The economy of China is not seeing a V-Shaped recovery

This morning has seen a does of economic news from the epicentre of the current pandemic and hence crisis which is China. This is keenly awaited as we see how the economy responds to the pandemic. Sadly we seem already to be charging into what might be described as Fake News so let us take a look.

BEIJING, March 31 (Xinhua) — The purchasing managers’ index (PMI) for China’s manufacturing sector firmed up to 52 in March from 35.7 in February, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) said Tuesday.
A reading above 50 indicates expansion, while a reading below reflects contraction.
The rebound came as the country’s arduous efforts in coordinating epidemic control and economic and social development have generally filtered through, NBS senior statistician Zhao Qinghe said.

Okay now first we need to remind ourselves that this is a sentiment indicator not an actual output number although tucked away we do get some clearer  guidance.

With positive changes taking place in domestic epidemic control and prevention, 96.6 percent of China’s large and medium-sized enterprises have resumed production, up 17.7 percentage points from one month ago, NBS survey showed.
A sub-index for production, rallied 26.3 points from one month earlier to 54.1, hinting at reviving production activities.

Below we seem some sectors which we would expect to pick-up and in fact are probably flat-out. Let’s face it demand for some protective equipment may never have been as high as this.

Meanwhile, the PMI for high-tech manufacturing, equipment manufacturing and consumer goods all stood in expansion zone, signaling quickened restoration in the sectors, according to Zhao.

The twitter feed of Xinhua News also continues with the line that things are in some cases back to normal.

As the outbreak of the novel #coronavirus has been basically contained in China, the construction of Xiongan, often billed as China’s “city of the future,” has resumed in an orderly manner.

I am sure some of you have already spotted the difference between “basically contained” and contained already. But the theme is of an economic recovery.

China’s March composite PMI rose significantly to 53, up 24.1 points from February.

This has been reported as being quite a rebound as the two tweet below highlight.

Wow! Impressive V-shape recovery in #China’s Manufacturing #PMI. Up to 52 from 35.7. ( @jsblokland) 

 

So far, data seems to support China’s prospects of a V-shaped economic recovery…. Strong PMI rebound.

The second tweet is from the editor of The Spectator Fraser Nelson.

A V-shaped recovery means that you are very quickly back to where you started. This was what was promised for Greece back in the day which is of course a troubling harbinger. After all the Greek economy promptly collapsed.

The National Bureau of Statistics

It published an explainer which tells a rather different story.

The purchasing manager index is a chain index, which reflects the economic changes in this month compared with the previous month. The magnitude of the change has a great relationship with the base of the previous month.

There was more.

the manufacturing PMI, non-manufacturing business activity index, and the comprehensive PMI output index fell sharply in February, and the base rose from the previous month. These data indicate that the production and operation status of enterprises in March has significantly changed from February.

This gets reinforced here.

Taking the production index as an example, according to the answer of the enterprise purchasing manager to the question “The production volume of the main products of this month has changed from last month”,

So as you can see the situation is likely to be as follows the reading of 52 is an improvement on the 35.7 of February. so for example might be 38 or 39 if we try to impose some sort of absolute moniker in this. Accordingly there has been an improvement but V-shaped?

The mire sanguine view I have expressed is much more in line with this from the South China Morning Post today.

China’s economic situation could get worse before it gets better, amid a second wave of demand shock that is set to hit both domestic and foreign trade, a Chinese government official has warned.Addressing a press conference in Beijing on Monday, the day after President Xi Jinping toured businesses in Zhejiang province, vice-minister of industry and information technology Xin Guobin delivered a candid and downbeat assessment of the economy, in a subtle break from recent optimistic rhetoric about economic recovery.

What is behind his thinking?

“With the further spread of the international epidemic, China’s foreign trade situation may further deteriorate,” Xin said. “Overseas and domestic demand are both slumping, having a significant impact on some export-oriented companies. These companies might face a struggle to survive.”

We also get a clue as to what “barely contained” in terms of the Corona Virus means.

After bringing the domestic epidemic under control, China gave the green light earlier this month for over 600 cinemas, thousands of tourism attractions and half the country’s restaurants to reopen.

But in sudden U-turn last Friday, the National Film Bureau ordered all cinemas to shut down again, without explaining why or when they might hope to reopen.

Shanghai municipal authorities also ordered a number of famous tourist attractions to close over the weekend, including the Oriental Pearl Tower and Shanghai Ocean Aquarium.

Is it back?

Hong Kong

We have looked at Hong Kong before because it had its economic troubles before this pandemic struck. However in terms of today’s subject it does give us something of a clue to what is happening in China and if so today’s Retail Sales numbers speak for themselves.

After netting out the effect of price changes over the same period, the provisional estimate of the volume of total retail sales in February 2020 decreased by 46.7% compared with a year earlier. The revised estimate of the volume of total retail sales in January 2020 decreased by 23.1% compared with a year earlier. For the first two months of 2020 taken together, the provisional estimate of the total retail sales decreased by 33.9% in volume compared with the same period in 2019.

It is not to say that some areas have not seen a boost.

 On the other hand, the value of sales of commodities in supermarkets increased by 11.1% in the first two months of 2020 over the same period a year earlier.  This was followed by sales of fuels (+6.5% in value).

The first part is no surprise but unless people were fleeing the place ( or perhaps preparing to) I am unsure about the second part.

For the other areas of retail sales it was basically the tale of woe you might expect.

