Economy Archives - Page 55 of 133 - the patient investor

August 6, 2015

Dollar strengthens on low inflation

Core CPI continues to hover below the Fed’s 2.0% target, while plunging oil prices keep the broad index close to zero. Core CPI is likely to weaken as the beneficial effect of lower energy costs flows through to all sectors of the economy.

CPI and Core CPI

We often read of the threat of impending deflation — which may well occur. But one needs to differentiate between deflation caused by a surge in aggregate supply, as in the present situation, and a fall in aggregate demand as in 2008. The former may well act as a stimulus to the global economy, while the latter threatens a negative feedback loop between income and consumption which can lead to substantial falls in output.

Low inflation takes pressure off the Fed to raise interest rates but we can expect the first increment later this year. 10-Year Treasury yields respected the rising trendline and support at 2.10%, suggesting another test of 2.50%.

10-Year Treasury Yields

The higher trough on the Dollar Index indicates buying pressure and breakout above 98 would signal another test of 100. In the longer term, breakout above 100 would signal resumption of the primary up-trend but is likely to meet push-back from the Fed as a higher dollar would hurt both exporters and domestic producers competing against imports.

Dollar Index

July 28, 2015

China: Deja vu all over again

The Shanghai Composite today found support at 3500 today after plunging more than 8% on Monday. The large divergence on 13-week Twiggs Money Flow continues to warn of selling pressure.

Shanghai Composite Index

* Target calculation: 4000 – ( 5000 – 4000 ) = 3000

Japan’s Lost Decade

From Wikipedia:

The Japanese asset price bubble….. was an economic bubble in Japan from 1986 to 1991 in which real estate and stock market prices were greatly inflated. The bubble was characterized by rapid acceleration of asset prices and overheated economic activity, as well as an uncontrolled money supply and credit expansion. More specifically, over-confidence and speculation regarding asset and stock prices had been closely associated with excessive monetary easing policy at the time.

By August 1990, the Nikkei stock index had plummeted to half its peak by the time of the fifth monetary tightening by the Bank of Japan (BOJ)…..the economy’s decline continued for more than a decade. This decline resulted in a huge accumulation of non-performing assets loans (NPL), causing difficulties for many financial institutions. The bursting of the Japanese asset price bubble contributed to what many call the Lost Decade.

“…uncontrolled money supply and credit expansion….overheated stock market and real estate bubble.” Sound familiar? It should. We are witnessing a re-run but this time in China. Wait, there’s more…..

…..At the end of August 1987, the BOJ signaled the possibility of tightening the monetary policy, but decided to delay the decision in view of economic uncertainty related to Black Monday (October 19, 1987) in the US.

…..BOJ reluctance to tighten the monetary policy was in spite of the fact that the economy went into expansion in the second half of 1987. The Japanese economy had just recovered from the “endaka recession” ….. closely linked to the Plaza Accord of September 1985, which led to the strong appreciation of the Japanese yen.

…..in order to overcome the “endaka” recession and stimulate the local economy, an aggressive fiscal policy was adopted, mainly through expansion of public investment. Simultaneously, the BOJ declared that curbing the yen’s appreciation was a “national priority”……

Global stock market crash leads to prolonged monetary easing…… aggressive expansion of public investment to stimulate the domestic economy…..central bank efforts to curb appreciation of the currency. We all know how this ends. We’ve seen the movie before.

It’s like deja-vu, all over again. ~ Yogi Berra

July 24, 2015

Chinese Manufacturing Activity Falls in July – The New York Times

From Reuters:

BEIJING — China’s factory sector contracted by the most in 15 months in July as shrinking orders depressed output, a preliminary private survey showed on Friday, a worse-than-expected result that should reinforce bets the struggling Chinese economy will get more stimulus.

The flash Caixin/Markit China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) dropped to 48.2, the lowest reading since April last year and a fifth straight month below 50, the level which separates contraction from expansion.

July 20, 2015

APRA confirms further capital adequacy measures

From Robin Christie:

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has confirmed that the country’s largest banks will face increased capital adequacy requirements for residential mortgage exposures – and hasn’t ruled out further rises.

The regulator made it clear yesterday that the new rules would be an interim measure based on the Financial System Inquiry’s (FSI) recommendations – and that it was keenly awaiting guidance from the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision before making any further changes.

The new measures, which come into effect on 1 July 2016, mandate that authorised deposit-taking institutions (ADIs) that are accredited to use the internal ratings-based (IRB) approach to credit risk must increase their average risk weight on Australian residential mortgage exposures to at least 25 per cent. According to APRA, the current average risk weight figure sits at around 16 per cent….

