands in a shot glass.
Now, why the need for some liquidity?
Another chart:
This graph plots the gold-copper ratio against its rate of change. I typically interpret this ratio as an indicator of the real world preference between bricks and mortar and financials. When the ratio is low, it’s a sign that people would rather make refrigerators than chase derivatives. Rate of change is the vertical axis. Near the top of the chart means that the plot is shifting towards the right at high speed. Currently, the system is moving toward the right (ratio is increasing) at the fastest rate in the last couple of years. To me, this means the real economy is degrading very quickly.
Thus the Fed may feel pressured to pump out some liquidity.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Funding Freeze Getting Worse: Dealers Demand Record $216BN In Liquidity From Fed Repo
Funding Freeze Getting Worse: Dealers Demand Record $216BN In Liquidity From Fed Repo
Yesterday, when showing the sudden spike in the FRA/OIS spread – a key gauge of banking-sector risk which measures dollar shortages – we warned that liquidity in the market is virtually nil quoting a host of traders who confirmed that it was next to impossible to trade without disruptions, while more ominously, the interbank plumbing appeared to be getting clogged up agian.
Moments ago we got confirmation when the Fed reported that one day after it expanded its repo operations, there was a record demand for Fed liquidity in both the term and repo operations.
With the term repo expanded from $20BN to $45BN and the overnight repo ceiling also raised from $100 to $150BN, moments ago the Fed announced that it had received the most liquidity demand on record, as Dealers indicated some $93BN in term repo submissions (which thanks to the expanded facility size meant that the oversubscription dropped from a record 3.6x to 2.1x)…
… alongside a fully allotted $123.625BN in overnight repo (out of $150BN eligible)…
… for a total of $216BN in indicated liquidity. Of this, $168BN in liquidity was released between the overnight and fully-alloted $45BN term repo facility.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
China Bans Selling, Plans Massive Liquidity Injection To Prevent Market Crash
China Bans Selling, Plans Massive Liquidity Injection To Prevent Market Crash
Judging by the collapse in Chinese futures and the Offshore Yuan over the past week, China’s key cash equity index – The Shanghai Composite – is set to plunge around 6-8% as the market re-opens for the first time since Lunar New Year (and the coronavorus chaos).
China stock futures have tumbled…
And Offshore Yuan is fighting at the 7.00/USD level…
Which of course will not do for the nation has to maintain the appearance of a minor flesh-wound than a catastrophic coronary. And so, as Bloomberg reports, China unveiled a raft of measures over the weekend to aid companies hit by the coronavirus outbreak and also shore up financial markets.
Quarantative easing?
The People’s Bank of China announced that the total injection announced was 1.2 trillion yuan, the largest single-day addition of its kind in data going back to 2004.
The money will be supplied using reverse repurchase agreements to ensure liquidity is “reasonably ample” during the outbreak, according to the PBOC.
The new measures follow the announcement last week that China’s biggest banks will lower interest rates for firms in Hubei, the center of the outbreak.
However, as Tommy Xie, an economist at Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp notes, the net effect of this admittedly huge liquidity injection is much lower as there are more than 1 trillion yuan of short-term funds scheduled to mature on Monday.
“The amount of the net injection isn’t huge. The PBOC may want to retain some flexibility, which means it can add more liquidity in the rest of the week if the sentiment is too bad.”
Finally, we wonder if even this additional liquidity injection will be big enough as judging by Dr.Copper, the Chinese economy is about to be hit by the biggest shock in recent history…
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Bank of England’s Governor Fears a Liquidity Trap
The Bank of England’s Governor Fears a Liquidity Trap
The global economy is heading towards a “liquidity trap” that could undermine central banks’ efforts to avoid a future recession according to Mark Carney, governor of the Bank of England. In a wide-ranging interview with the Financial Times (January 8, 2020), the outgoing governor warned that central banks were running out of ammunition to combat a downturn:
If there were to be a deeper downturn, more than a conventional recession, then it’s not clear that monetary policy would have sufficient space.
He is of the view that aggressive monetary and fiscal policies will be required to lift the aggregate demand.
What Is a Liquidity Trap?
