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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: –

gli1901_graph1

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…

Why Capital Flows Are the Only Real Guide to Market Trends

October 2, 2018

Why Capital Flows Are the Only Real Guide to Market Trends

QUESTION: Hello Martin

I wish all the best for you. The work you make every day to rise up our understanding about the world is amazing and make me feel a huge respect. it is very inspiring. I’m a small customer of your private blog. I don’t know if you answer that kind of request.

I want and I need to understand WHY the dxy was in bull market between march 2000 and feb 2002, from 102 to 113.

you are unbelievable when times come to understand economic history. I can’t find any explanation about this period
M2 supply decreased softly the twin deficit stood around 2% with no hope of getting better and it reversed after 2002 to 8% !!!

Interest rates were declining stock indexes were very bear from the tech turnmoil

Gold was bottoming from 420 to 380 with a reverse pattern during summer 2001. the dxy rise more than 3% after the bottom of gold in 1 year !
how could this DXY get up 10% higher in 2 years ??? what is the secret of history I miss ???? I believe there is something to learn with that period !
kind regards

CD

ANSWER: While the Euro began really in 1999, the physical notes did not come into circulation until 2000. The euro hit its all-time high shortly after its launch at the start of 1999 at that point in history which marked the euphoria of the talking heads on TV and how the Euro would crush the dollar. As always, they talked everyone into buying the high. As we say, buy the rumor and sell the news. That is an INCREDIBLY good market rule.

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

Argentina’s Peso Crisis, Capital Flows and Financial Fragility in Emerging Markets 

May 15, 2018

Argentina’s Peso Crisis, Capital Flows and Financial Fragility in Emerging Markets 

On May 4, the Banco Central de la Republica Argentina, the country’s central bank, raised policy interest rates to a whopping 40 percent to stem the rapid depreciation of the national currency, the peso. The surprise rate increase was the third in a week after the central bank failed to halt the decline in the peso by spending $4.3 billion of foreign exchange reserves in just one week. In addition, the Argentine authorities reduced fiscal deficit target and announced new measures to calm the markets.

Market observers were confident that rapid-fire rate hikes and other measures will restore currency stability, but the Argentine peso plunged more than 5 percent to a new all-time low at 23.5 against the US dollar on May 8, thereby prompted the government to seek financial support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

It is yet unclear what kind of financial support will be sought from the IMF, but it may entail substantial political cost as many Argentines blame the IMF policies for exacerbating the financial crisis of 2001 which deepened the recession and triggered social unrest and political instability. Since the IMF loans usually come with tough conditions and policy surveillance, the Macri government will find it hard to garner popular support given the widespread scepticism in the country towards the IMF.

However, one thing is clear: the impacts of rates hike would be immediately felt by the real economy in terms of higher financing costs and contraction of economic activity in Argentina for some time.

What Caused the Currency Crisis? 

The current bout of currency volatility in Argentina was triggered by a surge in the US dollar along with market expectations that the Federal Reserve might raise interest rates more aggressively than previously expected ‒due to rise in bond yields and poor US inflation data. To some extent, the imposition of 5 percent capital gains tax on LEBACs (peso-denominated central bank notes) held by foreigners also added a downward pressure on the Argentine peso.

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

There is No “Free Trade”–There Is Only the Darwinian Game of Trade

March 12, 2018

There is No “Free Trade”–There Is Only the Darwinian Game of Trade

Rising income and wealth inequality is causally linked to globalization and the expansion of Darwinian trade and capital flows.

Stripped of lofty-sounding abstractions such as comparative advantage, trade boils down to four Darwinian goals:

1. Find foreign markets to absorb excess production, i.e. where excess production can be dumped.

2. Extract foreign resources at low prices.

3. Deny geopolitical rivals access to these resources.

4. Open foreign markets to domestic capital and credit so domestic capital can buy up all the productive assets and resources, a dynamic I explained last week in Forget “Free Trade”–It’s All About Capital Flows.

All the blather about “free trade” is window dressing and propaganda. Nobody believes in risking completely free trade; to do so would be to open the doors to foreign domination of key resources, assets and markets.

