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Interest Rates, Global Value Chains and Bank Reserve Requirements

Global Value Chains have suffered since 2009
Despite low interest rates, financial costs remain too high
Bank profitability has not recovered, yet banks are still too big to fail

In a recent speech, Hyun Song Shin, Head of Research at the BIS, discussed – What is behind the recent slowdown? The speech focused on the weakening of global value chains (GVC’s) in manufactured goods. The manufacturing sector is critical, since it accounts for 70% of global merchandise trade: –

During the heyday of globalisation in the late 1980s and 1990s, trade grew at twice the pace of GDP. In turn, trade growth in manufactured goods was driven by the growing importance of multinational firms and the development of GVCs that knit together the production activity of firms around the world.

The chart below reveals the transformation of the world economy over the past 17 years: –

Source: BIS, X Li, B Meng and Z Wang, “Recent patterns of global production and GVC participation”, in D Dollar (ed), Global Value Chain Development Report 2019, World Trade Organization et al.

Hyun’s next chart tracks the sharp reversal in the relationship between world trade and GDP growth as a result of the Great Financial Crisis (GFC): –

Sources: IMF, World Economic Outlook; World Trade Organization; Datastream; national data; BIS calculations

The important point, highlighted by Hyun, is that the retrenchment in trade occurred almost a decade before the trade war began. China, growing at 6% plus, has captured an increasing share of global trade at the expense of the developed nations, most notably the US. Europe went through a similar transition during the second half of the 19^th century, as the US transformed from an agrarian to an industrial society.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Warnings of an Under Resourced IMF Point to Imminent Economic Downturn

April 14, 2019

Warnings of an Under Resourced IMF Point to Imminent Economic Downturn

This week the International Monetary Fund host their annual Spring Meetings in Washington DC amidst rising uncertainty over the future relationship between Britain and the EU. Ahead of the gathering, general manager of the Bank for International Settlements, Agustin Carstens, has spoken of the IMF having ‘inadequate resources‘ to respond to a major new economic decline:

This leaves us with the problem of having to improvise in times of crisis. If the Fund cannot do it others will have to do it otherwise the economic costs will be huge.

Carstens was speaking in reference to the IMF’s quota subscriptions. As the institution explains on its website, quotas are the main source of funding for the IMF. Every member of the IMF (currently 189) is assigned a quota, with the largest economies contributing the most.

Up to 25% of a country’s subscription has to be paid in Special Drawing Rights or ‘foreign currencies acceptable to the IMF.’ SDR’s are the IMF’s unit of account, and are made up of the world’s five most prominent currencies – the dollar, the euro, the renminbi, the yen and the pound. The remaining 75% of a nation’s quota must be paid in their own currency.

With the United States being the largest member of the IMF, their quota is the most substantial. As of March 2017, their share was $118 billion. In SDR’s this equates to a value of 82.99 billion. The IMF values SDR’s in dollars – the latest reading shows that the U.S. dollar equivalent of $1 in SDR’s is 72 cents.

According to the IMF, in September 181 members had made all their quota payments, with total quotas standing at $675 billion (475 billion when measured in SDR’s).

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Basel 3: A Revolution That Once Again No One Noticed

April 10, 2019

Basel 3: A Revolution That Once Again No One Noticed

By Aleksandr Khaldey
Translated by Ollie Richardson and Angelina Siard
cross posted with https://www.stalkerzone.org/basel-3-a-revolution-that-once-again-no-one-noticed/
source: http://www.iarex.ru/articles/65626.html

Real revolutions are taking place not on squares, but in the quiet of offices, and that’s why nobody noticed the world revolution that took place on March 29th 2019. Only a small wave passed across the periphery of the information field, and the momentum faded away because the situation was described in terms unclear to the masses.

No “Freedom, equality, brotherhood”, “Motherland or death”, or “Power to Councils, peace to the people, bread to the hungry, factories to the worker, and land to the farmers” – none of these masterpieces of world populism were used. And that’s why what happened was understood in Russia by only a few people. And they made such comments that the masses either did not fully listen to them or did not read up to the end. Or they did listen to the end, but didn’t understand anything.