In the popular framework that originates from the writings of John Maynard Keynes, economic activity is presented in terms of a circular flow of money. Spending by one individual becomes part of the earnings of another individual, and spending by another individual becomes part of the first individual’s earnings.
Recessions, according to Keynes, are a response to the fact that consumers — for some psychological reasons — have decided to cut down on their expenditure and raise their savings.
For instance, if for some reason people become less confident about the future, they will cut back their outlays and hoard more money. When an individual spends less, this will supposedly worsen the situation of some other individual, who in turn will cut their spending. A vicious cycle sets in. The decline in people’s confidence causes them to spend less and to hoard more money. This lowers economic activity further, causing people to hoard even more, etc.
Following this logic, in order to prevent a recession from getting out of hand, the central bank must lift the growth rate of the money supply and aggressively lower interest rates. Once consumers have more money in their pockets, their confidence will increase, and they will start spending again, reestablishing the circular flow of money, so it is held.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Understanding The Keys To Power
Understanding The Keys To Power
Will be a survival requirement for the coming decade
The past decade was undoubtedly shaped by the policy adopted by the global central banking cartel to flood the world with massive amounts of liquidity (over $15 trillion) to “rescue” markets following the Great Financial Crisis.
It’s becoming increasingly clear who benefitted most from this: the ultra-rich
As $trillions flowed into financial assets pushing them higher every year throughout the twenty-teens, those who owned those assets — disproportionately the very rich — saw their wealth soar.
We’re now at the point where the richest 1% owns nearly half of the world’s assets, while the bottom 60% have (often much) less than $10,000 to their name:
How has the distribution of wealth become this distorted?
The harsh simple truth is that those who run the system manipulate it to their benefit.
This is true in both government and industry. Those in power do ‘whatever it takes’ to remain in power and enjoy the fruits of their advantage. Any sort of social ‘duty’ is secondary (at best), and will be sacrificed if necessary.
Perhaps one of the best analyses and explanations of this is put forth by the book The Dictator’s Handbook, by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith. For politicians and CEOs alike, maintaining control of the “keys to power” — those who support and enable your rule — is essential.
This is why we’ve ended up with the bastardized crony form of capitalism now in place. Those running the system work hard to reward/punish anyone who aids/threatens their power base.
Like it or not, this is the world in which we live. And it’s critical to understand its nature if we want to avoid becoming unwitting serfs to it.
The most important tenets to be aware of are laid out very effectively in this short video called The Rules For Rulers, created under the supervision of Bueno de Mesquita and Smith:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Global Financial System Is A Big Rube Goldberg Machine
Global Financial System Is A Big Rube Goldberg Machine
While pondering the current economy that is becoming more of a conundrum every day, I stumbled upon an analogy I would like to share. The global economy is like a giant “Rube Goldberg” machine. It is a ridiculously complicated contraption built to perform what should normally be a simple task. Rube Goldberg machines often mimic the real world in that they are goal-oriented with many parts coming together to complete a task.
In the real world, things are usually not intentionally designed to be complicated but the reality is that they just are. It is an understatement to say the global financial system is not a well-oiled machine. More often than we would like to admit various systems and parts are thrown or “cobbled together” in a haphazard way to get the job done. We tend to try and explain events in terms of cause and effect but in doing so the bigger picture has a way of getting lost. Often hidden away is the nature of the risk that results from complexity and systems becoming codependent upon others. Bestselling author Nassim Taleb who wrote, “The Black Swan” detailed in his book how when something is highly complicated highly improbable and unpredictable events can and do occur.
Some of this is playing out right now and can be seen in the Fed’s key reversal in policy. In an effort to avoid a crisis the Fed has been forced to deal with a liquidity issue in repo rates since a sudden and dramatic surge began in September. While it is difficult to see the difference between QE and an injection aimed at maintaining liquidity, in this case, several reasons exist to believe this is not QE but something far more disturbing.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Prelude to Crisis
Prelude to Crisis
Simple Conceit
Radical Actions
Ballooning Balance Sheet
Merry Christmas and the Happiest New Year
Ignoring problems rarely solves them. You need to deal with them—not just the effects, but the underlying causes, or else they usually get worse. The older you get, the more you know that is true in almost every area of life.
