Negative Interest-Rates cannot stop negative household credit growth in the UK

This morning has opened with something which feels like it is becoming a regular feature. This is the advent of negative bond yields in the UK as we become one of those countries where many said it could not happen here and well I am sure you have guessed it! The two-year bond or Gilt yield is -0.07% and the five-year is -0.03%. As well as the general significance there are particular ones. For example I use the five-year bond yield as a signal for the direction of travel for mortgage rates especially fixed-rate ones. If we look at Moneyfacts we see this.

Lloyds Bank had the lowest rate in the five year remortgage chart for those looking for a 60% LTV. Its deal offers 1.35% (2.8% APRC) fixed until 31 August 2025, which then reverts to 3.59% variable. It charges £999 in product fees and comes with the incentives of free valuation, no legal fees and £200 cashback.

A 1.35% mortgage rate for five-years is extraordinarily low for the UK and reminds me I was assured they would not go below 2%. I am sure some of you are more expert than me in deciding whether what is effectively a £799 fee is good value for free legal fees and valuation?
If we switch to the two-year yield it is particularly significant as it is an implicit effect of all the Bank of England bond or Gilt buying because it does not buy bonds which have less than three years to go. So it is a knock-on effect rather than a direct result.

QE

The total of conventional QE undertaken by the Bank of England is £616.3 billion as of the end of last week. The rate of purchases was £13.5 billion which is relevant for the May money supply numbers we will be looking at today. Looking ahead to June there has been a reduction in weekly purchases to £6.9 billion so a near halving. So as you can see there has been quite a push provided to the money supply figures. It is now slower but would previously have been considered strong itself.

Also the buying of corporate bonds which now is just below £16 billion has added to the money supply and I have something to add to this element.

NEW: The Fed has posted the 794 companies whose bonds it began purchasing earlier this month as part of its “broad market index” Six companies were 10% of the index: Toyota, Volkswagen, Daimler, AT&T, Apple and Verizon  ( @NickTimiraos )

You may recall that the Bank of England is also buying Apple corporate bonds and I pointed out it will be competing with the US Federal Reserve to support what is on some counts the richest company in the world. Make of that what you will……

Engage Reverse Gear

This morning we have been updated on how much the UK plans to borrow.

To facilitate the government’s financing needs in the period until the end of August 2020, the UK Debt Management Office (DMO) is announcing that it is planning to raise a
minimum of £275 billion overall in the period April to August 2020.

Each sale reduces the money supply and I can recall a time when this was explicit policy and it was called Overfunding. Right now it would be a sub category of QT or Quantitative Tightening, should that ever happen.

Money Supply

We see that in a similar pattern to what we noted in the Euro area on Friday there is plenty being produced.

The amount of additional money deposited in banks and building societies by private sector companies and households rose strongly again in May (Chart 1). These additional sterling deposit ‘flows’ by households, private non-financial businesses (PNFCs) and financial businesses (NIOFCs), known as M4ex, rose by £52.0 billion in May. This followed large increases in March and April, of £67.3 billion and £37.8 billion respectively. The increase was driven by households and PNFCs, and continued to be strong relative to recent history: in the six months to February 2020, the average monthly increase was £9.3 billion.

The use of PNFCs is to try to take out the impact of money flows within the financial sector. Returning to the numbers we are seeing the consequences of the interest-rate cuts and the flip side ( the bonds are bought with newly produced money/liquidity) of the Bank of England QE I looked at earlier.

Last time around I pointed out we had seen 5% growth in short order and the pedal has continued to be pressed to the metal with a growth rate of 6.7% over the past three months. Or monthly growth rates which are higher than the annual one in May last year. All this has produced an annual growth rate of 11.3%.

Household Credit

This cratered again or to be more specific consumer credit.

Households repaid more loans from banks than they took out. A £4.6 billion net repayment of consumer credit more than offset a small increase in mortgage borrowing. Approvals for mortgages for house purchase fell further in May to 9,300.

I would not want to be the official at the Bank of England morning meeting who presented those numbers to the Governor. A period in a cake trolley free basement awaits. Indeed they may be grateful it does not have any salt mines when they got to this bit.

