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One Bank Asks If The PBOC Is Secretly Goosing Markets

January 5, 2018

One Bank Asks If The PBOC Is Secretly Goosing Markets

Something odd is going on in China. On one hand, the PBOC has been soaking up excess liquidity from the market like a drunken sailor, and after not conducting reverse repos for 10 consecutive days, it has reduced the excess liquidity level by 510bn yuan in the latest week as existing open market operations matured, and roughly half that in the week prior.

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On the surface, this would suggest a sharp tightening in monetary conditions, and yet precisely the opposite is taking place: over the past week, instead of rising short-term rates – the traditional indicator of tighter conditions in China – yields on Chinese short-dated instruments have tumbled. Putting the move in context, 1Y yields have plunged nearly 20bps in the first week of 2018, the biggest weekly slide since June 2015.

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In parallel, on Thursday the 7-Day repurchase rate slid to the lowest since April.

While some have provided theoretical explanations, nobody really knows what is going on. In fact, some such as Citi have put on the tinfoil hat and speculate that the PBOC is covertly adding tons of liquidity on the short-end of the curve, to wit:

It looks like the PBoC has been adding quite a lot of liquidity in the shorter end of the curve in recent days -with a variety of interbank rates softer, and the 1y CGB yield notably lower by 21bps YTD whereas 5s and 10s yields have stayed broadly flat. 

Assuming that Citi is correct, it would explain many things, not least of all the stunning surge higher in Chinese, global and even US stocks. This is how Citi puts it:

Against that background, it is no surprise that equity markets have been so well supported and the SHPROP has exploded upward.

 

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

Citi: An Oil Supply Squeeze Is Inevitable

September 29, 2017

Citi: An Oil Supply Squeeze Is Inevitable

Oil

It’s somewhat tradition for oil analysts to produce a flurry of new forecasts after every sharp move in prices, and the latest rally in WTI and Brent is no exception.

In just the last couple of days we’ve seen one analyst predict prices of $80 per barrel, while a panel of several other analysts forecast a price drop if OPEC ends its production cut deal as planned in March 2018.

Now Citi has joined in with a warning: whatever OPEC does, supply will likely get tighter next year.

That’s in stark contrast with the general mood, which is a constant worry that the moment OPEC announces the end of its deal, its members will turn the taps back on and start pumping that oil to levels well above the current quotas. According to Citi’s Ed Morse, the head of the bank’s commodity research, five OPEC members are already pumping at capacity, and a production increase is therefore unlikely.

The members that Morse believes will lead the supply crunch are Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Venezuela and Libya. All of these, bar Venezuela, have announced plans for a ramp-up of their oil output. All of these, at the same time, face problems in ramping up production, but these problems don’t all come down to insufficient investment, which Morse blames for the pumping-at-capacity scenario.

Venezuela is in disarray and in no condition to expand its oil production. Nigeria and Libya have suffered numerous militant attacks on oil infrastructure, and it’s expected to continue.

Despite these persistent and grave challenges, both Nigeria and Libya have plans to increase production. The Nigerian Petroleum Development Company, for example, recently said it plans to raise its production in the Niger Delta by 320,000 bpd by 2020. Nigeria’s total could grow to 4 million bpd by that year, according to plans announced by oil minister Emmanuel Ibe Kachikwu.

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

Why The (Collapsing) Global Credit Impulse Is All That Matters: Citi Explains

June 20, 2017

Why The (Collapsing) Global Credit Impulse Is All That Matters: Citi Explains

 One week ago, we reported that UBS has some “very bad news for the global economy”, when we showed that according to the Swiss bank’s calculations, the global credit impulse showed a historic collapse, one which matched the magnitude of the impulse plunge in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis.

But why is the credit impulse so critical?

To answer this question Citi’s Matt King has published a slideshow titled, appropriately enough, “Why buying on impulse is soon regretted”, in which he explains why this largely ignored second derivative of global credit growth is really all that matters for the global economy (as well as markets, as we will explain in a follow up post).