Analysed by broad type of retail outlet in descending order of the provisional estimate of the value of sales and comparing the combined total sales for January and February 2020 with the same period a year earlier, the value of sales of food, alcoholic drinks and tobacco decreased by 9.3%. This was followed by sales of jewellery, watches and clocks, and valuable gifts (-58.6% in value); other consumer goods, not elsewhere classified (-21.9%); electrical goods and other consumer durable goods, not elsewhere classified (-25.1%); medicines and cosmetics (-42.7%); commodities in department stores (-41.4%); wearing apparel (-49.9%); motor vehicles and parts (-24.2%); footwear, allied products and other clothing accessories (-43.1%); furniture and fixtures (-19.6%); Chinese drugs and herbs (-23.7%); books, newspapers, stationery and gifts (-35.0%); and optical shops (-28.6%).

Comment

These are highly charged times both in terms of the pandemic and the subsequent economic outlook. As you can see the reports of China bouncing back are in fact beyond optimistic. Indeed even Xhinua News made the point.

However, Zhao said the single-month rise does not necessarily mean the production has been back to pre-outbreak levels, noting that more data should be observed. The upturn of economy, Zhao said, only comes when the PMI moves up for at least three consecutive months.

So today’s song lyrics come from Brian Ferry ( although originally written by Bob Dylan).

It’s a hard and it’s a hard and it’s a hard and it’s a hard
And it’s a hard rain’s a gonna fall

Where next for UK house prices?

This week has opened in what by recent standards is a relatively calm fashion. Well unless you are involved in the crude oil market as prices have taken another dive. That does link to the chaos in the airline industry where Easyjet has just grounded all its fleet. Although that is partly symbolic as the lack of aircraft noise over South West London in the morning now gives a clear handle on how many were probably flying anyway. So let us take a dip in the Bank of England’s favourite swimming pool which is UK house prices.

Bank of England

It has acted in emergency fashion twice this month and the state of play is as shown below.

Over recent weeks, the MPC has reduced Bank Rate by 65 basis points, from 0.75% to 0.1%, and introduced a Term Funding scheme with additional incentives for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (TFSME). It has also announced an increase in the stock of asset purchases, financed by the issuance of central bank reserves, by £200 billion to a total of £645 billion.

If we look for potential effects then the opening salvo of an interest-rate cut has much less impact than it used to as whilst there are of course variable-rate mortgages out there the new mortgage market has been dominated by fixed-rates for a while now. The next item the TFSME is more significant as both its fore-runners did lead to lower mortgage-rates. Also the original TFS and its predecessor the Funding for Lending Scheme or FLS lead to more money being made available to the mortgage market. This helped net UK mortgage lending to go from being negative to being of the order of £4 billion a month in recent times. The details are below.

When interest rates are low, it is likely to be difficult for some banks and building societies to reduce deposit rates much further, which in turn could limit their ability to cut their lending rates.  In order to mitigate these pressures and maximise the effectiveness of monetary policy, the TFSME will, over the next 12 months, offer four-year funding of at least 10% of participants’ stock of real economy lending at interest rates at, or very close to, Bank Rate. Additional funding will be available for banks that increase lending, especially to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).

We have seen this sort of hype about lending to smaller businesses before so let me give you this morning;s numbers.

In net terms, UK businesses borrowed no extra funds from banks in February, and the annual growth rate of bank lending to UK businesses remained at 0.8%. Within this, the growth rate of borrowing from SMEs picked up to 0.7%, whilst borrowing from large businesses remained at 0.9%.

It is quite unusual for it to be that good and has often been in the other direction.

In theory the extra bond purchases (QE) should boost the market although it is not that simple because if the original ones had worked as intended we would not have seen the FLS in the summer of 2012.

Today’s Data

It is hard not to have a wry smile at this.

Mortgage approvals for house purchase (an indicator for future lending) had continued to rise in February, reaching 73,500 . This took the series to its highest since January 2014, significantly stronger than in recent years. Approvals for remortgage also rose on the month to 53,400. Net mortgage borrowing by households – which lags approvals – was £4.0 billion in February, close to the £4.1 billion average seen over the past six months. The annual growth rate for mortgage borrowing picked up to 3.5%.

As you can see the previous measures to boost smaller business lending have had far more effect on mortgage approvals and lending. Also there is another perspective as we note the market apparently picking up into where we are now.

In terms of mortgage rates in February the Bank of England told us this.

Effective rates on new secured loans to individuals decreased 4bps to 1.81%.

So mortgages were getting slightly cheaper and the effective rate for the whole stock is now 2.36%.

The Banks

There is a two-way swing here. Help was offered in terms of a three-month payment holiday which buys time for those unable to pay although in the end they will still have to pay but for new loans we have quite a different situation. From The Guardian on Thursday.

Halifax, the UK’s biggest mortgage lender, has withdrawn the majority of the mortgages it sells through brokers, including all first-time buyer loans, citing a lack of “processing resource”.

In a message sent to mortgage brokers this morning, Halifax said it would no longer offer any mortgages with a “loan-to-value” (LTV) of more than 60%. In other words, only buyers able to put down a 40% deposit will qualify for a loan.

Other lenders have followed and as Mortgage Strategy points out below there are other issues for them and prospective buyers.

Mortgage lenders are in talks with ministers over putting the housing market in lockdown and transactions on hold, according to reports.

Lenders have been withdrawing products and restricting loan-to-values as they are unable to get valuers to do face-to-face inspections.

Property transactions are failing because some home owners in the chain are in isolation and unable to move house or complete on purchases.

Removals firms have been advised by their trade body not to operate, leaving movers in limbo.

So in fact even if the banks were keen to lend there are plenty of issues with the practicalities.

Comment

The next issue for the market is that frankly a lot of people are now short of this.