But they should’ve, because the world changed so cardinally that it is indeed time for Nathan Rothschild, having crumpled a hat in his hand, to climb onto an armoured Rolls-Royce [a joke referencing what Lenin did – ed], and to shout from on top of it to all the Universe: “Comrades! The world revolution, the need for which revolutionaries spoke about for a long time, came true!” [paraphrasing what Lenin said – ed] And he would be completely right. It’s just that the results of the revolution will be implemented slowly, and that’s why they are imperceptible for the population. But the effects, nevertheless, will be soon seen by absolutely everyone, up to the last cook who even doesn’t seek to learn to govern the state soon.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BIS General Manager Outlines Vision for Central Bank Digital Currencies

April 5, 2019

BIS General Manager Outlines Vision for Central Bank Digital Currencies

The behaviour of central bankers is rarely (if ever) given sustained coverage in the national press. Outside of prominent economic channels, developments from within institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the Bank for International Settlements are seldom remarked upon. Instead, attention is restricted to the latest round of political theatrics which serve to disguise the actions and intentions of globalist planners.

As the furore of Brexit gained in intensity last month, BIS General Manager Agustin Carstens gave a speech at the Central Bank of Ireland 2019 Whitaker Lecture. Under the heading, ‘The future of money and payments‘, Carstens mapped out what has been a long standing vision of globalists – namely, to acquire full spectrum control of the international financial system through the gradual abolition of what Bank of England governor Mark Carney has called ‘tangible assets‘ i.e. physical money.

The ‘future of money‘ narrative is one that both the BIS and the IMF have been actively promoting since the advent of Brexit and Donald Trump’s presidency. Here are some links to speeches made by both Christine Lagarde and Agustin Carstens:

Central Banking and Fintech—A Brave New World?
Winds of Change: The Case for New Digital Currency
Money and payment systems in the digital age
Money in the digital age: what role for central banks?

Central to the vision for a fully digitised global economy is the intent to reform national payment systems. The UK uses the Real-time gross settlement (RTGS) system, which the majority of payments in Britain are facilitated through. The Bank of England’s Victoria Cleland has emphasised on numerous occasions that the ‘fundamental renewal‘ of the system is being carried out through choice rather than necessity. This would indicate that RTGS works fine in its current manifestation, but the BOE (along with the European Central Bank) have been tasked with assuming more control over their respective payment systems.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Capital Flows–Is a Reckoning Nigh?

March 18, 2019

CAPITAL FLOWS – IS A RECKONING NIGH?

Borrowing in Euros continues to rise even as the rate of US borrowing slows
The BIS has identified an Expansionary Lower Bound for interest rates
Developed economies might not be immune to the ELB
Demographic deflation will thwart growth for decades to come

In Macro Letter – No 108 – 18-01-2019 – A world of debt – where are the risks? I looked at the increase in debt globally, however, there has been another trend, since 2009, which is worth investigating as we consider from whence the greatest risk to global growth may hail. The BIS global liquidity indicators at end-September 2018 – released at the end of January, provides an insight: –

The annual growth rate of US dollar credit to non-bank borrowers outside the United States slowed down to 3%, compared with its most recent peak of 7% at end-2017. The outstanding stock stood at $11.5 trillion.
In contrast, euro-denominated credit to non-bank borrowers outside the euro area rose by 9% year on year, taking the outstanding stock to €3.2 trillion (equivalent to $3.7 trillion). Euro-denominated credit to non-bank borrowers located in emerging market and developing economies (EMDEs) grew even more strongly, up by 13%.