Trade is all about securing advantages in a Darwinian struggle to achieve or maintain dominance. As I pointed out back in 2005, the savings accrued by consumers due to opening trade with China were estimated at $100 billion over 27 years (1978 to 2005), while corporate profits expanded by trillions of dollars.

In other words, consumers got a nickel of savings while corporations banked a dollar of pure profit as sticker prices barely budged while input costs plummeted. Corporations pocketed the difference, not consumers.

As longtime correspondent Chad D. noted in response to my essay on capital flows, restricting trade may be one of the few ways smaller nations have to avoid their resources and assets being swallowed up by mobile capital flowing out of nations with virtually unlimited credit (the US, the EU, China and Japan).

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

Forget “Free Trade”–It’s All About Capital Flows

March 9, 2018

Forget “Free Trade”–It’s All About Capital Flows

In a world dominated by mobile capital, mobile capital is the comparative advantage.

Defenders and critics of “free trade” and globalization tend to present the issue as either/or: it’s inherently good or bad. In the real world, it’s not that simple. The confusion starts with defining free trade (and by extension, globalization).

In the classical definition of free trade espoused by 18th century British economist David Ricardo, trade is generally thought of as goods being shipped from one nation to another to take advantage of what Ricardo termed comparative advantage: nations would benefit by exporting whatever they produced efficiently and importing what they did not produce efficiently. While Ricardo’s concept of free trade is intuitively appealing because it is win-win for importer and exporter, it doesn’t describe the consequences of the mobility of capital. Capital–cash, credit, tools and the intangible capital of expertise–moves freely around the globe seeking the highest possible return, pursuing the prime directive of capital: expand or die.

Capital that fails to expand will stagnate or shrink. If the contraction continues unchecked, the capital eventually vanishes.

The mobility of capital radically alters the simplistic 18th century view of free trade. In today’s world, trade can not be coherently measured as goods moving between nations, because capital from the importing nation owns the productive assets in the exporting nation. If Apple owns a factory (or joint venture) in China and collects virtually all the profits from the iGadgets produced there, this reality cannot be captured by the models of simple trade described by Ricardo.

In today’s globalized version of “free trade,” mobile capital can arbitrage labor, currencies, interest rates, regulatory burdens and political favors by shifting between nations and assets.

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

Which Countries Will Be Tomorrow’s Winners & Losers?

May 14, 2016

Cienpies Design/Shutterstock

Which Countries Will Be Tomorrow’s Winners & Losers?

Resources, capital flows & demographics will be key

The dictum “demographics is destiny” proposes that all the complexities of finance, society and politics are ultimately guided by demographics: the relative size of each generation, birth rates, death rates, etc.

For example, an oversized generation of retirees and an undersized generation of workers to support them has far-reaching consequences that can’t be legislated away.

The influence of demographics isn’t limited to pension costs. Some analysts have made the case that oversized generations of young men align all too well with the launching of wars.

The point is that birth/death rates—low and high–have consequences that impact national destinies for decades.

Another school holds that geography is destiny: if a nation’s geography is favorable, the barriers to prosperity and stability are low, while the barrier is high for nations with unfavorable geography.

Peter Zeihan, author of the 2014 book, The Accidental Superpower: The Next Generation of American Preeminence and the Coming Global Disorder, lists the core geographic attributes that are either favorable or unfavorable in ways that influence a nation’s long-term prosperity and built-in geopolitical challenges.

What does geography have to do with prosperity, stability and geopolitical risks?

Navigable rivers that reach deep into productive interior regions lower costs of transport dramatically, while natural harbors enable low-cost access to international markets via ships.

Natural barriers to invasion such as oceans, deserts and mountain ranges dictate whether a nation must spend heavily on military defense of the homeland or whether the cost of defense is lightened by favorable geography.

Zeihan extends geography into the political realm, noting that nations with difficult-to-defend borders require a strong central government to organize taxation and defense, while nations with few contiguous threats (for example,  the U.S.) can be governed in a more decentralized fashion.

