Three snapshots for Tuesday
The euro zone just avoided recession in the first quarter of 2012 but the region’s debt crisis sapped the life out of the French and Italian economies and widened a split with paymaster Germany.
Click here for an interactive map showing which European Union countries are in recession.
The technology sector has been leading the way in the S&P 500 in performance terms so far this year with energy stocks at the bottom of the list. Since the start of this quarter financials have seen the largest reverse in performance.
Three snapshots for Tuesday: Euro zone GDP, recession map and S&P 500 sector performance. Join DiscussionThree snapshots for Monday
The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasuries, fell to their lowest levels since early October today, breaking decisively below 1.80 percent. That compares to the dividend yield on the S&P 500 of 2.28%.
The European Central Bank kept its government bond-buy programme in hibernation for the ninth week in a row last week. The ECB may come under pressure to act as yields on Spanish 10-year government bonds rose further above 6% today.
Output at factories in the euro zone unexpectedly fell in March, the latest in a series of disappointing numbers signalling that the bloc’s recession may not be as mild as policymakers hope. On an annual basis, factory output dived 2.2 percent in March, the fourth consecutive monthly slide, Eurostat said, and only Germany, Slovenia and Slovakia were able to post growth in the month.
Three snapshots for Monday: US bond vs dividend yield, ECB bond buying, Euro zone vs U.S. industrial production. Join Discussion
Research Radar: Greek gloom
Greek gloom dominates the start of the week as new elections there look inevitable and talk of Greek euro exit, or a Grexit” as common market parlance now has it, mounts. All risk assets and securities hinged on global growth have been hit, with China’s weekend reserve ratio easing doing little to offset gloomy data from world’s second biggest economy at the end of last week. World stocks are down heavily and emerging markets are underperforming; the euro has fallen to near 4-month lows below $1.29; safe haven core government debt is bid as euro peripheral debt yields in Italy and Spain push higher; and global growth bellwethers such as crude oil and the Australian dollar are down – the latter below parity against the US dollar for the first time in 5 months.
Financial research reports on Monday and over the weekend were just as gloomy, but plenty of interesting takes:
Bank of New York Mellon’s Simon Derrick’s view of the Greek political impasse concluded “there is at least an evens chance that the latter part of this summer will see what had officially been seen up until last November as an impossibility: a nation leaving the EUR.”
RBS’s Sanjay Mathur reckons that if there is another hung parliament after new Greek elections, implying no significant voter return to the pro-bailout parties, then euro risk soars. “This means, on another hung parliament, that Greek government IOUs could trade as proxy currency as early as July.” If that does not galvanize sufficient parties into accepting Trioka bailout demands at that point, he said that then exit looms. “Opening up the Pandora’s box of exit means deposit risk across the periphery. The future of the euro would then be dictated by the subsequent policy response.”
Barclays Sree Kochugovindan talks of a three phase possible deterioration of the euro crisis — one, where solvency concerns and asset market fright are contained to Europe and mostly the fixed income markets of the periphery countries concerned; two, solvency concerns hit the core such as France and Belgium with asset market contagion widening before a series of major policy responses; and three, no major policy response or ECB SMP/LTRO, which leads to Greek default and even exit and global market shock akin to September 2008. “Given the immense cost of a crisis triggered by a Greek exit, we are not expecting the current situation to deteriorate into Phase 2. However, the risks are elevated and with the prospect of second round Greek elections in a few weeks, market jitters are likely to continue.”
Deutsche Bank’s global markets note also focuses on rising risks from Greece and also on the May 31 Irish referendum on the EU fiscal pact. Apart from outlining obvious risks to the Greek financing from a political vacuum, one conclusion Deutsche comes to is that a new EU growth pact may happen sooner than many had figured. “The new situation in Athens forces EU leaders to find common ground faster than we thought.” Another conclusion was that Ireland may consider postponing its referendum, given the risk that a “no” vote may disastrously cut off its access to new EU funds and also given a possible delay in German parliamentary votes on the fiscal deal to June. “Ireland might do well to think about postponing the 31 May referendum.” It called Spain’s sweeping banking reform plan “making progress” but a 15 bln euro government recapitalisaation of the banks “too timid”.
HSBC’s Karen Ward and Simon Wells warn about the long-term impact of continuous quantitative easing by central banks, saying the political relationship between central banks and governments rather than inflationary consequences may be the biggest concern. “The heyday of independent central banking could be drawing to a close.”
"This means, on another hung parliament, that Greek government IOUs could trade as proxy currency as early as July" RBS Join DiscussionOn the rocky road to change in China
One thing investors in China thought they could rely on was a steady, if unelected, hand.
Now Chongqing’s political head Bo Xilai has fallen, and in pretty spectacular fashion too. His wife has been accused of murdering a British businessman and his brother had to step down from the board of Everbright Bank. There are rumours the handover of power in the Politburo scheduled for this autumn, when seven out of nine of Chinese leaders are going to retire, could be delayed as the intrigue unfolds.