The extremely weak net flows of consumer credit meant that the annual growth rate was -3.0%, the weakest since the series began in 1994. Within this, the annual growth rate of credit card lending was negative for the third month running, falling to -10.7%, compared with 3.5% in February. Growth in other loans and advances remained positive, at 0.7%. But this was also weak relative to the recent past: in February, the growth rate was 6.8%.

Regular readers will recall when the Bank of England called an annual growth rate of 8.2% “weak” so I guess they will be echoing Ariane Grande.

I have no words

It seems like the air of desperation has impacted the banks too.

Effective rates on new personal loans to individuals fell 34 basis points to 5.10% in May. This was the lowest since the series began in 2016, and compares to a rate of around 7% at the start of 2020.

Mortgages

A small flicker.

On net, households borrowed an additional £1.2 billion secured on their homes. This was slightly higher than the £0.0 billion in April but weak compared to an average of £4.1 billion in the six months to February 2020. The increase on the month reflected more new borrowing by households, rather than lower repayments.

Looking ahead the picture was even worse.

The number of mortgage approvals for house purchase fell to a new series low in May, of 9,300 (Chart 5). This was, almost 90% below the February level (Chart 5) and around a third of their trough during the financial crisis in 2008.

We wait to see if the advent of lower mortgage rates and the re-opening of the economy will help here.

Comment

I am sure that many reading about the UK money supply surge will be singing along with The Beatles.

You never give me your money
You only give me your funny paper
And in the middle of negotiations
You break down

Some will go further.

Out of college, money spent
See no future, pay no rent
All the money’s gone, nowhere to go
Any jobber got the sack
Monday morning, turning back
Yellow lorry slow, nowhere to go

Do I spot a QE reference?

But oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go
Oh, that magic feeling
Nowhere to go, nowhere to go

There will have been some sunshine at the Bank of England morning meeting.

Small and medium sized businesses drew down an extra £18.2 billion in loans from banks, on net, as their new borrowing increased sharply. Before May, the largest amount of net borrowing by SMEs was £589 million, in September 2016. The strong flow in May led to a sharp increase in the annual growth rate, to 11.8%.

Of course it was nothing to do with them but that seldom bothers a central bankers these days. This next bit might need hiding in the smallest print they can find though.

The quoted UK overdraft rate has reached 32% and yes you did read that right!

Please spare a thought for the unfortunate Bank of England official who has to show that to Governor Bailey. As he caused this surge when running the @TheFCA

— Shaun Richards (@notayesmansecon) June 29, 2020

Podcast

 

UK consumer credit collapses as the money supply soars

As we peruse the data for the impact of all the Bank of England actions in this pandemic we have also been updated on its main priority. From the Nationwide Building Society.

“UK house prices fell by 1.7% over the month in May, after
taking account of seasonal effects – this is the largest
monthly fall since February 2009. As a result, the annual rate of house price growth slowed to 1.8%, from 3.7% in April.”

According to them things had been going really rather well before the May reverse.

“In the opening months of 2020, before the pandemic struck
the UK, the housing market had been steadily gathering
momentum. Activity levels and price growth were edging up thanks to continued robust labour market conditions, low borrowing costs and a more stable political backdrop
following the general election.”

Personally I am rather dubious about the April number but we do have a large fall for May and also something of a critique for the suspended official index from the Office for National Statistics.

Mortgage activity has also declined sharply. Nevertheless,
our ability to generate the house price index has not been
impacted to date, as sample sizes have remained sufficiently large (and representative) to generate robust results.

Rents

Perhaps such news is all too much for the boomers as I note the BBC reporting this today.

Lockdown break-ups, job losses and urgent relocations are thought to have led to a surge in the rental sector.

Demand for lettings in Great Britain is up by 22% compared to last year, according to property giant Rightmove.

Experts say the lifting of lockdown restrictions has released “two months of pent-up tension” in the market.

The supply of new rents is not keeping up with demand, however, prompting fears the surge will push up costs and leave some struggling to find homes.

The article tries to give the impression that rents are rising but provides no evidence for this at all, as the data set only has demand. It seems to lack a mention of the numbers in the data set which showed larger demand declines in the pandemic. We seem back to the get in now before rents boom message that is so familiar as the media parrots what the industry wants.