Money talks, mmm-hmm-hmm, money talks
Dirty cash I want you, dirty cash I need you, woh-oh
Money talks, money talks
Dirty cash I want you, dirty cash I need you, woh-oh ( The Adventures of Stevie V )

I have been contacted by various people over the past few days with different stories but a common theme which is that previously viable and successful businesses are either over or in a lot of trouble. They will hardly be buying. Even more so are those who rent a property as I have been told about rent reductions too if the tenant has been reliable just to keep a stream of income. Now this is personal experience and to some extent anecdote but it paints a picture I think. Those doing well making medical equipment for example are unlikely to have any time to themselves let alone think about property.

Thus we are looking at a deep freeze.

Ice ice baby
Ice ice baby
All right stop ( Vanilla Ice)

Whereas for house prices I can only see this for now.

Oh, baby
I, I, I, I’m fallin’
I, I, I, I’m fallin’
Fall

Podcast

Can the ECB save the Euro again?

A feature of the credit crunch and the Euro area crisis has been the behaviour of the European Central Bank or ECB. It’s role has massively expanded from the official one of aiming for an inflation rate ( CPI and thereby ignoring owner-occupied housing) of close to but just below 2%. In fact in his valedictory speech the former ECB President Jean Claude Trichet defined it as 1.97%. However times have changed and the next President upped the ante with his “Whatever it takes ( to save the Euro) speech giving the ECB roles beyond inflation targeting. But Mario Draghi also regularly told us that the ECB was a “rules-based organisation.”

On 18 March 2020, the Governing Council also decided that to the extent some self-imposed limits might hamper
action that the Eurosystem is required to take in order to fulfil its mandate, the Governing Council will consider
revising them to the extent necessary to make its action proportionate to the risks faced. ( ECB )

Well not those rules anyway which limited purchases to 33% of a bond. Oh and the rules against monetary financing seem to be getting more shall we say flexible too.

The residual maturity of public sector securities purchased under the PEPP ranges from 70 days up to 30 years and 364 days. For private securities eligible under the CSPP, the maturity range is from 28 days up to 30 years and 364 days. For ABSPP and CBPP3-eligible securities, no maturity restrictions apply. ( ECB)

There were rules which meant that Greece would not qualify for QE too but as we noted before they have gone.

 In addition, the PEPP includes a waiver of the eligibility requirements for securities issued by the Greek Government.

So as you can see the rules are only there until they become inconvenient. What we do not so far have unlike as has been claimed by some if that this policy is unlimited, although of course after all the ch-ch-changes it would hardly be a surprise if the new 750 billion Euro programme ended up being larger. Oh and they join their central banking cousins with this.

The additional temporary envelope of €750 billion under the PEPP is separate from and in addition to the net purchases under the APP.

Ah Temporary we know what that means…..

Bond Markets

These will be regarded as a success by the ECB as for example the ten-year yield in Germany is -0.44%. So in spite of the announcement of an extra 350 billion in debt to be issued Germany continues to be paid to borrow. So the ECB will regard itself as essentially financing the new German fiscal policy.

At the other end of the spectrum is Italy where the public finances are much worse. But the ten-year yield is 1.3% which is far below the nearly 3% it rose to after ECB President Lagarde stated that it was not its role to deal with “bond spreads” managing in one sentence to undo the main aim of her predecessor. As you can see the bond yield is under control in fact very strict control and I will return to this later.

Fiscal Policy

The ECB will be happy to see individual countries loosen the purse strings and especially Germany. The latter is something it has been keen on as the credit crunch develops. It is after all the largest economy and has had the most flexibility to do so. It would also help with the imbalances in both the Euro and world economies. However the collective response will have disappointed it.

We take note of the progress made by the Eurogroup. At this stage, we invite the Eurogroup to present proposals to us within two weeks.

At a time like this that seems a lot more than just leisurely. From the US Department of Labor.

In the week ending March 21, the advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial claims was 3,283,000, an increase of 3,001,000 from the previous week’s revised level. This marks the highest level of seasonally adjusted initial claims in the history of the seasonally adjusted series. The previous high was 695,000 in October of 1982.

That is for the US and not the Euro area but it does give us a handle on the size of the economic shock reverberating around the world. If it was a drum beat then it would require Keith Moon to play it.

Italy

We have some economic news from Italy but before I get to it we were updated this month by the IMF.

Compared to the staff report, staff have revised the growth forecast for 2020 down from about ½ percent to about ‒½ percent.

Actually that’s what we thought before all this. Please fell free to laugh at the next bit.

Altogether, staff projects an overall deficit of 2.6 percent of GDP in 2020

At some point they do seem to get a grip but then lose it in the medium-term.

Given the escalated lockdown measures and the wider
outbreak across Europe, there is a high risk of a notably weaker outturn. Growth over the medium term is projected at around 0.7 percent, although this too is subject to uncertainty about the duration and extent of the crisis.

I have long been critical of these long-term forecasts which frankly do more to reflect the author’s own personal biases than any likely reality.

If we switch to the Statistics Office we were told this earlier.

In March 2020, the consumer confidence climate slumped from 110.9 to 101.0. The heavy deterioration affected all index components. More specifically, the economic climate plummeted from 121.9 to 96.2, the personal one deteriorated from 107.8 to 102.4, the current one went down from 110.6 to 104.8 and, finally, the future one collapsed from 112.0 to 94.8.

Grim numbers indeed and as they only went up to the 13th of this month we would expect them to be even worse now.

Also there was something of a critique of the Markit IHS manufacturing numbers from earlier this week as this is much worse than indicated there.

The confidence index in manufacturing drastically reduced passing from 98.8 to 89.5. The assessments on order books fell from -15.6 to -23.9 and the expectations on production dropped from 0.7 to -17.1.

Retail too was hit hard.

