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“Worst Since Lehman”: Banks Break The World Again

March 10, 2023

“Worst Since Lehman”: Banks Break The World Again

Last week we detailed BofA’s Michael Hartnett’s warning that “The Fed will tighten until something breaks”.

Well, something just broke…

SVB’s collapse – the second biggest US bank failure in history – dominated any reaction to this morning’s mixed bag from the BLS (hotter than expected earnings growth, rising unemployment (especially for Latinos), better than expected payrolls gains).

Things started off badly as SVB crashed 65% in the pre-market before being halted. SVB bonds were puking hard and when the FDIC headline hit, the bonds collapsed further…

Source: Bloomberg

A number of small/medium sized banks were clubbed like a baby seal…

Source: Bloomberg

And the KBW regional bank index crashed (down 9 of the last 10 days and 20% in that period). The 18% drop this week was the index’s worst drop since Lehman (Sept 2008)…

Source: Bloomberg

And as you’ll see below, that started to have some notable impacts on the most arcane of global systemic risk red flag signals…

  • TED Spread at YTD highs (systemic risk rising)
  • Global USD Liquidity tightest in 2023 (foreigners paying up for USDollars)
  • Global Bank Credit Risk rising

The worst week for stocks in 2023… On the week, all the US majors were down hard with Small Caps crashing 9%, S&P, Dow, and Nasdaq over 4% lower…

The Dow has been underwater on the year for over a week and is now down 4% in 2023. Today’s ugliness smashed the S&P 500 and Russell 2000 down to unchanged on the year…

Source: Bloomberg

All the US Majors are now back below their 200DMAs…

Unsurprisingly, financials were the week’s biggest sector laggards but all were red on the week…

VIX exploded higher on the day, back above 28 and recoupling with equity weakness…

Source: Bloomberg

…click on the above link to read the rest…

Central Bank Crisis Expanding

June 22, 2020

Central Bank Crisis Expanding

QUESTION: Hi Marty.
You mentioned in the blog that all European sovereign debt may end up being converted into perpetual bonds. Will it be through debt mutualization or will each country have each own Consol? Could you please elaborate on how this conversion would affect pension funds, banks, social security and individual investors? Knowing that the ECB already owns 33% of all government bonds in the Euro Zone, can it (ECB) be the buyer of last resort to avoid liquidity issues for all these investors (pension funds, banks, social security and individual investors)? What would make the ECB fail?
Regards

AMD

ANSWER: They will most likely provide no warning and they will simply announce what they have done to prevent anyone from trying to liquidate. The ECB will have it as reserves so that will not change. They were rolling the debt anyway because they cannot sell it without causing interest rates to rise.

The Federal Reserve is buying up corporate bonds to the point that there is now a shortage. They are doing this in a desperate measure to try to prevent interest rates from rising, which will in turn put pressure on the ECB and Emerging Markets. This is demonstrating that the central banks are fearful of the market pushing rates higher because of CREDIT RISK.

China Scrambles To Defuse $6 Trillion “Hidden Debt Bomb” With “Titanic Credit Risk”

March 12, 2019

China Scrambles To Defuse $6 Trillion “Hidden Debt Bomb” With “Titanic Credit Risk”

When it comes to estimating China’s total outstanding debt, there has long been confusion about the real number with most putting the debt/GDP at around 250%, while the IIF in 2017 calculated China’s debt load as high as 300% of GDP (which means that by now it is substantially higher).

Then, last year, China watchers added another 40% of debt/GDP to the total when, as S&P calculated, China’s local governments had accumulated 40 trillion yuan ($6 trillion) – or even more – in off-balance sheet, or Local government financing vehicles (LGFV) debt, an amount Bloomberg has dubbed China’s “hidden debt bomb“, suggesting the already record surge in defaults in 2018 is set to accelerate further.