The chart below shows the slowing rate of US$ credit growth, while euro credit accelerates: –

Source: BIS global liquidity indicators

The rising demand for Euro denominated borrowing has been in train since the end of the Great Financial Recession in 2009. Lower interest rates in the Eurozone have been a part of this process; a tendency for the Japanese Yen to rise in times of economic and geopolitical concern has no doubt helped European lenders to gain market share. This trend, however, remains over-shadowed by the sheer size of the US credit markets. The US$ has remained preeminent due to structurally higher interest rates and bond yields than Europe or Japan: investors, rather than borrowers, dictate capital flows.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

BIS Warns Of Market Crash Risk, Looming Firesales Once BBB Downgrade Avalanche Begins

March 5, 2019

BIS Warns Of Market Crash Risk, Looming Firesales Once BBB Downgrade Avalanche Begins

Over the past year, one of the key concerns to emerge in the $6.4 trillion investment grade corporate bond market is when and how will BBB-rated bonds, which now comprise 60% of all outstanding IG names in the US, be downgraded and whether a new financial crisis will follow

We addressed this issue most recently in “The $6.4 Trillion Question: How Many BBB Bonds Are About To Be Downgraded” while the broader question of the “next bond crisis” was address in “Over $1 Trillion In Bonds Risk Cut To Junk Once Cycle Turns.” It wasn’t just us, however, with financial luminaries, regulators and investors such as the Fed, the BOE, the IMF, Oaktree’s Howard Marks, Doubleline’s Jeff Gundlach, JPMorgan, and Guggenheim all warning that the “fallen angel” threat is arguably the most serious challenge facing the US corporate bond market during the next recession.

And now, it’s the turn of the central banks’ central bank, the Bank of International Settlements, to join the bandwagon, warning that the surging supply of corporate debt in the riskiest, BBB investment-grade category has left markets vulnerable to a crash once economic weakness triggers a bout of rating downgrades, and sends over $1 trillion in IG bonds, or fallen angels, right into junk bond purgatory.

Highlighting numbers which have been discussed previously, the BIS notes that in 2018, BBB-rated bonds accounted for about 45% of U.S. and European mutual fund portfolios, up from only 20% in 2010, according to the BIS, and cautions that due to rating trigger limitations, many investors may have to sell those bonds if they fall out of the investment-grade scale.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Central Bank Balance Sheet Reductions–Will Anyone Follow the Fed?

February 24, 2019

CENTRAL BANK BALANCE SHEET REDUCTIONS – WILL ANYONE FOLLOW THE FED?

The next wave of QE will be different, credit spreads will be controlled
The Federal Reserve may continue to tighten but few other CB’s can follow
ECB balance sheet reduction might occur if a crisis does not arrive first
Interest rates are likely to remain structurally lower than before 2008

The Federal Reserve’s response to the great financial recession of 2008/2009 was swift by comparison with that of the ECB; the BoJ was reticent, too, due to its already extended balance sheet. Now that the other developed economy central banks have fallen into line, the question which dominates markets is, will other central banks have room to reverse QE?

Last month saw the publication of a working paper from the BIS – Risk endogeneity at the lender/investor-of-last-resort – in which the authors investigate the effect of ECB liquidity provision, during the Euro crisis of 2010/2012. They also speculate about the challenge balance sheet reduction poses to systemic risk. Here is an extract from the non-technical summary (the emphasis is mine): –

The Eurosystem’s actions as a large-scale lender- and investor-of-last-resort during the euro area sovereign debt crisis had a ﬁrst-order impact on the size, composition, and, ultimately, the credit riskiness of its balance sheet. At the time, its policies raised concerns about the central bank taking excessive risks. Particular concern emerged about the materialization of credit risk and its eﬀect on the central bank’s reputation, credibility, independence, and ultimately its ability to steer inﬂation towards its target of close to but below 2% over the medium term.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Debt Reset Begins, Global Banks Issue Dire Warnings, Trump Wall Showdown

January 11, 2019

Debt Reset Begins, Global Banks Issue Dire Warnings, Trump Wall Showdown

According to renowned gold investor Jim Sinclair, the global debt reset that has been long predicted has begun. Lots of debt that will never be repaid will be written down around the world. Sinclair says gold and silver will be the last men standing when the dust settles.

The BIS, World Bank and the IMF have all issued dire warnings in the past few weeks of financial “storm clouds.” In other words, the biggest bankers in the world are warning of another financial meltdown coming in the not-so-distant future.