The retail trade confidence index plummeted from 106.9 to 97.4. The drastic worsening affected in particular the expectations on future business whose balance tumbled from 28.0 to -9.4.

Comment

I have so far avoided the issue of Eurobonds or as they have been rebranded Corona Bonds. Mario Draghi wrote a piece in the Financial Times essentially arguing for them but there are clear issues. One is the grip on reality being displayed.

In some respects, Europe is well equipped to deal with this extraordinary shock. It has a granular financial structure able to channel funds to every part of the economy that needs it. It has a strong public sector able to co-ordinate a rapid policy response. Speed is absolutely essential for effectiveness.

Can we really see the Italian banking sector for example doing this?

And it has to be done immediately, avoiding bureaucratic delays. Banks in particular extend across the entire economy and can create money instantly by allowing overdrafts or opening credit facilities.  Banks must rapidly lend funds at zero cost to companies prepared to save jobs.

As to the general precept I agree that people and businesses need help but Mario is rather hoist by his own petard here. After all he and his colleagues wrote out a prescription of negative interest-rates and wide scale QE. There was some boasting about a Euroboom which quickly faded. Now the Euro area faces the consequences as for example the Euro exchange rate is boosted as carry trades ( to take advantage of negative interest-rates) get reversed.

Meanwhile according to his former colleague Vitor Constancio negative interest-rates are nothing to do with those who voted for them apparently.

You have certainly noticed that market interest rates have been going down for 40 years, well long before CBs were doing QE and buying investment grade bonds.

If so should they hand their salary back?

Let me express my sympathy for those suffering in Italy and elsewhere at this time.

A blog from my late father about the banks

The opening today is brought to you by my late father. You see he was a plastering sub-contractor who was a mild man but could be brought to ire by the subject of how he had been treated by the banks. He used to regale me with stories about how to keep the relationships going he would be forced to take loans he didn’t really want in the good times and then would find they would not only refuse loans in the bad but ask for one’s already given back. He only survived the 1980-82 recession because of an overdraft for company cars he was able to use for other purposes which they tried but were unable to end. So my eyes lit up on reading this from the BBC.

Banks have been criticised by firms and MPs for insisting on personal guarantees to issue government-backed emergency loans to business owners.

The requirement loads most of the risk that the loan goes bad on the business owner, rather than the banks.

It means that the banks can go after the personal property of the owner of a firm if their business goes under and they cannot afford to pay off the debt.

Whilst borrowers should have responsibility for the loans these particular ones are backed by the government.

According to UK Finance, formerly the British Bankers Association, the scheme should offer loans of up to £5m, where the government promises to cover 80% of losses if the money is not repaid. But, it notes: “Lenders may require security for the facility.”

In recent times there has been a requirement for banks to “Know Your Customer” or KYC for short. If they have done so then they would be able to sift something of the wheat from the chaff so to speak and would know which businesses are likely to continue and sadly which are not. With 80% of losses indemnified by the taxpayer they should be able to lend quickly, cheaply and with little or no security.

For those saying they need to be secure, well yes but in other areas they seem to fall over their own feet.

ABN AMRO Bank N.V. said Thursday that it will incur a significant “incidental” loss on one of its U.S. clients amid the new coronavirus scenario.

The bank said it is booking a $250 million pretax loss, which would translate into a net loss of around $200 million.

Well we now know why ABN Amro is leaving the gold business although we do not know how much of this was in the gold market. Oh and the excuse is a bit weak for a clearer of positions.

ABN AMRO blamed the loss on “unprecedented volumes and volatility in the financial markets following the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.”

Returning to the issue of lending of to smaller businesses here were the words of Mark Carney back as recently as the 11th of this month when he was still Bank of England Governor.

I’ll just reiterate that, by providing much more flexibility, an ability to-, the banking system has been put in
a position today where they could make loans to the hardest hit businesses, in fact the entire corporate
sector, not just the hardest hit businesses and Small and Medium Sized enterprises, thirteen times of
what they lent last year in good times.

That boasting was repeated by the present Governor Andrew Bailey. Indeed he went further on the subject of small business lending.

there’s a very clear message to the banks-, and, by the way, which I think has been reflected in things that a number of the banks have already said.

Apparently not clear enough. But there was more as back then he was still head of the FCA.

One of the FCA’s core principles for business is treating customers fairly. The system is now, as we’ve said many times this morning, in a much more resilient state. We expect them to treat customers fairly. That’s what must happen. They know that. They’re in a position to do it. There should be no excuses now, and both we, the Bank of England, and the FCA, will be watching this very
carefully.

Well I have consistently warned you about the use of the word “resilient”. What it seems to mean in practice is that they need forever more subsidies and help.

On top of that, we’re giving them four-year certainty on a considerable amount of funding at the cost of
bank rate. On top of that, they have liquidity buffers themselves, but, also, liquidity from the Bank of
England. So, they are in that position to support the economy. ( Governor Carney )

Since then they can fund even more cheaply as the Bank Rate is now 0.1%.

Meanwhile I have been contacted by Digibits an excavator company via social media.

Funding For Lending Scheme was crazy. We looked at this to finance a new CNC machine tool in 2013. There were all sorts of complicated (and illogical) strings attached and, at the end of the day, the APR was punitive.

I asked what rate the APR was ( for those unaware it is the annual interest-rate)?

can’t find record of that, but it was 6% flat in Oct 2013. Plus you had to ‘guarantee’ job creation – a typical top-down metric that makes no sense in SME world. IIRC 20% grant contribution per job up to maximum of £15k – but if this didn’t work out you’d risk paying that back.

As you can see that was very different to the treatment of the banks and the company was worried about the Red Tape.