So what does this mean for investing in the Middle Kingdom? Xi Jinping is tipped for the top, and presuming he makes it to the transition unscathed, one of his tasks will be continuing the internationalisation of the renminbi.
Xi has something of a reputation as a reformer, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’ll let China’s currency float freely.
John Adams, director of HR China and former manager for China at the Bank of England, said this about Xi at a talk in London this week:
He’s a safe pair of hands and one wonders whether he will take these risks to go ahead with letting the renminbi become internationalised…My intuition tells me he will go for a safe option, which may in fact put China on the wrong track.
Xi also has to sort out China’s financial sector, burdened with bad debt, and make sure an international board is finally installed in the Shanghai stock exchange, Adams said.
One thing investors in China thought they could rely on was a steady, if unelected, hand. If this isn't the case, where do we go from here? Join DiscussionNot everyone is “risk off”
Who would have thought it. As fears over the euro zone’s fate, Chinese economic growth and Middle Eastern politics drive investors toward safe-haven U.S. and German bonds, some have apparently been going the other way. According to JPMorgan, bonds from so-called frontier economies such as Pakistan, Belarus and Jordan (usually considered high-risk assets) have performed exceptionally well, doing far better in fact than their peers from mainstream emerging markets. The following graphic from JPM which runs the NEXGEM sub-index of frontier debt, shows that returns on many of these bonds are running well into the double digits.
NEXGEM returns of 8.4 percent are on par with the S&P 500, writes JPMorgan and outstrip all other emerging bond categories. Clearly one reason is the lack of correlation with the mainstream asset classes, many of which have been selling off for weeks amid growth fears and in the run up to French and Greek elections. Second, investors who tend to buy these bonds usually have a pretty high risk-tolerance anyway as they keep their eyes on the double-digit yields they offer.
So year-to-date returns on Ivory Coast’s defaulted debt are running at over 40 percent on hopes that the country will resume payments on its $2.3 billion bond after June. The underperformer is Belize whose bonds suffered from a default scare at the start of the year.
JPMorgan said NEXGEM, accounting for 9 percent of the broader emerging debt index and containing 18 countries, offers the best investment opportunity for the rest of 2012:
JPMorgan's NEXGEM index of risky debt has outperformed most other asset classes this year. Join DiscussionStay overweight NEXGEM credits, including Belize, Dominican Republic, Georgia, Sri Lanka and upgrade Gabon to overweight this month.
Three snapshots for Thursday
The Bundesbank is preparing to stomach higher German inflation than it likes, above the European Central Bank’s target level, because of the euro zone crisis, a source at the central bank said on Thursday.
Although the Bundesbank still wants stable prices across the euro zone, its latest comments show the bank recognises that upward pressure on German wage costs and property prices suggest its inflation is likely to rise above the bloc’s average.
As this chart shows, historically the Bundesbank was quick to react to any signs of inflation:
The Bank of England voted on Thursday not to give the struggling economy another injection of cash as concerns over stubbornly high inflation outweighed the risk of a prolonged recession.
The number of Americans submitting new applications for jobless benefits edged down last week, easing concerns the labor market was deteriorating after April’s weak employment growth.
Three snapshots for Thursday, German and UK inflation, US jobless claims. Join DiscussionSouth African bond rush
It’s been a great year so far for South African bonds. But can it get better?
Ever since Citi announced on April 16 that South African government bonds would join its World Government Bond Index (WGBI), almost 20 billion rand (over $2.5 billion ) in foreign cash has flooded to the local debt markets in Johannesburg, bringing year-to-date inflows to over 37 billion rand. Last year’s total was 48 billion. Michael Grobler, bond analyst at Johannesburg-based brokerage Afrifocus Securities predicts total 2012 inflows at over 60 billion rand, surpassing the previous 56 billion rand record set in 2o1o:
The assumption..is based on the fact that South Africa will have a much larger and diversified investor base following inclusion in the WGBI expanding beyond the EM debt asset class
Currently South African bonds are restricted to emerging local bond indices. The most-widely used, JPMorgan’s GBI-EM, has less than $200 billion benchmarked to it and South Africa’s weighting is 10 percent. But the WGBI is a different matter altogether — around $2 trillion is estimated to track this index which currently includes just 22 countries, only three of them emerging markets. An expected 0.44 percent weighting for South Africa implies inflows of $5-$9 billion, analysts estimate.
Some of that cash has already come. How much more could roll in this year? Optimists point to Mexico – foreign ownership of the local debt market there rose to 31 percent from 24 percent over 2010, the year the country joined the WGBI, with $11 billion flowing in. But the picture in South Africa is in fact not that rosy. Inflows will undoubtedly pick up, benefiting both bonds and the rand but many reckon positioning in South African bonds is already pretty crowded – about a third of the market is in foreign hands already, analysts at Morgan Stanley reckon. Worse, the country faces a possible credit ratings downgrade this year (all three rating agencies have cut its ratings outlook to negative in recent months).