In the developed world and especially the US, and even in China, our economic challenges are rapidly approaching that point. Things that would have been easily fixed a decade ago, or even five years ago, will soon be unsolvable by conventional means.
There is almost no willingness to face our top problems, specifically our rising debt. The economic challenges we face can’t continue, which is why I expect the Great Reset, a kind of worldwide do-over. It’s not the best choice but we are slowly ruling out all others.
Last week I talked about the political side of this. Our embrace of either crony capitalism or welfare statism is going to end very badly. Ideological positions have hardened to the point that compromise seems impossible.
Central bankers are politicians, in a sense, and in some ways far more powerful and dangerous than the elected ones. Some recent events provide a glimpse of where they’re taking us.
Hint: It’s nowhere good. And when you combine it with the fiscal shenanigans, it’s far worse.
Simple Conceit
Central banks weren’t always as responsibly irresponsible, as my friend Paul McCulley would say, as they are today. Walter Bagehot, one of the early editors of The Economist, wrote what came to be called Bagehot’s Dictum for central banks: As the lender of last resort, during a financial or liquidity crisis, the central bank should lend freely, at a high interest rate, on good securities.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Guggenheim’s Minerd Warns Of A Nearing ‘Minsky Moment’ That Could “Reset” Asset Prices
Guggenheim’s Minerd Warns Of A Nearing ‘Minsky Moment’ That Could “Reset” Asset Prices
Guggenheim Partners’ Scott Minerd warned in a new market outlook titled “From the Desk of the Global CIO: Risk and Reward of Successful ‘Mid-Cycle’ Rate Cuts” that recent 75bps rate cuts by the Jerome Powell–run Federal Reserve had created a similar environment today to 1998 when central banks created a “liquidity-driven rally that caused the Nasdaq index to double within a year before the bubble finally burst.”
The 1998-scenario has already been playing out through 2019, as shown in the chart below, with global central banks plowing liquidity into financial markets.
Minerd suggests that a Minsky moment could be nearing as a period of financial distortions will eventually be unwound in a very violent fashion.
Minerd wasn’t entirely clear how long the Fed’s bubble-blowing could last but said today’s environment will eventually “lead to a significant widening of credits.”
Minerd said he’d already taken pre-emptive action to “preserve capital” for the inevitable correction in risk assets: “Thus, while the Fed has prolonged the expansion, the reality is that it is also the start of silly season in risk assets. By heeding the lessons of the past we continue to position defensively so that we can preserve capital and be prepared to take advantage of opportunities when asset prices inevitably reset.”
He said cracks have already started to surface in the corporate debt markets. In particular, the spread between the high-yield debt and government debt, indicate tighter spreads have pushed investors extremely far out on the risk curve at a time where they need to be more defensive.
He said the best strategy to navigate markets today is “capital preservation in a market where the risk/reward trade-off looks unattractive in many credit sectors.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Rabobank: “We’re Toast”
Rabobank: “We’re Toast”
I have made this reference before, but looking at euphoric markets I am again reminded of comedian Caroline Aherne as fake TV chat-show host Mrs Merton asking glamorous blonde Debbie McGee of her very short, plain, hair-piece wearing husband: “So what attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?”
Indeed, “So what attracted you to central-bank-liquidity-driven markets?” Because where would very short, plain, wig-wearing assets be without the Fed throwing in hundreds of billions in repo operations and NOT-QE, and China going down the same old unsustainable debt path to juice GDP for 2-3 quarters? Feeling pretty unloved, one would guess – and probably very shorted. Yet having studiously failed to learn that this extra-liquidity doesn’t drive sustainable recoveries, or prevent socio-economic unrest–in fact it drives it–we are set for a whole lot more from central banks, no doubt.
Of course, the phase one trade deal, which virtually nobody sees as realistic or sustainable, also continues to drive market sentiment. Yet CNY is still only around the 7 level, underlining what I have said about the risk/reward being mostly to the downside from here. Presumably, however, when the trade deal does break down, which could be even sooner than many expect, more central-bank liquidity will be required. So let’s celebrate that in advance too, why not?