Nance Pelosi and Chuck Schumer are being beaten up so badly over the government shutdown and security funding for a wall on the southern border that even singer Cher is telling the Speaker of the House and the minority leader in the Senate to “Be the Hero” and cave in and put 800,000 government workers back to work. The U.S. has a $4 trillion budget (that’s $4,000 billion) and Nancy and Chuck are holding up the government for little more than $5 billion in funding for security that includes a wall. Even Democrat James Carville is making fun of Chuck and Nancy’s response to Trump’s network appeal for a border wall and security on the southern border.

Join Greg Hunter as he gives his take on the top stories of the past week in the Weekly News Wrap-Up.

After the Wrap-Up:

Catherine Austin Fitts founder of Solari.com will be the guest for the Early Sunday Release. She will give us an update on the serious matter of $21 trillion in “missing money” at DOD and HUD and why it will soon affect every American.

Uh Oh; In A Month Of Big Warnings, The Biggest Yet

December 31, 2018

Uh Oh; In A Month Of Big Warnings, The Biggest Yet

All better now. It’s a Christmas miracle, the plunge erased by market closure as if FDR had just been re-elected and taken the oath. The Dow is on everyone’s mind, so trading on December 26 has understandably stuck.

Stocks posted their best day in nearly a decade on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average notching its largest one-day point gain in history. Rallies in retail and energy shares led the gains, as Wall Street recovered the steep losses suffered in the previous session.

The sigh of relief is palpable all across the world. The BIS called the steep, worrisome liquidations up to now Yet More Bumps On The Path To Normal, and the rallies especially in stocks and oil have served to confirm the thesis. Just some minor, dare I say transitory discomfort on the road to paradise.

Is it though?

We have been watching eurodollar futures, well, forever but with even greater purpose and intent since mid-June. There is little the eurodollar curve won’t spill information about, and its inversion around then was a huge warning that whatever shook the global money network on May 29 was indeed nothing to just ignore.

Money curves are supposed to be upward sloping reflecting the risks of a healthy environment, including economic opportunity. For it to be distorted to the point of being upside down, that’s big. People have a hard time interpreting regular curves, so unhealthy ones are much more a mystery (thanks to Economics).

The specific contracts displaying eurodollar’s version of oil contango were those out several years, the 2020’s to 2021’s. For a time, the inversion extended into 2022. For the few who noticed, this didn’t seem too much to be concerned about; a far distant probability of some nonspecific hedging case. Surely the world can be fixed given two or three years.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Hidden Amongst the Furore: Synchronised Warnings From the BIS and the IMF

December 20, 2018

Hidden Amongst the Furore: Synchronised Warnings From the BIS and the IMF

It has become a disconcerting trend that as geopolitical events intensify and keep a majority of people engaged in the latest outbreak of political theatre, the words of central bankers fall on increasingly deaf ears.

At a seminar of the European Stability Mechanism this month, Bank for International Settlements General Manager Agustin Carstens delivered a speech called, ‘Shelter from the Storm‘.

The speech can be summarised as follows:

The IMF may not have enough resources to manage a future financial crisis

The post 2008 ‘recovery’ was nurtured by central banks

Central bank intervention has coincided with the increased accumulation of debt in both major and emerging economies

The challenge for central banks is to meet their inflation target

Governments must quickly implement ‘growth-friendly structural reforms’ as monetary policy is ‘normalised’

The latter bullet point refers to Basel III, the regulatory reforms that were devised through the BIS in response to the financial crisis triggered in 2008. The BIS have been pushing the line in recent communications that without these reforms being fully implemented by national administrations, the financial system will remain vulnerable to a renewed downturn. Full adoption of the reforms is not due to occur until 2022.

Discussing the path to ‘normalisation‘ of monetary policy, Carstens states that central banks have ‘implemented normalisation steps very carefully‘:

They have been very gradual and highly predictable. Central banks have placed great emphasis on telegraphing their policy steps through extensive use of forward guidance.

Because of the gradual nature of the turn around from monetary accommodation to monetary tightening, central banks have avoided excess scrutiny. When market ructions do occur, as we have witnessed throughout 2018, geopolitical disorder has been held up as the leading cause. Central banks, as Bank of England governor Mark Carney recently put it, are ‘a side show‘.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Home Affordability: Canada vs. US

November 14, 2018

Home Affordability: Canada vs. US

Homes are unaffordable in the US, but the situation is far worse in Canada.