This is a welcome first step. Increases in bank capital will improve economic stability. Even at 25 percent, however, a capital ratio of 10% would mean that banks are holding 2.5 percent capital against residential mortgages. Further increases over time will be necessary.

July 19, 2015

Why negative gearing is not a fair tax policy

Interesting view from Antony Ting, Associate Professor at University of Sydney:

Is negative gearing in accordance with well-established tax rules? A fundamental principle in the tax law is that a taxpayer should be able to deduct expenses only if the expenses have been incurred to generate assessable income.

This is why an employee can only deduct expenses that are sufficiently related to work. For example, a funeral director at tropical Queensland would be able to deduct the cost of his black jacket (but not his black trousers) because the ATO believes that no rational person – except a funeral director – would wear a black jacket in such a hot place.

Should mortgage interest on an investment property be deductible? Investment properties generate two kinds of income: rental income and capital gains (if any). As capital gains on investment property can enjoy a 50% tax discount if the property has been held for at least a year, strictly speaking only 50% of the interest expenses related to the capital gain should be deductible.

……Many countries resolve this issue by quarantining losses on investment properties. It means that losses generated from negative gearing cannot be used to offset against other sources of income, for example, salaries or business income. Instead, the losses can be carried forward to future years to offset against income from the investment properties.

Quarantining losses seems fairer than limiting deductibility of losses to the 50% discount normally available on capital gains. But the situation gets more complicated when the property is sold. Can accumulated losses never be deducted against gains on other assets or should they be offset against any capital gain made on disposal of the property? And if the result is a net capital loss should this be allowed to be offset against gains on other properties? We need a system that is fundamentally fair.

July 16, 2015

China’s Debt-to-GDP Ratio Just Climbed to a Record High – Bloomberg Business

From Ye Xie and Belinda Cao at Bloomberg:

While China’s economic expansion beat analysts’ forecasts in the second quarter, the country’s debt levels increased at an even faster pace.

Outstanding loans for companies and households stood at a record 207 percent of gross domestic product at the end of June, up from 125 percent in 2008, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

July 15, 2015

China’s stock market falling off a cliff: Why, and why care? | Alicia García-Herrero at Bruegel.org

Great insight from Alicia García-Herrero:

….The need for Chinese corporations and banks to avail themselves of fresh equity cannot be underestimated. On the one hand, corporate debt has grown sixfold from 2005 levels. On the other hand, Chinese banks are not only heavily exposed to these corporates, being still their main source of financing, but also to local governments whose huge borrowing from banks is starting to be restructured. To make a long story short, China’s governments needed a bull stock market to transfer part of the cost of cleaning up its corporates’ and banks’ balance sheets from the state to private investors, including foreigners. The PBoC danced to the Government’s tune, easing monetary policy since November last year. This was done through several interest rate cuts and by lowering the liquidity ratio requirements. The problem with all of this liquidity is that it only fueled additional leveraging, including for gambling on the stock market…..

The sudden collapse of the Chinese stock market had two triggers. First, the was a wave of profit taking after the Shanghai benchmark index broke through 5 000 in early June and doubts emerged about further easing from the PBoC. At that very same moment, China’s securities regulator announced measures to cool down the market, which amounted to banning brokerage firms from providing unregulated margin funding to investors. This was more of a shock to the system than one might imagine, as margin financing in China is much larger than in other stock markets.

Japan had zombie banks, looks like China could end up with a zombie stock market.

July 15, 2015

Could a new property tax save the economy?

Interesting article by Robin Christie | 16 Jul 2015

Property levies could be the key to fixing state and territory budgets, and could raise as much as $7 billion a year, the Grattan Institute has claimed.

Grattan’s ‘Property Taxes’ report…..explores how imposing a broad-based property levy could help Australia’s state and territory governments to boost their deteriorating budgets.

According to the report, a levy of just two dollars for every $1,000 of unimproved land value would raise $7 billion a year.

…….While it accepts that property taxes can be unpopular because they are highly visible and hard to avoid, it states that they are also both efficient and fair. In addition, it argues that property taxes don’t change incentives to work, save and invest.

“Our proposal is manageable for property landowners, and protects low-income people,” said Daley. “Low-income retirees with high-value houses could defer paying the levy until their house is sold.”

Key points

According to the paper, other key arguments in favour of property taxes include:

Unlike capital, property is immobile – it cannot shift offshore to avoid taxes.

Over the last 25 years, taxes on property and property transactions have been the only significant growth taxes for states, with revenues keeping pace with the economy.

Shifting from stamp duty to a property levy would provide more stable revenues for states, and add up to $9 billion in annual GDP.