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

German Study: USA is the Top Tax Haven in the World

May 14, 2016

German Study: USA is the Top Tax Haven in the World

TAX Haven USA

Migration to USAA new study by the Green Party in Germany places the USA at the top of the list of tax havens for foreign investors. They have highlighted the key states in their study. I have written about this before. The strong capital flows coming into the USA from overseas have been stunning, to say the least. Some 3,000 millionaires from Greece, 10,000 millionaires from France, 6,000 millionaires from Italy, 2,000 millionaires from Spain, and about 2,000 millionaires from Russia have all migrated to the USA.

This is confirming what we see on capital flows. The dollar haters are incapable of looking at international news, and they only focus on the Fed and the Treasury. They seem incapable of objective analysis or looking at the entire world.

Legendary Investor Jim Rogers Warns: “Most People Are Going To Suffer The Next Time Around”

February 8, 2016

Legendary Investor Jim Rogers Warns: “Most People Are Going To Suffer The Next Time Around”

Back in the 1970’s as recession gripped the world for a decade, stocks stagnated and commodities crashed, investor Jim Rogers made a fortune. His understanding of markets, capital flows and timing is legendary.

As crisis struck in late 2008, he did it again, often recommending gold and silver to those looking for wealth preservation strategies – move that would have paid of multi-fold when precious metals hit all time highs in 2011. He warned that the crash would lead to massive job losses, dependence on government bailouts, and unprecedented central bank printing on a global scale.

Now, Rogers says that investors around the world are realizing that the jig is up. Stocks are over bloated and central banks will have little choice but to take action again. But this time, says Rogers in his latest interview with CrushTheStreet.com, there will be no stopping it and people all over the world are going to feel the pain, including in China and the United States.

We’re all going to suffer… I can think of very few places that won’t suffer. But most people are going to suffer the next time around.


(Watch at Youtube)

Central banks will panic. They will do whatever they can to save the markets.

It’s artificial… it won’t work… there comes a time when no matter how much money you have, the market has more money.

…

I don’t know if they’ll even call it QE (Quantitative Easing) in the future… who knows what they’ll call it to disguise it… they’re going to try whatever they can… printing more money or lowering interest rates or buying more assets… but unfortunately, no matter how much P.R. or whitewashing they use, the market knows this is over and we’re not going to play this game anymore.

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

Is This How the Next Global Financial Meltdown Will Unfold?

November 20, 2015

Is This How the Next Global Financial Meltdown Will Unfold?

In effect, a currency crisis is simply the abrupt revaluation of the currency to reflect new realities.

I have long maintained that the structural imbalances of debt and risk that triggered the Global Financial Meltdown of 2008-2009 have effectively been transferred to the foreign exchange (FX) markets.

This creates a problem for the central banks that have orchestrated the “recovery” by goosing asset bubbles in stocks, real estate and bonds: unlike these markets, the currency-FX market is too big for even the Federal Reserve to manipulate for long.

The FX market trades roughly the entire Fed balance sheet of $4.5 trillion every day or two.

Currencies are in the midst of multi-year revaluations that will destabilize the tottering towers of debt, leverage and risk that have propped up global growth since 2009.

Though the relative value of currencies is discovered in the global FX market, there are four fundamental factors that influence the value of any currency:

1. Capital flows into and out of the currency (and the nation that issues the currency).

2. Perceived risk, specifically, will this currency preserve my global purchasing power (i.e. capital) or erode it?

3. The yield or interest rate paid on bonds denominated in this currency.

4. The scarcity or over-abundance of the currency.

If we dig even deeper, we find that currencies reflect the income streams and assets of the issuing nation. Consider the currency of an oil exporting nation that has seen both its income from selling oil and the underlying value of its oil in the ground fall by more than 50%.

Why shouldn’t that nation’s currency decline in parallel with the erosion of income and asset valuation? As a nation’s income and asset base decline, there is less national income to pay interest on sovereign bonds, less private income to tax, and a reduced asset base for additional borrowing.

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

Olduvai IV: Courage
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Olduvai II: Exodus
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