Point2homes has an interesting set of charts on Home Affordability In Canada vs the US.

Key Findings

The average Canadian has to dish out a whopping 56% more to buy a home, or 25% more to rent one compared to ten years ago, but the median wage in Canada only went up 15%.
The average home price in the U.S. increased at a much slower rate (24%), while the median income went up by 18%.
Since 2008, the Canadian dollar lost approximately 25% of its power compared to the American dollar, going from almost perfect parity to a much lower exchange rate.
The affordability crisis worsened in Canada, where the housing market went from “seriously unaffordable” to “severely unaffordable”, but the American housing market remained in the “seriously unaffordable” category.

Real Housing Prices

Eight years into the new millennium, the U.S. marched head first into one of the worst economic crises in its history following the bursting of the housing bubble. Canada’s real estate bubble hasn’t yet popped and the country has not yet seen a major decline in home prices, but the Canadian economy experienced its own share of turbulence following the oil price crash from 2014 and the burst of China’s speculative bubble.
And now, 10 years after the housing crisis that destabilized the U.S., some analysts claim that Canada faces a similar scenario if it stays the course: household debt currently exceeds 100% of GDP, according to data released by the Bank for International Settlements, the average home price went up 56% in ten years, while the median wage per household only increased 15% during the same period, and loose lending is on the rise.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The (ominous) problem with global liquidity

October 20, 2018

The (ominous) problem with global liquidity

Market liquidity is crucial for well-functioning capital markets. There has been a quite lot of talk about diminished market liquidity and the role of machines in it (see, e.g. Q-review 4/2017, this and this). These are worrying developments.

However, while market liquidity is crucial for markets, global financial flows, i.e. liquidity, is also essential to the real economy and for global economic growth. The availability of credit on a global basis fuels investments and growth around the world. Such financial flows fell by a massive 90 % during the 2008 crisis, which quickly translated into a global recession. Investment and consumption collapsed almost everywhere, with the exception of China where a massive credit stimulus was enacted.

Since then, there has been an uneven recovery. Cross-border bank lending has never really recovered (see Q-review 1/2017), but the issuance of vast amounts of government and corporate debt has taken its place. This creates a serious risk for the global real economy if highly over-valued capital markets crash.

The metamorphosis of global liquidity

In its recent quarterly report, the Bank of International Settlements, or BIS, raises three crucial points for global liquidity:

Global outside-US dollar denominated debt has risen to a record.
The role of non-bank institutions on providing funding has increased.
The composition of international credit has shifted from bank loans to debt securities.

Combined with the asset purchase programs of central banks (QE) these developments have far-reaching consequences for the global economy.

Currently, non-banking institutions and households outside the US hold over 11.5 trillion worth of dollar-denominated debt—a record. The “shadow banking” sector could conceivably hold the same amount. This means that all policies affecting global dollar liquidity, will have a large effect on the global economy.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Are Chinese Municipal $6 Trillion (40 Trillion Yuan) Hidden Debts Posing Titanic Risks?

October 19, 2018

Are Chinese Municipal $6 Trillion (40 Trillion Yuan) Hidden Debts Posing Titanic Risks?

The China Collapse trope is rearing its ugly head again. This time round, the spin is on China’s local government or municipal debts.

The latest narrative goes like this : local governments in China are estimated to have hidden debts of 40 trillion Yuan (or $6 trillion). Those hidden or undisclosed debts, together with outstanding municipal bonds and the Central government debts, “could have reached an alarming level of 60%”. The 60% debt to GDP ratio is hardwired in the Maastricht Treaty with a view to instilling fiscal and financial disciplines among the 28 member states of the European Union or EU 28 for short. The S&P report describes China’s hidden municipal debts as “a debt iceberg with titanic credit risks”!

Now, let’s unpack the opinion in the S&P report.