“I think we were lucky really because we got in there before demand boomed.”

On a personal level some people were viewing in my block yesterday. Fair play to the viewers who put on masks, but sadly the estate agent who is more likely to spread the virus did not bother with any PPE.

Consumer Credit

Even in the hot summer weather we are seeing the spine of the Monetary Policy Committee will have seen a sudden chill as these numbers came in.

New gross borrowing fell to £11.8 billion in April, roughly half its February level. Repayments on consumer borrowing have also fallen sharply, by 19% since February, reflecting payment holidays. On net, the larger fall in gross borrowing meant people repaid £7.4 billion of consumer credit in April, double the repayment in March, which itself was a record repayment (Chart 3). The extremely weak net flows of consumer credit meant that the annual growth rate fell below zero in April, to -0.4%, the weakest since August 2012.

What is happening here is that each month there is a large amount of new borrowing but also repayments and the usual situation is that we see net borrowing and in recent years lots of it. In April the amount of new borrowing fell and for once the use of the word collapse is appropriate whereas the level of repayments fell by much less. Thus the net amount swung by as much as I can ever recall.

In terms of the detail the main player was credit card borrowing.

The majority (£5.0 billion) of net consumer credit repayments were on credit cards, while £2.4 billion of other loans were also repaid in April. The annual growth rate of credit card lending was negative for the second month running, falling to -7.8%, compared with 3.5% in February before borrowing fell. Growth in other loans and advances remained positive, at 3.1%.

Mortgages

There was a similar pattern to be found here although in this instance it was not enough to turn the net figure negative. Also the bit I have emphasised is a signal of the financial distress I have both feared and expected.

Lending has also fallen sharply. Gross (new) mortgage borrowing fell to £14.4 billion, 38% lower than in February (Chart 5). Repayments on mortgage lending also fell sharply, to £13.9 billion, 26% lower than in February. This reflects a sharp fall in full repayments of loans, as well as the effect of payment holidays. The sharper fall in gross lending than repayments means that net mortgage borrowing fell, and was only £0.3 billion in April compared to an increase of £4.3 billion in February. This was the lowest net increase since December 2011.

One area that I do expect to pick up is this.

Approvals for remortgage (which include remortgaging with a different lender only) have fallen by less, to 34,400, 34% lower than in February.

With my indicator for fixed mortgage interest-rates ( the five-year Gilt yield) so low and effectively around 0% I expect some cheaper mortgage rates and hence more remortgaging, for those that can. As to mortgage rates they did this.

The effective interest rate paid on the stock of floating-rate mortgages fell 46 basis points, to 2.39%, the lowest rate since this series began in 2016; and the rate on new floating-rate loans fell 35 basis points to 1.48%.

They do not often tell us the mortgage rates but I guess they wanted to emphasise their own actions.

The rate paid by individuals on floating-rate mortgage borrowing fell a little further in April, however, as the MPC’s March Bank Rate cuts continued to pass through.

Business Lending

You might like to recall as you read the bit below that all of the credit easing since the summer of 2012 has been to boost small business lending.

Private sector businesses of all sizes borrowed little extra from banks in April. Small and medium sized businesses drew down an extra £0.3billion in loans from banks, on net, a similar amount as in March. The annual growth rate of borrowing by SMEs was 1.2%, in line with the growth rate since mid 2019.

For newer the readers the central banking game is to claim you are boosting lending to SMEs and then express surprise when it is mortgage lending and unsecured credit to consumers that rises and soars respectively.

The numbers below are mostly because many businesses have been desperate for cash.

But strength in borrowing by the public administration and defence industry meant total borrowing by large businesses was £12.9 billion in April. While this total is very strong by historical standards, it is down from £32.4 billion in March. The annual growth rate of borrowing by all large businesses increased to 15.4%, much stronger than the growth rate of around 5% in late 2019.

There will be quite a complicated mixture there as we no note lower and sometime zero sales colliding with many expenses continuing.

This is an ongoing problem where big businesses get help. As you can see they can access bank loans and the various Bank of England schemes are designed for them too.