The afterglow of the UK election also seems to be encouraging markets. And on that front we see that fiscal stimulus is going to pick up, the right kind of liquidity for once, and in the north and midlands for once too, which is set to become BoJo’s mojo dojo as he hopes to release animal spirits in left-behind locations. However, Johnson is also going to amend the UK Brexit legislation such that December 2020 is a hard exit date with no extension of the looming post-Brexit transition period possible.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Fed’s Third “Year-End” Repo Oversubscribed Again Amid Liquiduity Scramble As Dec 16 Tax Day Looms
Fed’s Third “Year-End” Repo Oversubscribed Again Amid Liquiduity Scramble As Dec 16 Tax Day Looms
One week after the Fed’s second 42-day term repo which allowed dealers to lock in funding into the new year and which was again oversubscribed, confirming a growing scramble for year-end funding, traders were looking ahead to the result from today’s third “year-end” repo, this time with a 28-day term maturing on January 6. And, as we noted last week, year-end liquidity fears remain front and center as the $25 billion – which the Fed expanded from $15 billion late last week – proved to again be roughly 40% below the required size to satisfy all liquidity demands.
Dealers submitted $43 BN in bids for the 28-day op ($29.80 BN in Treasurys, $0.1BN in Agency, $13.1BN in MBS paper), resulting in an oversubscription of the $25BN in available repo, and confirming that the Fed may have to add additional “year-end” repos to satisfy all dealer liquidity demand as we enter 2020.
This was modestly above the $42.550 billion submitted last week in the second 42-day repo operation conducted on December 2:
At the same time, the Fed also announced that in the latest overnight repo, it had accepted $56.4 billion in securities, a modest drop from the recent range and the lowest roll amount since the Fed expanded the available size of overnight repos to $100 billion. A big reason for this is likely that $25 billion was shifted over from overnight to 28-day term repos.
The biggest concern: the repo rate over year end remains stubbornly stuck well above 3%, more than double the Fed Fund rate, and clear evidence that the US interbank plumbing remains broken.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Intervention
Intervention
The Fed has gone into full intervention mode. Not only into full intervention mode, but accelerated intervention mode. Not just a little “mid cycle adjustment” but full bore daily interventions to the tune of dozens of billions of dollars every single day. What’s the crisis? After all we live in the age of trillion dollar market cap companies, unemployment at 50 year lows and yet the Fed is acting like the doomsday clock has melted as a result of a nuclear attack.
Think I’m in hyperbole mode here? Far from it.
Unless you think the biggest repo efforts ever by far surpassing the 2008 financial crisis actions are hyperbole:
What is the Fed not telling us?
I’m asking for a friend.
What indeed is the Fed not telling us?
Something’s off here. See it all started as a temporary fix in September when suddenly the overnight target rate jumped sky high and the Fed had to intervene to keep the wheels from coming off. Short term liquidity issues they said. Well those look to have become rather permanent:
And these liquidity injections are absolutely massive. Just yesterday the Fed injected $99.9 billion in temporary liquidity into the financial system and $7.5 billion in permanent reserves as part of its $60 billion per month in treasury bills buying program. The $99.9 billion coming from $64.90 billion in overnight repurchase agreements and $35 billion in repo operations.
All this action is surprising frankly. What stable financial system requires nearly $100B in overnight liquidity injections. The Fed did not see the need for these actions coming. They are reacting to a market that suddenly requires it. Funding issues Jay Powell called it in October. The Fed was totally caught off guard when the overnight financing rate suddenly jumped to over 5% and they’ve been reacting ever since which pretty much describes the Fed in all of 2019.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Fed’s Fourth Bill POMO Is Most Oversubscribed Yet Amid Liquidity Scramble
Fed’s Fourth Bill POMO Is Most Oversubscribed Yet Amid Liquidity Scramble
One day after the Fed unexpectedly saw a surge in demand for its term-repo operation, which was oversubscribed for the first time since the mid-September repo crisis erupted, the liquidity shortage in the funding market appears to be getting worse by the day, and in today’s just concluded 4th consecutive T-Bill POMO, which saw the Fed monetize another batch of Bills, Dealers submitted $44.2BN in bids for the maximum $7.5BN in Fed “Reserve Management” (note: not QE) purchases.