The grant element (which theoretically softened the blow of the high rate) was geared toward creating jobs, but that is a very difficult agreement (with teeth) to hold over the head of an SME and that contribution could have been clawed back.

Quantitative Easing

There is a lot going on here so let me start with the tactical issues. Firstly the Bank of England has cut back on its daily QE buying from the £10.2 billion peak seen on both Friday and Monday. It is now doing three maturity tranches ( short-dated, mediums and longs) in a day and each are for £1 billion.

Yet some still want more as I see Faisal Islam of the BBC reporting.

Ex top Treasury official @rjdhughes

floated idea in this v interesting report of central bank – (ie Bank of England) temporarily funding Government by buying bonds directly, using massive increase in Government overdraft at BoE – “ways & means account”

Some of you may fear the worst from the use of “top” and all of you should fear the word “temporarily” as it means any time from now to infinity these days.

This could be justified on separate grounds of market functioning/ liquidity of key markets, in this case, for gilts/ Government bonds. There have been signs of a lack of demand at recent auctions…

Faisal seems unaware that the lack of demand is caused by the very thing his top official is calling for which is central bank buying! Even worse he seems to be using the Japanese model where the bond market has been freezing up for some time.

“more formal monetary support of the fiscal response will be required..prudent course of action is yield curve control, where Bank can create fiscal space for Chancellor although if tested this regime may mutate into monetary financing”

Those who have followed my updates on the Bank of Japan will be aware of this.

Comment

Hopefully my late father is no longer spinning quite so fast in his Memorial Vault ( these things have grand names).  That is assuming ashes can spin! We seem to be taking a familiar path where out of touch central bankers claim to be boosting business but we find that the cheap liquidity is indeed poured into the banks. But it seems to get lost as the promises of more business lending now morph into us seeing more and cheaper mortgage lending later. That boosts the banks and house prices in what so far has appeared to be a never ending cycle. Meanwhile the Funding for Lending Scheme started in the summer of 2012 so I think we should have seen the boost to lending to smaller businesses by now don’t you?

Meanwhile I see everywhere that not only is QE looking permanent my theme of “To Infinity! And Beyond” has been very prescient. No doubt we get more stories of “Top Men” ( or women) recommending ever more. Indeed it is not clear to me that a record in HM Treasury and the position below qualifies.

he joined the International Monetary Fund in 2008 where he headed the Fiscal Affairs Department’s Public Finance Division and worked on fiscal reform in a range of crisis-hit advanced, emerging, and developing countries.

 

 

The UK government plans to rip us all off

This morning has seen the publishing of some news which feels like it has come from another world.

The all items CPI annual rate is 1.7%, down from 1.8% in January…….The all items RPI annual rate is 2.5%, down from 2.7% last month.

Previously we would have been noting the good news and suggesting that more is to come as we look up the price chain.

The headline rate of output inflation for goods leaving the factory gate was 0.4% on the year to February 2020, down from 1.0% in January 2020. The price for materials and fuels used in the manufacturing process displayed negative growth of 0.5% on the year to February 2020, down from positive growth of 1.6% in January 2020.

There is something that remains relevant however as I note this piece of detail.

Petroleum products made the largest downward contribution to the change in the annual rate of output inflation. Crude oil provided the largest downward contribution to the change in the annual rate of input inflation.

That is something which is set to continue because if we look back to February the base for the oil price ( Brent Crude) was US $50 whereas as I type this it is US $27.50. So as you can see input and output costs are going to fall further. This will be offset a bit by the lower UK Pound £ but I will address it later. In terms of consumer inflation the February figures used are for diesel at 128.2 pence per litre whereas the latest weekly number is for 123.4 pence which is some 7.7% lower than a year ago. So there will be a downwards pull on inflation from this source.

There is a bit of an irony here because the Russo/Saudi turf war which began the oil price fall on the supply side has been overtaken by the large falls in demand we are seeing as economies slow. According to The Guardian we may run out of spaces to put it.

Analysts at Rystad estimate that the world has about 7.2bn barrels of crude and products in storage, including 1.3bn to 1.4bn barrels onboard oil tankers at sea.

In theory, it would take nine months to fill the world’s remaining oil stores, but constraints at many facilities will shorten this window to only a few months.

The Rip-Off

The plan hatched by a combination of HM Treasury and its independent puppets the UK Statistics Authority and the Office for National Statistics is to impose a type of stealth tax of 1% per annum. How?

In drawing up his advice, the National Statistician considered the views of the Stakeholder Advisory Panel on Consumer Prices (APCP-S). The Board accepted his advice and that was the basis of the proposals we put to the Chancellor to cease publication of RPI and in the short term to bring the methods of CPIH into RPI.The Chancellor responded that he was not minded to promote legislation to end RPI, but that the Government intended to consult on whether to bring the methods in CPIH into RPI between 2025 and 2030, effectively aligning the measures.

The emphasis is mine and the plan is to put the fantasy Imputed Rents that are used in the widely ignored CPIH into the RPI. There is good reason that the CPIH has been ignored so let me explain why. In the UK the housing market is a big deal and so you might think what owner-occupiers pay would be a considerable influence on inflation. But in 2002 a decision was made to completely ignore it in the new UK inflation measure called CPI ( Consumer Prices Index).

Putting it in was supposed to be on its way but plans took a decade and the saga took a turn in 2012 when the first effort to use Imputed Rents began. It got strong support from the Financial Times economics editor Chris Giles at the time. He stepped back from that when it emerged that there had been a discontinuity in the numbers, which in statistical terms is a disaster. So the fantasy numbers ( owner-occupiers do not pay rent) are based on an unproven rental series.