“The potential amount of debt is an iceberg with titanic credit risks,” S&P credit analysts wrote in October 2018, with much of the build-up related to local government financing vehicles, which don’t necessarily have the full financial backing of local governments themselves.

Local government debt has quickly emerged, together with “shadow banking” debt, as one of the main risks for China’s economy, because with the national economy slowing, and as a result of a crackdown on shadow lending and a Beijing quota for issuance of local-government bonds not enough to fund infrastructure projects to support regional growth, authorities across the country have resorted to LGFVs to raise financing, according to S&P. That’s left LGFVs “walking a tightrope” between deleveraging and transforming their businesses into more typical state-owned enterprises, S&P warned.

So fast forward 6 months, when in China’s ongoing attempt to contain the soaring financial risks from its debt bubble, Beijing – seemingly content with the progress it has made on containing shadow debt – is re-focusing on the “hidden debt” owed by local governments, as officials seek to reduce repayment pressures amid falling tax revenues.

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

S&P Reveals $5.8 Trillion In “Hidden” Chinese Debt With “Titanic Credit Risks”

October 16, 2018

S&P Reveals $5.8 Trillion In “Hidden” Chinese Debt With “Titanic Credit Risks”

When it comes to estimating China’s total outstanding debt, there has long been confusion about the real number with most putting the debt/GDP at around 250%, while the IIF last year calculated China’s debt load as high as 300% of GDP.

Now, China watchers can one add another ~40% of debt/GDP to the total because according to S&P, China’s local governments have accumulated 40 trillion yuan ($5.8 trillion) – or even more – in off-balance sheet debt, suggesting the already record surge in defaults is set to accelerate further.

“The potential amount of debt is an iceberg with titanic credit risks,” S&P credit analysts wrote in a report Tuesday, Bloomberg reported, with much of the build-up related to local government financing vehicles, which don’t necessarily have the full financial backing of local governments themselves.

LGFV debt has emerged as a growing risk for China’s economy, because with the national economy slowing, and as a result of a crackdown on shadow lending and a Beijing quota for issuance of local-government bonds not enough to fund infrastructure projects to support regional growth, authorities across the country have resorted to LGFVs to raise financing, according to S&P.

That’s left LGFVs “walking a tightrope” between deleveraging and transforming their businesses into more typical state-owned enterprises, S&P warned.

Meanwhile, debt vulnerabilities continue to rise as a result of the previously reported record surge in Chinese corporate defaults this year, as Beijing seeks to roll back a decades-old practice of implicit guarantees for debt.

And while so far LGFV debt has avoided an event of default, several issues have come close, with local government bailouts taking place only in the last minute, adding to concerns about LGFVs vulnerabilities. Meanwhile, according to S&P the riskiest LGFVs include the following:

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

Uncertainty Grips Troubled Pemex, World’s Most Indebted Oil Company

August 8, 2018

Uncertainty Grips Troubled Pemex, World’s Most Indebted Oil Company

“Even a small deterioration” in its perceived credit risk could take a big financial toll on Mexico.

Mexico’s President-elect, Andrés Manuel Lopez Obrador (AMLO), does not enter office until December 1, but he’s already making big waves, particularly in the oil and gas industry. On the campaign trail, he pledged to reverse aspects of his predecessor Enrique Peña Nieto’s sweeping oil privatization reforms, suspend new oil auctions, and review contracts issued to private energy firms for signs of corruption, which, given the players involved, shouldn’t be hard to find.

All oil and gas auctions have been put on hold in the country until AMLO assumes the office of the presidency. The contracts signed to date alone represent a projected investment of around $200 billion dollars, according tothe Mexican daily El Excelsior. As such, cancelling multi-billion dollar oil and gas contracts will hardly endear AMLO to the oil majors and global investors that have poured funds into Mexico’s newly liberalized energy sector.

This potential 180-degree U-turn in energy policy not only pits Mexican lawmakers against big oil and big money interests; it also puts the world’s most indebted oil company, according to Moody’s, at a very dangerous crossroad.