“Concerns about the risks of multinational tax avoidance, the increasing mobility of capital around the world, and the increasing value of residential property relative to incomes, should make property taxes a priority in any tax reform,” states the paper.

“Higher property taxes could also be used to fund the reduction and eventual abolition of state stamp duties on property. Stamp duties are among the most inefficient and inequitable taxes available to states, and their revenues are inherently volatile.”

Abolition of stamp duties would remove the temptation for State governments to restrict land release, driving up prices in order to increase stamp duty revenue. But high prices act as a deterrent for young families to purchase their own homes. Land taxes instead would create an incentive for states to release new land for development, widening property ownership and their tax base.

July 14, 2015

Bank share prices tipped to decline

Chris Joye at the AFR warns that increased capital requirements could cause an 18.5 percent fall in bank stocks:

….APRA warns that because the report makes several assumptions that are unrealistically favourable to the majors, and the majors’ CET1 ratios have fallen behind global peers since June 2014, it believes they “are likely to need to increase their capital ratios by at least 200 basis points … to be comfortably positioned in the fourth quartile”.

In dollar terms, UBS’ No. 1 ranked analyst Jonathon Mott estimates that this represents a CET1 shortfall of about $24 billion today, accounting for the extra equity the majors have started sourcing since June 2014 (the short-fall would otherwise have been $30 billion). That’s consistent with the lower bound of estimates I previously canvassed here.

Yet this number may be a low-ball for two reasons. First, APRA has yet to respond to the FSI’s recommendation of introducing a minimum average residential mortgage “risk-weighting” of between 25 per cent and 30 per cent. Second, the majors are likely to be slugged with higher risk-weights on their non-residential assets as a consequence of the new Basel 4 rules.

UBS’ research implies that the combined impact of this will be another $16 billion in CET1 on top of the $24 billion shortfall, which gives a total CET1 capital deficiency of $40 billion.

The Australian Financial Review’s Chanticleer column says the majors will only be given 12 months to boost CET1 in response to APRA’s looming decision on residential mortgage risk-weights, which the regulator says it will make “shortly”.

Bank share prices tipped to decline

From a shareholders’ perspective, higher equity means lower leverage and associated returns. Whether that translates into a fall in the majors’ valuations is an open question and depends on whether reduced returns on equity are offset by repricing of deposits and loans and cheaper overall funding costs. As I have explained before, there are arguments for and against. My base-case is that we see a 200 basis point dilution in returns on equity from current world-beating marks that results in a circa 18.5 per cent reduction in major bank valuations.

I would expect APRA to soften the blow by phasing in increased capital ratios and risk-weighting of residential mortgages over time. The impact this will have on valuations depends on several factors. Lower perceived risk could lead to lower cost of funding as well as higher earnings multiples. Also, a BIS study has shown that banks with stronger balance sheets are likely to experience stronger growth — which would again raise the earnings multiple. But I agree with Joye that we are likely to witness some softening of major bank stocks.

July 13, 2015

APRA considers two per cent capital adequacy increase

by Robin Christie | 14 Jul 2015

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has stated that the major banks would need to increase their capital adequacy ratios by at least two per cent to meet Financial System Inquiry (FSI) recommendations.

APRA has been comparing the capital position of the Australian major banks against a group of international counterparts, and the results of this study, released today, have led to the two per cent figure being mooted.

The study was implemented as a direct response to the FSI final report’s first recommendation, that APRA should “set capital standards such that Australian authorised deposit-taking institution [ADI] capital ratios are unquestionably strong”. This would mean making sure that Australian ADIs sit in the top quartile of internationally-active banks in capital adequacy terms.

….the statement adds that APRA is committed to ensuring that any capital adequacy requirement improvements occur “in an orderly manner”. This process would take into account Australian ADIs’ ability to manage the impact of any changes “without undue disruption to their business plans”.

While APRA hasn’t made a decision on whether it will go as far as mandating a two per cent increase in capital adequacy ratios…. it has stated that Australian ADIs should be well placed to accommodate its directives over the next few years – “provided they take sensible opportunities to accumulate capital”.

Bear in mind that capital adequacy ratios are measured against risk-weighted assets, where asset values are adjusted for the perceived risk of default. Australian banks have historically used risk weightings as low as 15% for residential mortgages compared to 50% in the US. That means that a bank with a capital ratio of 10% would only hold 1.5% capital against residential mortgages. And a 2% increase, to a capital ratio of 12%, would only increase capital cover to 1.8%. Revision of risk weightings is more important than an increase in the capital ratio, especially given Australia’s precarious property market.