This means that today’s operation was 5.9x oversubscribed, the most of any operation since the launch of “Not QE4”, and clearly an increase from the first three POMOs, when operations were 4.3x, 4.8x and 5.5x oversubscribed.
The results confirm that demand for the Fed’s permanent liquidity injection is increasing with every operation – suggesting that not only was the September repo turmoil not a one-time liquidity event, but that that liquidity shortage is getting worse – even as usage of the Fed’s latest overnight repo saw a modest decline.
As such the question we have been asking for the past month – and one which Elizabeth Warren should also consider asking of Steven Mnuchin – remains: why are banks still so desperate for liquidity even though the Fed has now made clear that its balance sheet will expand to accommodate all reserve needs, and why do they so stubbornly refuse to approach the interbank market for their funding needs? In short, what do they know about the banking system that we don’t?
Dollar Liquidity Turmoil Returns With First Oversubscribed Term Repo In A Month, $99.9 Billion Liquidity Injection
Dollar Liquidity Turmoil Returns With First Oversubscribed Term Repo In A Month, $99.9 Billion Liquidity Injection
This was not supposed to happen.
After the Fed rolled out the big artillery in response to the sharp, sudden mid-September funding squeeze (which we now know had virtually nothing to do with last month’s tax payments or other one-time events such as the Treasury’s cash rebuild), including the return of both overnight and term repo operations, and culminated with the Fed’s relaunching of QE which would be used to permanently increase the balance sheet with $60BN in T-Bills every month in order to replenish reserves (because we live in a bizarro world where $1.4 trillion in bank cash is not enough for the smooth functioning of bank plumbing), moments ago we got the latest indication that the dollar funding shortage is again getting worse – despite the market having priced in the Fed’s rollout of the “kitchen sink” to ease funding conditions – when the Fed announced that it had its first oversubscribed Term Repo operation since the funding crisis erupted in September.
Specifically, while the Fed’s 2-week term repo operation was capped at $35 billion as has been the case for the past week, dealers submitted $52.2BN worth of securities ($39.9BN in TSYs, $12.3BN in MBS)…
… making today’s term operation 1.5x oversubscribed, which was the first overallotted operation since the second term repo at the start of the funding crisis on Sept 26.
Needless to say, if the funding shortage was getting better, this operation would not be oversubscribed. The only possible explanation, is someone really needed to lock in cash for Halloween (the maturity of the op is on Nov 5) which is when a “No Deal” Brexit may go live, and as a result one or more banks are bracing for the worst.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Repo Market Incident May Be The Tip Of The Iceberg
The Federal Reserve has injected $278 billion into the securities repurchase market for the first time. Numerous justifications have been provided to explain why this has happened and, more importantly, why it lasted for various days. The first explanation was quite simplistic: an unexpected tax payment. This made no sense. If there is ample liquidity and investors are happy to take financing positions at negative rates all over the world, the abrupt rise in repo rates would simply vanish in a few hours.
Let us start with definitions. The repo market is where borrowers seeking cash offer lenders collateral in the form of safe securities. Repo rates are the interest rate paid to borrow cash in exchange for Treasuries for 24 hours.
Sudden bursts in the repo lending market are not unusual. What is unusual is that it takes days to normalize and even more unusual to see that the Federal Reserve needs to inject hundreds of billions in a few days to offset the unstoppable rise in short-term rates.
Because liquidity is ample, thirst for yield is enormous and financial players are financially more solvent than years ago, right? Wrong.
What the Repo Market Crisis shows us is that liquidity is substantially lower than what the Federal Reserve believes, that fear of contagion and rising risk are evident in the weakest link of the financial repression machine (the overnight market) and, more importantly, that liquidity providers probably have significantly more leverage than many expected.
In summary, the ongoing -and likely to return- burst in the repo market is telling us that risk and debt accumulation are much higher than estimated. Central banks believed they could create a Tsunami of liquidity and manage the waves.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
