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Citi On Why Negative Rates Are Like Potato Chips: “No One Can Have Just One”
Citi On Why Negative Rates Are Like Potato Chips: “No One Can Have Just One”
Now that Japan has let the negative rates genie out of the bottle, or as DB put it, ‘opened the Pandora’s Box‘ and in the process unleashed the latest global “silent bank run” and capital flight, prepare to hear a whole lot more about NIRP in the coming weeks because as Citi’s Steven Englander put it, “Why are Negative Rates like Potato Chips? No one can have just one.”
This is what else Englander said:
You can admire the policy boldness of the BoJ move into negative rates, and recognise its powerful asset market effects – positive for equities and negative for JPY. Experience in other countries that have entered into this territory should sober you up on the likely economic and inflation impact. No country that has gone into negative rates has experienced major shifts in its growth and inflation profile – minor, yes; major, no. As a consequence every dip into negative rates has been followed by additional moves.
Negative rates are a powerful inducement for cash to leave the banking system, but there is little evidence that investors take the cash and build steel plants with it. They buy foreign and financial assets, which is probably more than enough for the BoJ.
Some further thoughts from Citi’s FX desk, and why the BOJ ultimately shot itself, and other central banks, in the foot:
As the dust settles on the BoJ reaction, USDJPY is somewhat higher and risk currencies have begun to rebound following an initial dip. However, the price action has not been one-sided. Partly this seems to reflect the tendency of many investors to dismiss the rate move as diluted given its tiered implementation. Of the investors I have spoken to since the decision, a significant majority were inclined to poke holes in the decision.
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This Is What Happened The Last Time The Fed Hiked While The U.S. Was In Recession
This Is What Happened The Last Time The Fed Hiked While The U.S. Was In Recession
But while we disagreed with BofA’s countdown timing, we agreed with something its strategist Michael Hartnett said, namely that “gradual or otherwise, the first interest rate hike by the Fed since June 2006 marks a major inflection point for financial markets.”
BofA then laid out several key factors why “this time is indeed different” when evaluating the global economy’s receptiveness to a rate hike:
- Central banks now own over $22 trillion of financial assets, a figure that exceeds the annual GDP of US & Japan
- Central banks have cut interest rates more than 600 times since Lehman, a rate cut once every three 3 trading days
- Central bank financial repression created over $6 trillion of negatively-yielding global government bonds
- 45% of all government bonds in the world currently yield <1% (that’s $17.4 trillion of bond issues outstanding)
- US corporate high grade bond issuance as a % of GDP has doubled to almost 30% since the introduction of ZIRP
- US small cap 5-year rolling returns hit 30-year highs (28%) in recent quarters
- The US equity bull market is now in the 3rd longest ever
- 83% of global equity markets are currently supported by zero rate policies
However, to the Fed none of these matter: only the price action of the S&P500 does, which as everyone knows, is trading just shy of its all time highs so “all must be well.”
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Futures Soar On Hope Central Planners Are Back In Control, China Rollercoaster Ends In The Red
Futures Soar On Hope Central Planners Are Back In Control, China Rollercoaster Ends In The Red
For the first half an hour after China opened, things looked bleak: after opening down 5%, the Shanghai Composite staged a quick relief rally, then tumbled again. And then, just around 10pm Eastern, we saw acoordinated central bank intervention stepping in to give the flailing PBOC a helping hand, driven by the BOJ but also involving NY Fed members, that sent the USDJPY soaring which in turn dragged ES and most risk assets up with it. And while Shanghai did end up closing down -1.7%, with Shenzhen 2.2% lower at the close, the final outcome was far better than what could have been, with the result being that S&P futures have gone back to doing their thing, and have wiped out all of yesterday’s losses in the levitating, zero volume, overnight session which has long become a favorite setting for central banks buying E-Minis.
As Bloomberg’s Richard Breslow comments, the majority of Asian equity indexes finished with losses but on an upbeat note, helping most European markets to start with modest gains that have increased with the morning, thanks to the aforementioned domestic and global mood stabilization. S&P futures have been positive all day other than a brief dip negative at the worst of the day’s China levels. Chinese equities opened quite weak and were down another 5% before the authorities assured the market that speculation they would withdraw from market supportive measures was misguided. This began a rally of over 6% before a mid-afternoon swoon.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
China Soars Most Since 2009 After Government Threatens Short Sellers With Arrest, Global Stocks Surge
China Soars Most Since 2009 After Government Threatens Short Sellers With Arrest, Global Stocks Surge
Here is a brief sample of some of the measures the Chinese government and the PBOC have unleashed in just the past ten days to prop up the crashing market include:
- a ban on major shareholders, corporate executives, directors from selling stock for 6 months
- freezing more than half (1400 at last count per Bloomberg) of the listed companies from trading,
- blocking fund redemptions, forcing companies to invest in the market,
- halting IPOs,
- reducing equity transaction fees,
- providing daily bailouts to the margin lending authority,
- reducing margin requirements,
- boosting buybacks
- endless propaganda by Beijing Bob.
The measures are summarized below.
But it wasn’t until last night’s first official threat to “malicious” (short) sellers that they face charges (i.e., arrest), as Xinhua reported yesterday:
[Ministry of Public Security in conjunction with the recent Commission investigation of malicious short stock and stock index clues ] correspondent was informed on the 9th morning , Vice Minister of Public Security Meng Qingfeng led to the Commission , in conjunction with the recent Commission investigation of malicious short stock and stock index clues show regulatory authorities to the operation of heavy combat illegal activities.
… that the wall of Chinese intervention finally worked. For now.
And since this is all about one thing, the stock, market, it is worth noting that the Shanghai Composite Index had dropped as much as 3.8% to a 4 month low before the news that the cops were going to arrest anyone who used a wrong discount rate in their DCF, when everything suddenly took off, and the SHCOMP closed a “Dramamine required” 5.8% higher, the biggest daily increase since March 2009!
“As China beefs up its efforts to rescue the market, with even the public security ministry involved, market sentiment is recovering slightly from a panicky stage earlier,” Shenyin Wanguo analyst Qian Qimin says by phone
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