Kieran Curtis, a fund manager at Aviva Investors upped his holdings of South African local bonds after the WGBI news but is reluctant to go overweight, betting the market will benefit less than Mexico did two years ago. He cites two reasons — first South Africa’s budget deficit has been creeping higher and it follows that debt issuance will too. Second, the external backdrop is less supportive today than two years ago when the Fed was in full money-printing mode:
The WGBI will give South African bonds a boost but maybe not as much as some expect Join DiscussionI wouldnt say I detect a very strong commitment in South Africa to restoring the budget to balance and those debt numbers can rise quickly when you have a 5-6 percent deficit. Also Mexico’s inclusion came at a time when U.S. Treasury yields were falling fairly quickly but now, with Treasury yields rising we may not get the same support for South Africa.
Three snapshots for Wednesday
This chart shows the wide dispersion in equity market performance so far this year. In local currency terms Korea has a total return of nearly 12% and Germany over 10%, this compares to Italy at-6% and Spain at -16%.
In contrast to last year, this has driven average correlations between equity markets lower.
However, correlations may well pick up if markets move back into ‘risk-off’ mode. The chart below showing the weakness in the Citigroup G10 economic surprise indicator seems to be pointing towards further weakness in bonds relative to equities.
Three snapshots for Wednesday: Country equity performance, cross-country equity correlation and economic surprise. Join Discussion
Poland, the lonely inflation targeter
Is the National Bank of Poland (NBP) the last inflation-targeting central bank still standing?
The bank shocked many today with a quarter point rate rise, naming stubbornly high inflation as the reason, and signalling that more tightening is on its way. The NBP has sounded hawkish in recent weeks but few had actually expected it to carry through its threat to raise rates. Economic indicators of late have been far from cheerful – just hours after the rate rise, data showed Polish car production slumped 30 percent in April from year-ago levels. PMI numbers last week pointed to further deterioration ahead for manufacturing. And sitting as it does on the euro zone’s doorstep, Poland will be far more vulnerable than Brazil or Russia to any new setback in Greece. Its action therefore deserves praise, says Benoit Anne, head of emerging markets strategy at Societe Generale.
(Poland’s central bank) is one of the last orthodox inflation-targeting central banks in the global emerging market central bank universe. They are taking action because they are seeing inflation creeping up and have decided to be proactive.
The rate rise is especially notable given many central banks in developing countries appear effectively to have surrendered their inflation-fighting mandate. Nowhere is the push for lower interest rates more pronounced than in Brazil where the government last week announced plans to scrap fixed-rate savings deposits in a move that is seen paving the way for more agressive rate cuts. Clearly there is tolerance here for higher inflation, which will still end 2012 well above target.
But many analysts such as Manik Narain at UBS consider Poland’s decision a high-risk one given the growth issues. Narain sees it possibly motivated by the need to signal Poland will not welcome further currency weakness (the zloty like most emerging currencies has shed much of its early-2012 gain) Therefore a prolonged monetary tightening cycle is unlikely, he says. Indeed many reckon the NBP may find itself, like the European Central Bank last year, reversing an ill-considered rate rise. Analysts at Capital Economics write:
Is the National Bank of Poland (NBP) the last inflation-targeting central bank still standing? Join DiscussionIf we are right in expecting growth and inflation to slow by more than most expect over the second half of this year then this may well be the NBP’s “ECB moment”. Recall that having hiked rates twice in the first half of 2011, the ECB was forced to start loosening policy once again by November as the economy weakened. In Poland’s case, we think there is a good chance that today’s rate hike will be reversed by the end of the year.
Big Fish, Small Pond?
It’s the scenario that Bank of England economist Andrew Haldane last year termed the Big Fish Small Pond problem — the prospect of rising global investor allocations swamping the relatively small emerging markets asset class.
But as of now, the picture is better described as a Small Fish in a Big Pond, Morgan Stanley says in a recent study, because emerging markets still receive a tiny share of asset allocations from the giant investment funds in the developed world.
These currently stand at under 10% of diversified portfolios from G4 countries even though emerging markets make up almost a fifth of the market capitalisation of world equity and debt capital markets. In the case of Japan, just 4% of cross-border investments are in emerging markets, MS estimates.
But change is on its way. MS surveys show most classes of global institutional investors intend to boost allocations to emerging markets, including the more conservative investor groups – Japan’s $1.3 trillion government pension insurance fund, for instance, plans to start buying emerging equities later this year. MS analysts calculate allocations to emerging markets could rise 3.5% over the next five years.
That may not sound like much until one realises the true scale of the global pool of investable institutional assets and compares them with current market cap values in developing countries . These assets currently exceed $212 trillion, meaning a 3.5 % allocation increase will bring over $2 trillion into emerging markets. That’s over half the capitalisation of EM equity market, more than 80% of bond markets and a third of the combined market cap of both sectors.
Take a look at some more numbers:
– Based on current market values, a 1% increase in allocation to EM by pension and insurance funds represents a $524 billion flow to EM assets.
Emerging markets are currently a small fish in the big pond of global investment portfolios. But the opposite scenario (Big fish, small pond) may soon come to pass if investors start ramping up allocations, Morgan Stanley says. Join Discussion