Estimates of China’s hidden municipal debts range from 8.9 trillion Yuan by Bank for International Settlements and 19.1 trillion Yuan by IMF to 23.6 trillion Yuan by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and 47 trillion Yuan by Tsinghua University Taxation and Finance Research Institute. There are 8 different estimates by 8 different institutions, with the median value of 30 trillion Yuan. S&P didn’t explain or justify its choice of 40 trillion Yuan, which is close to the top outlier of 47 trillion Yuan.

Based on the median value of 30 trillion Yuan in undisclosed municipal debts, the total Central government (13 trillion Yuan) and municipal debts (including the disclosed portion of 16 trillion Yuan) stood at 60 trillion Yuan (about $9 trillion) at end 2017. That works out to 73 % of China’s nominal GDP of 83 trillion Yuan ($12.4 trillion) in 2017.

The 60% debt to GDP prescription in Maastricht Treaty is more honored in the breach. The average debt to GDP ratio of EU 28 by end 2017 is 81.6%. Even the EU discipline master Germany’s 64% exceeds the 60% limit! The financial situation in a handful of EU states is precarious, even parlous. Their debt to GDP ratio is not just alarming, but downright frightening :

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

World’s Most Important Bank Issues Urgent “Zombie Alert”

October 4, 2018

World’s Most Important Bank Issues Urgent “Zombie Alert”

It’s been a decade since the world’s major central banks reacted to the financial crisis by cheapening the value of money through record low, zero or negative rates.

What my research for my book Collusion: How Central Bankers Rigged the World revealed was how central bankers and massive financial institutions have worked together to manipulate global markets for the past decade.

Major central banks gave themselves a blank check with which to resurrect problematic banks; purchase government, mortgage and corporate bonds; and in some cases — as in Japan and Switzerland — buy stocks, too.

They have not had to explain to the public where those funds were going or why. Instead, their policies have inflated asset bubbles while coddling private banks and corporations under the guise of helping the real economy.

The zero interest rate and bond-buying central bank policies prevailing in the U.S., Europe and Japan have been part of a coordinated effort that has plastered over potential financial instability in the largest countries and in private banks.

It has, in turn, created asset bubbles that could explode into an even greater crisis the next time around.

So today we stand near — how near we don’t yet know — the edge of a dangerous financial precipice. The risks posed by the largest institutions still exist, only now they’re even bigger than they were in 2007–08 and operating in an arena of even more debt.

Now the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), or the “central bank of central banks,” is sounding a new alarm on this policy.

In its recent quarterly report, the BIS warned that low rates have catalyzed an increase in the number of “zombie” firms. The number of such firms has now risen to an all-time high.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Beware The Zombies: BIS Warns That Non-Viable Firms Are Crippling Global Growth

September 23, 2018

Beware The Zombies: BIS Warns That Non-Viable Firms Are Crippling Global Growth

Ten years after central banks unleashed a period of record low interest rates, the central banks’ central bank is warning that this may not have been the smartest move.

In the latest quarterly review from the Bank of International Settlements, the Basel-based organization that oversees the world’s central banks warned that decades of falling interest rates have led to a sharp increase in the number of “zombie” firms, rising to an all time high since the 1980s, threatening economic growth and preventing interest rates from rising.

Zombie firms are defined as companies that are at least 10 years old, yet are unable to cover their debt service costs from profits, in other words the Interest Coverage Ratio (ICR) is less than 1x for at least 3 consecutive quarters. These types of companies, which first gained attention in Japan decades ago and have since gained prevalence in Europe and, increasingly, the United States. According to a second definition, a requirement for a “zombie” is to have comparatively low expected future growth potential. Specifically, zombies are required to have a ratio of their assets’ market value to their replacement cost (Tobin’s q) that is below the median within their sector in any given year.

According to authors Ryan Banerjee and Boris Hofmann, zombie firms that fall under the two definitions are very similar with respect to their current profitability, but qualitatively different in their profitability prospects, which may be a function of how central banks have “broken” the market. Graph 1 below shows that, for non-zombie firms, the median ICR is over four times earnings under both definitions. As the majority of zombie firms make losses, the median ICRs are below minus 7 under the broad measure and around minus 5 under the narrow one, so this is hardly a surprise.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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