The madness of central bankers

Today will depending on what time you read this either have seen yet more monetary policy accommodation by the European Central Bank or be about to get it. It;s President Mario Draghi is too smooth an operator to so strongly hint at it for nothing to happen, especially as in my opinion he feels the need to set policy for the new incoming ECB President Christine Lagarde who he knows well. That is quite a damning critique of her abilities if you think about it which is in line with her track record. But as to the action further confirmation has been provided by the way that markets have been toyed with by leaks from what are known as official “sauces”.

For those unaware the “sauces” strategy is to suggest lots of action as I pointed out on the 16th of August.

Investors currently expect the ECB to cut its key interest rate to minus 0.7% and to hold rates below their current level through 2024, according to futures markets. Mr. Rehn said those market expectations showed that investors had understood the ECB’s guidance.

Actually even this position had its own contradictions.

So will he now be overshooting -0.5% or -0.7%? Actually it gets better as -0.6% is in there now as well.

Later we get told that much less will happen as we saw earlier this week as the last thing central bankers want to see on their big day is the word “disappointment”. So we get this.

Oh, the grand old Duke of York
He had ten thousand men
He marched them up to the top of the hill
And he marched them down again
And when they were up, they were up
And when they were down, they were down
And when they were only half-way up
They were neither up nor down

The whole plan here is under the category of “open mouth operations” which might serve the purposes of the ECB but anyone in the real economy is being actively misled. The only saving grace is that most people will be unaware but there have been real world effects on mortgage rates and the rates at which companies and countries can borrow.

Where are we now?

Joumanna Bercetche of CNBC has summarised the expected position.

Here’s what analysts are expecting:
1) Majority expect 10bps rate cut to -50bps (minority 20bps cut)
2) Tiering
3) Restart of Asset Purchases : sov +corp bonds of EUR 30bn x 12 months (risk of LESS given recent hawkish commentary)
4) Enhanced Fwd Guidance

Interest-Rates

Let us address this as it clearly fails Einstein’s definition of madness. As to doing the same thing and expecting a different result well how about cutting interest-rates by 0.1% four times as has happened to the Deposit Rate and then adding a fifth! Or adding another 0.1% ( or even 0.2%) to a sequence of cuts amounting to 3.65% so far and expecting a different result.

Oh and I see more than a few saying the ECB interest-rate is 0% as indeed one of its interest-rates is. However I use the Deposit Rate because the amount of money deposited with the ECB at this rate is some 1.9 trillion Euros.

Next there was a stage where the madness went even further and we were told that shifting the differences between the various ECB interest-rates was a big deal. For example the minimum lending rate has fallen by 4% so 0.35% more than the Deposit Rate. This has an influence for financial markets but little or no impact on the real economy.

It all seems rather small fry compared to this from President Trump.

The Federal Reserve should get our interest rates down to ZERO, or less, and we should then start to refinance our debt. INTEREST COST COULD BE BROUGHT WAY DOWN, while at the same time substantially lengthening the term. We have the great currency, power, and balance sheet………The USA should always be paying the the lowest rate. No Inflation! It is only the naïveté of Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve that doesn’t allow us to do what other countries are already doing. A once in a lifetime opportunity that we are missing because of “Boneheads.”

The problem for the Donald is that if negative interest-rates were any sort of magic elixir we would not be where we are.Sadly the ECB proves this as it ends up having to keep cutting to keep up what I have previously described as a type of junkie culture.

On the upside the “once in a lifetime” reference may mean he is also a Talking Heads fan.

Tiering

This is another sign of central banking madness where their policies are essentially always aimed at the banks. The interest-rate cuts and QE were to help bail them out but went so far that they now hurt the banks. For newer readers this is because the banks are afraid to pass on the negative interest-rates to ordinary depositors in case they withdraw their money.

So we seem likely to see an effort to shield the banks by some of their deposits at the ECB not having the full negative rate applied. The real economy gets no such sweetners.

Again if the policy of protecting “The Precious” worked these new policies would not be necessary would they?

QE

Exactly the same critique applies here. Up until now some 2.6 trillion Euros of bonds has been bought for monetary policy purposes or Quantitative Easing. So what difference will another 360 billion Euros make? Especially if we remind ourselves that the original programme only ended last December so even fans of it have to admit the sugar high went pretty fast.

There is a subtler argument here which is that the ECB is really oiling the wheels of fiscal policy by making debt cheap to issue for Euro area nations. But what difference has this made? Some maybe at the margins but the basic case of Germany is a fail. In spite of its ability to be paid to issue debt Germany still plans to run a fiscal surplus.

Enhanced Forward Guidance

in 2019 this led many ECB watchers to expect an interest-rate rise and instead we are getting a cut. I am not sure how you could enhance this unless they expect to do even worse!

Comment

My critique has so far looked mostly at the ECB but whilst in some areas it is the leader of the pack there are plenty of other signs of madness. After two “lost decades” the Bank of Japan cut interest-rates by 0.1% to -0.1%. Then it introduced Yield Curve Control which in recent times has been raising bond yields rather than cutting them in a complete misfire. In my home country the UK we saw the Bank of England plan to cut interest-rates by 0.15% in November 2016 before fortunately realising that it had misjudged the economy and abandoning the plan. They end up singing along with Genesis.

You know I want to, but I’m in too deep…

As to the situation the immediate one is grim as this from Eurostat today reminds us.

In July 2019 compared with July 2018, industrial production decreased by 2.0% in the euro area.

But this is a “trade war” issue which has very little to do with monetary policy. As to the domestic impulse the money supply figures have picked up in 2019 so the ECB may be easing at exactly the wrong moment just as it turned out it ended easing at the wrong moment. So let me end with the nutty boys.

Madness, madness, they call it madness
Madness, madness, they call it madness
It’s plain to see
That is what they mean to me
Madness, madness, they call it gladness, ha-ha

Number Crunching

This tweet has gained popularity.

“£4,563,350,000 of aggregate short positions on a ‘no deal’ Brexit have been taken out by hedge funds that directly or indirectly bankrolled Boris Johnson’s leadership campaign” ( Carole Cadwalladr)

I took a look at the article referred to in the Byline Times and if you read it then it conflates being short the UK Pound £ with being short individual shares which is bizarre. Next it has no mention at all of any long positions these companies may have.