Why would you put a 737 Max style system when you have a reliable airplane? You would not, as most sensible people would be debating between the use of the things that are paid such as house prices and mortgage payments. That is what is planned in the new inflation measure which has been variously called HII and HCI. You may not be surprised to learn that there have been desperate official efforts to neuter this. Firstly by planning to only produce it annually and more latterly by trying to water down any house price influence.

At a time like this you may not think it is important but when things return to normal losing around 1% per year every year will make you poorer as decisions are made on it. Also it will allow government’s to claim GDP and real wages are higher than they really are.

Gold

There is a lot going on here as it has seen its own market discontinuity which I will cover in a moment. But we know money is in the offing as I note this from the Financial Times.

Gold continued to push higher on Tuesday as a recent wave of selling dried up and Goldman Sachs told its clients the time had come to buy the “currency of last resort”. Like other asset classes, gold was hit hard in the recent scramble for US dollars, falling more than 12 per cent from its early March peak of around $1,700 a troy ounce to $1,460 last week.  The yellow metal started to see a resurgence on Monday, rising by more than 4 per cent after the Federal Reserve said it would buy unlimited amounts of government bonds and the US dollar fell.

So we know that the blood funnel of the Vampire Squid is up and sniffing. On its view of ordinary clients being “Muppets” one might reasonably conclude it has some gold to sell.

Also there have been problems in the gold markets as I was contacted yesterday on social media asking about the gold price. I was quoting the price of the April futures contact ( you can take the boy out of the futures market but you cannot etc….) which as I type this is US $1653. Seeing as it was below US $1500 that is quite a rally except the spot market was of the order of US $50 below that. There are a lot of rumours about problems with the ability of some to deliver the gold that they owe which of course sets alight the fire of many conspiracy theories we have noted. This further went into suggestions that some banks have singed their fingers in this area and are considering withdrawing from the market.

Ole Hansen of Saxo Bank thinks the virus is to blame.

Having seen 100’s of anti-bank and anti-paper #gold tweets the last couple of days I think I will give the metal a rest while everyone calm down. We have a temporary break down in logistics not being helped by CME’s stringent delivery rules of 100oz bars only.

So we will wait and see.

Ah, California girls are the greatest in the world
Each one a song in the making
Singin’ rock to me I can hear the melody
The story is there for the takin’
Drivin’ over Kanan, singin’ to my soul
There’s people out there turnin’ music into gold ( John Stewart )

 

Comment

Quite a few systems are creaking right now as we see the gold market hit the problems seen by bond markets where prices are inconsistent. Ironically the central banks tactics are to help with that but their strategy is fatally flawed because if you buy a market on an enormous scale to create what is a fake price ( lower bond yields) then liquidity will dry up. I have written before about ruining bond sellers ( Italy) and buyers will disappear up here. Please remember that when the central banks tell us it is nothing to do with them and could not possibly have been predicted. Meanwhile the US Federal Reserve will undertake another US $125 billion of QE bond purchases today and the Bank of England some £3 billion. The ECB gives fewer details but will be buying on average between 5 and 6 billion Euros per day.

Next we have the UK deep state in operation as they try to impose a stealth tax via the miss measurement of inflation. Because they have lost the various consultations so far and CPIH has remained widely ignored the new consultation is only about when and not if.

The Authority’s consultation, which will be undertaken jointly with that of HM Treasury, will begin on 11 March. It will be open to responses for six weeks, closing on 22 April. HM Treasury will consult on the appropriate timing for the proposed changes to the RPI, while the Authority will consult on the technical method of making that change to the RPI.

Meanwhile for those of you who like some number crunching here is how a 123.4 pence for the price of oil gets broken down. I have done some minor rounding so the numbers add up.

Oil  44.9 pence

Duty 58 pence

VAT 20.5 pence

The first business surveys about this economic depression appear

This morning has seen the first actual signals of the scale of the economic slow down going on. One of the problems with official economic data is the  time lag before we get it and this has been exacerbated by the fact that this has been an economic contraction on speed ( LSD). By the time they tell us how bad it has been we may be in quite a different world! It is always a battle between accuracy and timeliness for economic data. Thus eyes will have turned to the business surveys released this morning.

Do ya do ya do ya do ya
Ooh I’m looking for clues
Ooh I’m looking for clues
Ooh I’m looking for clues ( Robert Palmer)

Japan

The main series began in Japan earlier and brace yourselves.

#Japan‘s economic downturn deepens drastically in March, dragged down by a sharp contraction in the service sector, according to #PMI data as #coronavirus outbreak led to plummeting tourism, event cancellations and supply chain disruptions. ( IHS Markit )

The composite output index was at 35.8 which indicates an annualised fall in GDP ( Gross Domestic Product) approaching 8% should it continue. There was a split between manufacturing ( 44.8) and services ( 32.7) but not the way we have got used to. The manufacturing number was the worst since April 2009 and the services one was the worst since the series began in 2007.

France

Next in the series came La Belle France and we needed to brace ourselves even more.

March Flash France PMI suggest GDP is collapsing at an annualised rate approaching double digits, with the Composite Output PMI at an all-time low of 30.2 (51.9 – Feb). Both services and manufacturers recorded extreme drops in output on the month.

There was more to come.

French private sector activity contracted at the
sharpest rate in nearly 22 years of data collection
during March, amid widespread business closures
due to the coronavirus outbreak.

There are obvious fears about employment and hence unemployment.

Amid falling new orders, private sector firms cut
their staff numbers for the first time in nearly threeand-a-half years during March. Moreover, the rate
of reduction was the quickest since April 2013.

I also noted this as I have my concerns about inflation as the Ivory Towers work themselves into deflation mode one more time.

Despite weaker demand conditions, supply
shortages drove input prices higher in March…….with
manufacturers raising output prices for the first time
in three months

We could see disinflation in some areas with sharp inflation in others.