In a press conference this week AMLO upped the ante by threatening to ban fracking on Mexican soil. As Associated Press reports, when asked about the potential risks of fracking, AMLO said, “We will no longer use that method to extract petroleum.”

AMLO’s riposte is unlikely to please the oil and gas companies that had their sights set on drilling in the Burgos Basin, a region in Mexico’s northern frontier that has a huge potential shale formation similar to the Texas Eagle Ford fields.

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

China’s “Credit Mystery” Deepens, As Moody’s Warns On Shadow Financing

September 26, 2015

China’s “Credit Mystery” Deepens, As Moody’s Warns On Shadow Financing

Last month, we took a detailed look at what we said could be a multi-trillion yuan black swan.

In short, one of China’s many spinning plates is the country’s vast shadow banking complex which allowed local governments to skirt borrowing restrictions leading directly to the accumulation of debt that totals some 35% of GDP and which has channeled trillions into speculative investments via the proliferation of maturity mismatched wealth management products.

One of the problems with the system is that it allows Chinese banks to obscure credit risk.

As Fitch noted earlier this year, some 40% of credit exposure is effectively carried off balance sheet in China’s banking sector, making it virtually impossible to assess the extent to which banks are exposed. When considered in combination with the unofficial policy whereby the PBoC forces lenders to roll bad debt thus artificially suppressing NPLs, a picture emerges of a system that’s decidedly opaque. Here’s what we said back in May:

The percentage of  loans which are not yet classified as non-performing but which are nonetheless doubtful is much higher than the headline NPL figure and in fact, [Fitch] seems to suggest that some Chinese banks (notably the largest lenders) may be under-reporting their special mention loans. But ultimately it’s irrelevant because between bad assets that are ultimately transferred to AMCs, loans that are channeled through non-bank financial institutions and carried as “investments classified as receivables”, and off-balance sheet financing, nearly 40% of credit risk is carried outside of traditional loans, rendering official NPL data essentially meaningless in terms of assessing the severity of the problem.

Well don’t look now, but according to Moody’s, the practice of obscuring credit risk using one or more of the methods delineated above and outlined in these pages on any number of occasions looks to be getting worse. Here’s Bloomberg:

 

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

Bad Debt Soars 35% In China As Government Set To Fabricate Dismal Loan Data

August 6, 2015

Bad Debt Soars 35% In China As Government Set To Fabricate Dismal Loan Data

Back in March, we noted that decelerating economic growth and bad debt are taking a toll on profitability at China’s largest banks, leading them to slash payouts to shareholders.

“Particularly hard hit is ABC, which saw its non-performing loans jump 25bps Q/Q,” we observed, adding that “NPLs for loans made to manufacturers more than doubled that number, rising 54bps sequentially.” That figure underscores the degree to which China’s transition from an investment-led, smokestack economy to a model driven by consumption and services is weighing heavily on industry and in turn, on banks that lend to the manufacturing sector.

Although NPLs have been rising for some time in China, determining the true extent of the problem is largely impossible due to Beijing’s “management” of bad loans. As we outlined in “How China’s Banks Hide Trillions In Credit Risk,” there’s no way to know how pervasive Beijing’s practice of forcing banks to roll-over problem loans truly is, meaning that even if we ignore the fact that quite a bit of credit risk is obscured by the practice of shifting it around, moving it off balance sheet, and reclassifying it, (i.e. if we just look at traditional loans) it’s still difficult to know what percentage of loans are actually impaired because it’s entirely possible that a non-trivial percentage of sour debt is forcibly restructured and thus never makes it into the official NPL figures.

Indeed, the fact that NPLs are remarkably similar across banks suggests the numbers are, much like China’s GDP data, “smoothed out.” That said, a look at “special mention” loans and overdue loans can help to paint a more accurate picture although the figures still look grossly understated.

Source: Fitch

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

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