King first focuses on the one thing that is “wrong” with this recovery: the pervasive lack of global inflation, so desired by DM central banks.

As he notes in the first slide below, “the inflation shortfall isn’t new” and yet the current “level of credit growth would traditionally have seen inflation >5%”

To be sure central banks always respond to this lack of inflation by injecting massive ammounts of liquidity, i.e., credit, in the system: according to Citi, the credit addiction started in 1982 in the UK, while in 2009 it was in China. However, there was a difference: while in the 1982 episode, it took 3 credit units to grow GDP by 1 unit, by 2009 this rate had grown to 6 to 1. Meanwhile, central bankers “simply stopped worrying about credit.” That also explains the chronic collapse in interest rates starting in 1980 with the “Great Moderation” and their recent record lows: the world simply can not tolerate higher rates.

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

Citi Predicts Greek Hyperinflation Breaks Out In Two Years

July 21, 2015

Citi Predicts Greek Hyperinflation Breaks Out In Two Years

Earlier, we showed that according to Citigroup (among many) for Greece to have any hope of surviving, it needs a masive debt haircut: the bigger, the better, with Citi tossing out numbers as high as €130 billion. Still, even if Greece does get debt relief, as long as it remains in the Eurozone, its economy has nothing but hell to look forward to.

Here is how Citi previews the next few years:

From an economic and financial sector angle, the success or failure of a third programme will depend on i) the strength of a possible economic recovery in coming quarters, following an overhaul of the Greek banking system, and on ii) whether debt re-profiling discussions look likely and take place as envisaged. On the first item, the degree of fiscal austerity and outright reforms to be implemented in a short period of time is likely to result in a prolongation of economic recession in coming quarters. And we need to factor in the economic costs from the (very likely) persistence of stringent capital controls and the lack of liquidity in the economy. We recently updated our real GDP growth forecasts and now expect the Greek economy to contract by at least 2.4% YY in 2015 (compared with -0.2% YY projected in June), with the economy likely to remain in recession at least until Q1 2016. Such a poor performance in terms of economic activity would mean a higher risk that Greek economic and fiscal performance would undershoot its programme targets, which could likely challenge its membership in the Eurozone. In addition, debt re-profiling is likely to be deferred, conditional and tranched, and is unlikely to boost the government’s fiscal space for public spending increases or tax cuts. Failure by the Greek authorities to lift capital controls in a meaningful way and a further increase in unemployment (we forecast that the jobless rate will rise from 27% in 2015 to 29% in 2016) could also increase social tensions, in our view.

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

Is Citi The Next AIG: 70 Trillion Reasons Why Citigroup And Congress Scrambled To Pass The Swaps “Push-Out” Rule

January 5, 2015

Is Citi The Next AIG: 70 Trillion Reasons Why Citigroup And Congress Scrambled To Pass The Swaps “Push-Out” Rule

Earlier today, when we were conducting a routine check with the Office of the Currency Comptroller’s on the total notional amount of derivatives held at the Big 4 banks in the context of the “JPMorgan break up” story, we found something stunning: using the latest, just released Q3 OCC data, JPMorgan is no longer America’s undisputed derivatives king. Well, it still is at the HoldCo level, where it is number one in terms of notional derivatives with $65.5 trillion, but when one steps a level lower, namely the FDIC-insured commercial bank (the National Association or N.A.) level, something quite disturbing emerges. This:

As the chart above, which references Table 1 in the Q3 OCC report, shows Citigroup, or rather its FDIC-insuredCitibank National Association entity, just surpassed JPM and is now the biggest single holder of total derivatives in the US. Furthermore, as the charts below show, while every other bank was derisking its balance sheet, Citi not only increased its total derivative holdings by $1 trillion in Q2, but by a whopping, and perhaps even record, $9 trillion in the just concluded third quarter to $70.2 trillion!

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

 

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