Germany

Next up was Germany and by now investors were in the brace position.

The headline Flash Germany
Composite PMI Output Index plunged from 50.7 in
February to 37.2, its lowest since February 2009.
The preliminary data were based on responses
collected between March 12-23.

This led to this analysis.

“The unprecedented collapse in the PMI
underscores how Germany is headed for recession,
and a steep one at that. The March data are
indicative of GDP falling at a quarterly rate of
around 2%, and the escalation of measures to
contain the virus outbreak mean we should be
braced for the downturn to further intensify in the
second quarter.”

You may be thinking that this is better than the ones above but there is a catch. Regular readers will recall that due to a problem in the way it looks at supply this series has inflated the German manufacturing data. This has happened again.

The headline Flash Germany
Manufacturing PMI sank to 45.7, though it was
supported somewhat by a further increase in
supplier delivery times – the most marked since
July 2018 – and a noticeably slower fall in stocks of
purchases, both linked to supply-side disruption

So the truth is that the German numbers are closer to France once we allow for this. We also see the first signals of trouble in the labour markets.

After increasing – albeit marginally – in each of the
previous four months, employment across
Germany’s private sector returned to contraction in
March. The decline was the steepest since May
2009 and was underpinned by similarly sharp drops
in workforce numbers across both manufacturing
and services.

Also we note a continuing pattern where services are being hit much harder than manufacturing, Of course manufacturing had seen a rough 2019 but services have essentially plunged at a rapid rate.

The Euro Area

We do not get much individual detail but you can see that the other Euro area nations are doing even worse.

The rest of the euro area reported an even
steeper decline than seen in both France and
Germany, led by comfortably the sharpest fall in
service sector activity ever recorded, though
manufacturing output also shrank at the steepest
rate for almost 11 years.

I am trying hard to think of PMI numbers in the 20s I have seen before.

Flash Eurozone Services PMI Activity Index(2)
at 28.4 (52.6 in February). Record low (since
July 1998)

Putting it all together we get this.

The March PMI is indicative of GDP slumping at a
quarterly rate of around 2%,

The UK

Our numbers turned up to a similar drum beat and bass line.

At 37.1 in March, down from 53.0 in February, the seasonally adjusted IHS Markit / CIPS Flash UK Composite Output Index – which is based on approximately 85% of usual monthly replies – signalled the fastest downturn in private sector business activity since the series began in January 1998. The prior low of 38.1 was seen in November 2008.

This was supported by the manufacturing PMI being at 48 but it looks as though we have at least some of the issues at play in the German number too.

Longer suppliers’ delivery times are typically seen as an
advance indicator of rising demand for raw materials and
therefore have a positive influence on the Manufacturing PMI index.

The numbers added to the household finances one from IHS Markit yesterday.

UK consumers are already feeling the financial pinch of
coronavirus, according to the IHS Markit UK Household Finance Index. With the country on the brink of lockdown during the survey collection dates (12-17 March), surveyed households reported the largest degree of pessimism towards job security in over eight years,
with those employed in entertainment and manufacturing sectors deeming their jobs to be at the most risk.

Comment

So we have the first inklings of what is taking place in the world economy and we can add it to the 40.7 released by Australia yesterday. However we need a note of caution as these numbers have had troubles before and the issue over the treatment of suppliers delivery times is an issue right now. Also it does not appear to matter if your PMI is 30 or 37 we seem to get told this.

The March PMI is indicative of GDP slumping at a
quarterly rate of around 2%,

Now I am slightly exaggerating because they have said 1.5% to 2% for the UK but if we are there then France and the Euro area must be more like 3% and maybe worse if the series is to be consistent.

Next I thought I would give you some number-crunching from Japan.

TOKYO (Reuters) – The Bank of Japan on Tuesday acknowledged unrealized losses of 2-3 trillion yen ($18-$27 billion) on its holdings of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) after a rout in Japanese stock prices, raising the prospect it could post an annual loss this year.

Our To Infinity! And Beyond! Theme has been in play for The Tokyo Whale and the emphasis is mine.

Its stock purchase started at a pace of one trillion yen per year in 2013 when the Nikkei was around 12,000. The buying expanded to 3 trillion yen in 2014 and to 6 trillion yen in 2016, ostensibly to boost economic growth and lift inflation, but many investors view the policy as direct intervention to prop up share prices.

Surely not! But the taxpayer may be about to get a warning of sorts.

The unrealized loss of 2-3 trillion yen would wipe out about 1.7 trillion yen of recurring profits the BOJ is estimated to make this year from interest payments on its massive bond holdings, said Hiroshi Ugai, senior economist at J.P. Morgan.

For today that will be on the back burner as the Nikkei 225 equity index rose 7% to just above 18,000 which means that its purchases of over 200 billion Yen yesterday will be onside at least as we note the “clip size” has nearly trebled for The Tokyo Whale.

 

 

Spend! Spend! Spend!

The weekend just passed was one which saw one of the economic dams of our time creak and then look like it had broken. This was due to the announcements coming out of Germany which as regular readers will be aware has a debt brake and had been planning for a fiscal surplus.

Under Germany’s so-called debt brake rule, Berlin is allowed to take on new debt of no more than 0.35% of economic output, unless the country is hit by a natural disaster or other emergencies. ( Reuters)

Actually the economic slow down in 2019 caused by the trade war was pulling it back towards fiscal balance and what it taking place right now would have caused a deficit anyway. But now it seems that the emergency clause above is being activated.

Germany is readying an emergency budget worth more than 150 billion euros ($160 billion) to shore up jobs and businesses at risk from the economic impact of the coronavirus outbreak, the finance minister said on Saturday.

