Just when everyone thought easy money was history
Almost
exactly a year ago, then-Fed Chairman Bernanke uttered his infamous
"tapering" comment. What transpired thereafter was nothing short of
mayhem: the yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury rose 1 full percentage
point, assets from equities to TIPS sold off across the board, and
billions of dollars of market value vanished in the portfolios of major
investment funds (including the one where yours truly works at). Beyond
the borders of the U.S., finance ministers and central bankers from
Brazil to Indonesia - who had become so used to foreign capital flowing into their
economies - suddenly found caught in a reversing tide. In short, in May
2013, everyone thought that the era of easy money was over.
Fast forward to May 2014, and you'd be forgiven for
thinking that all of the above was nothing more than a nasty nightmare.
In fact, what we've seen this month has been the polar opposite of last
year's "taper tantrum." For one, the 10-year Treasury yield managed to
fall below the 2.50 percent mark for the first time since last fall (to
put things into perspective, the yield was above 3 percent at the start
of the year). Even more spectacular has been the rally in assets abroad.
To such an extent that the Brazilian central bank is once again getting
concerned about the strength of the Real currency, not the
other way around. And to the point where Spain can borrow for 5 years at
the same interest rate as the U.S. Treasury, and Portugal (a country
with a 130 percent debt/GDP ratio) managed to auction 10-year bonds for a
mere 3.6 percent yield.
What has been the catalyst for this sudden reversal in
sentiment? Many would point to a shift in tone since Janet Yellen
succeeded Bernanke as Fed chair in February. Indeed, Yellen has presided
over quite an aggressive verbal campaign by Fed officials to reassure
markets that loose liquidity conditions would continue. And
notwithstanding the clumsy "six months" comment in March, the jawboning
campaign seems to have mollified investors for now.
But even more so than the Fed, the "taper un-tantrum"
has to do with the fact that there's a new 800-pound gorilla in town.
This is a player who, after shackling the printing presses for so long,
now wants in on the easy-money bandwagon. You guessed it, it's the ECB.
We also discussed at length in our May 12th post ("A long overdue
wake-up call for euro bulls") the motives behind the change of heart in
Frankfurt. Namely, (1) the creeping threat of deflation and, (2) a
strengthening euro currency that's eroding the competitiveness gains the
peripheral economies have so painfully achieved. Now, the ECB is openly
considering a raft of potential measures, including negative
deposit rates, hundreds of billions of euros of longer-term loans for
European lenders, or outright purchases of bonds (including asset-backed
securities and government bonds). And never before has ECB President
Draghi staked his credibility to this extent; after shaping market
consensus for so many months now, it would be hard to imagine the bank not following through at its June 5 policy meeting with some sort of concrete action.
Which of these measures will ultimately be implemented,
and the overall size of the program, are unclear at the moment. And
skeptics (rightfully) point to the fact that such measures are not new
to the ECB. After all, the ECB did provide more than 1 trillion euros of
3-year loans to banks at the end of 2011, and purchased up to 200
billion euros of peripheral debt between 2010 and 2012. But the key
difference lies in the objective of these programs. Back then, the primary goal was market stabilization, or in other words, to halt the free-fall in Spanish, Italian, and Greek bond prices. Neither
inflation (still above the bank's 2 percent target in several key
Eurozone economies) nor a weaker euro featured on the ECB's priority
list at the time. In fact, unlike in the U.S. or Japan, the ECB ensured that all the extra money from the government-bond purchases was sterilized (i.e. reabsorbed) via its open-market operations, so the net "money-printing effect" from the bond-buying program was neutral. This
time is different though. The explicit objective is to reflate the
economy and debase the euro, and for a central bank, there's no credible
alternative to aggressive money creation to jolt the economic agents in
that direction. So if Draghi and his colleagues are genuinely
interested in addressing what they claim are their key concerns, they
will need more than the "bazooka," they'll need the nuclear option.
Euro bulls have already come under pressure, with the
common currency falling back to 1.36 after approaching the 1.40 mark
just weeks prior. Risk assets around the world are also responding to
the heightened anticipation, rallying on the prospect of another deluge
of central bank liquidity. And while there's always the risk of the ECB
underwhelming expectations, we believe that the circumstances are increasingly stacked in favor of more easy money.
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