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A $20 Trillion Problem: More Than Half Of China’s Banks Fail Central Bank Stress Test
A $20 Trillion Problem: More Than Half Of China’s Banks Fail Central Bank Stress Test
In our latest look at the turmoil among China’s small and medium banks, which included not only the recent bailouts and nationalizations of Baoshang Bank , Bank of Jinzhou, China’s Heng Feng Bank, but also the two very troubling bank runs at China’s Henan Yichuan Rural Commercial Bank at the start of the month, and then more recently at Yingkou Coastal Bank.
As we further explained, the reason why so many (for now) smaller Chinese banks have found themselves either getting bailed out or hit by bank runs, is that in a time when China’s interbank/repo rates have surged amid growing counterparty concerns, increasingly more banks have been forced to rely almost entirely on deposits to fund themselves, forcing them to hike their deposit rates to keep their funding levels stable.
Meanwhile, cuts in key lending rates since August to stimulate up a slowing economy have only exacerbated net interest margin pressures on banks.
In other words, with less income from lending and without the full suite of funding options available to much larger peers, the interest rates that China’s legion of small banks may have to offer to attract deposits could further undermine their stability. The irony is that to preserve their critical deposit base, small banks have to hike deposit rates even higher to stand out, in the process sapping their own lifeblood and ensuring their self-destruction, or as we dubbed it earlier, China’s own version of Europe’s “doom loop.“
Dai Zhifeng, a banking analyst with Zhongtai Securities, told Reuters the funding difficulties risked distorting small banks’ behavior, making failure even more likely: “Lacking core competitiveness, some of them have turned to high-risk, short-sighted operations,” he said, adding that a liquidity crunch was possible at some institutions.
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Charting The Epic Collapse Of The World’s Most Systemically Dangerous Bank
Charting The Epic Collapse Of The World’s Most Systemically Dangerous Bank
After a hard-hitting sequence of scandals, poor decisions, and unfortunate events,Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins notes that Frankfurt-based Deutsche Bank shares are now down -48% on the year to $12.60, which is a record-setting low.
Even more stunning is the long-term view of the German institution’s downward spiral.
With a modest $15.8 billion in market capitalization, shares of the 147-year-old company now trade for a paltry 8% of its peak price in May 2007.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END
If the deaths of Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns were quick and painless, the coming demise of Deutsche Bank has been long, drawn out, and painful.
In recent times, Deutsche Bank’s investment banking division has been among the largest in the world, comparable in size to Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Bank of America, and Citigroup. However, unlike those other names, Deutsche Bank has been walking wounded since the Financial Crisis, and the German bank has never been able to fully recover.
It’s ironic, because in 2009, the company’s CEO Josef Ackermann boldly proclaimed that Deutsche Bank had plenty of capital, and that it was weathering the crisis better than its competitors.
It turned out, however, that the bank was actually hiding $12 billion in losses to avoid a government bailout. Meanwhile, much of the money the bank did make during this turbulent time in the markets stemmed from the manipulation of Libor rates. Those “wins” were short-lived, since the eventual fine to end the Libor probe would be a record-setting $2.5 billion.
The bank finally had to admit that it actually needed more capital.
In 2013, it raised €3 billion with a rights issue, claiming that no additional funds would be needed. Then in 2014 the bank head-scratchingly proceeded to raise €1.5 billion, and after that, another €8 billion.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
The Market Has Lost Faith In Our Board, Bank Of International Settlements Laments
The Market Has Lost Faith In Our Board, Bank Of International Settlements Laments
The BIS’ Claudio Borio was vindicated in January – and it was a long time coming.
When last we checked in with Claudio, it was December and the bank’s Head of the Monetary and Economic Department was busy explaining what may befall $3.2 trillion in EM USD debt in the persistently strong dollar environment. “The stock of dollar-denominated debt, which has roughly doubled since early 2009 to over $3 trillion, is still there [and] in fact, its value in domestic currency terms has grown in line with the US dollar’s appreciation, weighing on financial conditions and weakening balance sheets,” he warned.
We also laid out the progression of Borio’s most recent warnings as delineated in the banks’ widely-read, if on occasion perfunctory, quarterly reports. Below, is a brief review.
From 2014, warning about the market’s dependence on central bank omnipotence:
To my mind, these events underline the fragility – dare I say growing fragility? – hidden beneath the markets’ buoyancy. Small pieces of news can generate outsize effects. This, in turn, can amplify mood swings. And it would be imprudent to ignore that markets did not fully stabilise by themselves. Once again, on the heels of the turbulence, major central banks made soothing statements, suggesting that they might delay normalisation in light of evolving macroeconomic conditions. Recent events, if anything, have highlighted once more the degree to which markets are relying on central banks: the markets’ buoyancy hinges on central banks’ every word and deed.
From March of 2015, speaking out about the dangers of increasingly illiquid secondary markets for corporate bonds:
As a result, market liquidity may increasingly come to depend on the portfolio allocation decisions of only a few large institutions. And, more broadly, investors may find that liquidating positions proves more difficult than expected, particularly in the context of an adverse shift in market sentiment.
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Negative Interest Rates Already In Fed’s Official Scenario
Negative Interest Rates Already In Fed’s Official Scenario
Over the past year, and certainly in the aftermath of the BOJ’s both perplexing and stunning announcement (as it revealed the central banks’ level of sheer desperation), we have warned (most recently “Negative Rates In The U.S. Are Next: Here’s Why In One Chart”) that next in line for negative rates is the Fed itself, whether Janet Yellen wants it or not. Today, courtesy of Wolf Richter, we find that this is precisely what is already in the small print of the Fed’s future stress test scenarios, and specifically the “severely adverse scenario” where we read that:
The severely adverse scenario is characterized by a severe global recession, accompanied by a period of heightened corporate financial stress and negative yields for short-term U.S. Treasury securities.
As a result of the severe decline in real activity and subdued inflation, short-term Treasury rates fall to negative ½ percent by mid-2016 and remain at that level through the end of the scenario.
And so the strawman has been laid. The only missing is the admission of the several global recession, although with global GDP plunging over 5% in USD terms, we wonder just what else those who make the official determination are waiting for.
Finally, we disagree with the Fed that QE4 is not on the table: it most certainly will be once stock markets plunge by 50% as the “severely adverse scenario” envisions, and once NIRP fails to boost economic activity, as it has failed previously everywhere else it has been tried, the Fed will promtply proceed with what has worked before, if only to make the true situation that much worse.
Until then, we sit back and wait.
Here is Wolf Richter with Negative Interest Rates Already in Fed’s Official Scenario
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