Government sources told Reuters hundreds of billions in additional backing for the private sector would be raised, as Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said a ceiling on new government debt enshrined in the country’s constitution would be suspended due to the exceptional circumstances.

Putting that into context it is around 5% of Germany’s GDP in 2019 and I am stating the numbers like that because we have little idea of current GDP other than the fact there will be a sizeable drop. It then emerged that there was more to the package.

According to senior officials and a draft law seen by Reuters, the package will include a supplementary government budget of 156 billion euros, 100 billion euros for an economic stability fund that can take direct equity stakes in companies, and 100 billion euros in credit to public-sector development bank KfW for loans to struggling businesses.

On top of that, the stability fund will offer 400 billion euros in loan guarantees to secure corporate debt at risk of defaulting, taking the volume of the overall package to more than 750 billion euros.

As you can see we end up with intervention on a grand scale with the total being over 22% of last year’s economic output or GDP. This will lead to quite a change in the national debt dynamics which looked on their way to qualifying under the Stability and Growth Pact or Maastricht rules. This is because it was 61.2% of GDP at the end of the third quarter of last year which now looks a case of so near and so far.

Bond Market

There were times when such an audacious fiscal move would have the bond market creaking and yields rising. In fact the ten-year yield has dropped slightly this morning to -0.37%. Indeed even the thirty-year yield is at -0.01% so Germany is either being paid to borrow or is paying effectively nothing.

This is being driven by the purchases of the ECB or European Central Bank and as the Bundesbank seems not to have updated its pages then by my maths we will be seeing around 30 billion Euros per month of German purchases. Also let me remind you that the risk is not quite what you might think.

This implies that 20% of the asset purchases under the PSPP will continue to be subject to a regime of risk sharing, while 80% of the purchases will be excluded from risk sharing. ( Bundesbank)

The situation gets more complex as we note Isabel Schnabel of the ECB Governing Council put this out on social media over the weekend.

The capital key remains the benchmark for sovereign bond purchases, but flexibility is needed in order to tackle the situation appropriately.

That will be particularly welcomed by Italy as other ECB policy makers try to undo the damage created by the “bond spreads” comment of President Lagarde. Although you may note that most of the risk will be with the Bank of Italy.

Also as a German she did a bit of cheer leading for her home country.

The success of our measures hinges on what happens in fiscal policy. This is a European issue which needs a European solution. No country can be indifferent to what happens in another European country – not only because of solidarity, but also for economic reasons.

Some might think she has quite a cheek on the indifference point as that is exactly how countries like Greece described Germany. Still I also think the ECB has plenty of tools but maybe not from the same perspective.

The ECB is in the comfortable position of having a large set of tools, none of which has been used to its full extent

QE

It was only last Thursday that I was pointing out that I expected QE to go even more viral and last night it arrived at what is in geographical terms one of the more isolated countries.

The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has decided to implement a Large Scale Asset Purchase programme (LSAP) of New Zealand government bonds……..The Committee has decided to implement a LSAP programme of New Zealand government bonds. The programme will purchase up to $30 billion of New Zealand government bonds, across a range of maturities, in the secondary market over the next 12 months. The programme aims to provide further support to the economy, build confidence, and keep interest rates on government bonds low.

You can almost hear the cries of “The Precious! The Precious!”

Heightened risk aversion has caused a rise in interest rates on long-term New Zealand government bonds and the cost of bank funding.

Which follows on from this last week.

“To support credit availability, the Bank has decided to delay the start date of increased capital requirements for banks by 12 months – to 1 July 2021. Should conditions warrant it next year, the Reserve Bank will consider whether further delays are necessary.”

This reminds me of one of my themes from back in the day that bank capital requirement changes were delayed almost hoping for something to turn up. Albeit of course they had no idea a pandemic would occur.

Let us move on noting for reference purposes that the ten-year All Black yield is 1.46%.

The US

There are some extraordinary numbers on the way here according to CNBC.

Administration statements over the past few days point to something of the order of $2 trillion in economic juice. By contrast, then-President Barack Obama ushered an $831 billion package through during the financial crisis.

Indeed they just keep coming.

That type of fiscal burden comes as the government already has chalked up $624.5 billion in red ink through just the first five months of the fiscal year, which started in October. That spending pace extrapolated through the full fiscal year would lead to a $1.5 trillion deficit, and that’s aside from any of the spending to combat the corona virus.

At the moment we know something is coming but not the exact size as debate is ongoing in Congress but we can set some benchmarks.

A $2 trillion deficit, which seems conservative given the current scenario, would push deficit to GDP to 9.4%. A $3 trillion shortfall, which seems like not much of a stretch, would take the level to 14%.

Comment

The headline today for those unaware was from Viv Nicholson back in the day after her husband had won the pools. But we see something of a torrent of fiscal action on its way oiled by an extraordinary amount of sovereign bond buying by central banks. For example the Bank of England will buy an extra £5.1 billion today in addition to its ongoing replacement of its holdings of a matured bond.

On the other side of the coin is the scale of the economic contraction ahead. Below are the numbers for the German IFO which we can compare with the fiscal response above albeit that I suggest we treat them as a broad brush.

“If the economy comes to a standstill for two months, costs can range from 255 to 495 billion euros, depending on the scenario. Economic output then shrinks by 7.2 to 11.2 percentage points a year, ”says Fuest. In the best scenario, it is assumed that economic output will drop to 59.6 percent for two months, recover to 79.8 percent in the third month and finally reach 100 percent again in the fourth month. “With three months of partial closure, the costs already reach 354 to 729 billion euros, which is a 10.0 to 20.6 percentage point loss in growth,” says Fuest.

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