 In April, firms raised £16.1 billion from financial markets, on net, the highest amount raised since June 2009 and significantly stronger than the previous six month average of £23 million. Within this, firms issued £7.7 billion of bonds, £7.0 billion of commercial paper (including funds raised through the Covid Corporate Financing Facility), and £1.4 billion of equity.

It is not easy as for obvious reasons a central bank can help a large business in ways that it cannot help a corner shop or one (wo)man band but the truth is that they also get a bit lazy and could try much harder.

Comment

I have held back the money supply data for this section and here it is.

These additional sterling deposit ‘flows’ by households, private non-financial businesses (PNFCs) and financial businesses (NIOFCs), known as M4ex, rose by £37.3 billion in April. The strength was driven by households and PNFCs. The increase was smaller than in March, when money increased by £67.3 billion.

An interesting decline in the monthly number but the main message here is the £104.6 billion in only two months which compares to a total of £2364.4 billion. So a bit short of 5% in only 2 months! The annual rate is now 9%. On terms of economic impact then that is supposed to give us a nominal GDP growth rate also of 9% in a couple of years. Because of where we are there are all sorts or problems with applying that rule but it is grounds for those who have inflation fears. Oh and as to how this is created well some £13.5 billion of QE a week sure helps.

One other factor will be that these aggregate numbers will hide very different individual and group impacts. For example some with mortgages will be in financial distress whereas others will be using lower rates to increase repayments. The same will be true of businesses with sadly as I have explained above smaller ones usually getting the thin end of the wedge. These breakdowns are as important as the aggregate data but often get ignored.

UK Money Supply surges as Unsecured Credit Collapses

Today brings the UK monetary situation into focus and to say it is fast moving is an understatement. Let me illustrate in terms of QE or Quantitative Easing where the current rate of purchases is £13.5 billion a week and the total by my maths is now £507 billion. This means we have seen an extra £72 billion in this Covid-19 pandemic phase. Looking at it from a money supply point of view means that in theory an extra £72 billion has been added. We have seen before that in practice QE does not always flow into the money supply data as the theory tells us but I also note that the ECB figures we looked at earlier this week were responding to its QE actions.

Next comes the other programmes where again the heat is on. The Covid Corporate Financing Facility has bought some £15.9 billion of Commercial Paper and in return supplied liquidity. Next comes the Corporate Bond programme which has bought around £2 billion so far. They do not provide much detail on the Corporate Bond purchases to avoid me pointing out that for example they are buying Apple and Maersk. Last on the list is the new version of the Term Funding Scheme supplying liquidity to banks at 0.1% and it claims to have supported £8.2 billion of new loans.

So we awash with liquidity if not actual cash. Now let us look at the impact until the end of March as we look at this morning’s data.

Money Supply

I think we can say we see an impact here! The emphasis is mine.

The amount of money deposited with, and borrowed from, banks and building societies by private sector companies and households overall rose very strongly in March. Sterling money holdings by households, non-financial businesses (PNFCs) and non-intermediating financial companies (NIOFCs), known as M4ex, rose by £57.4 billion in March, a series high and far above its previous six-month average of £9.0 billion. Sterling borrowing from banks (M4Lex) rose by £55.3 billion, also a series high and up from its previous six-month average of £5.1 billion.

Or as DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince would say.

Boom! shake-shake-shake the room
Boom! shake-shake-shake the room
Boom! shake-shake-shake the room
Tic-tic-tic-tic Boom!
Well yo are why’all ready for me yet
(pump it up prince)

Or more prosaically,

The strength in money was broad based across sectors, with the largest increases since these series began for households (first published in 1963), PNFCs (1963) and NIOFCs (1998). (  non-financial businesses (PNFCs) and non-intermediating financial companies (NIOFCs))

If we switch to the money supply implications then the 2.4% rise in March was as much as not so long ago we were seeing in a year. The annual growth rate of 7.4% is the highest we have seen for some time and next month we will break the numbers posted by the Sledgehammer QE effect in the autumn of 2016 and the spring of 2017. Actually I think we will break the all-time record for M4 anyway ( yes for my sins I still recall the £M3 days) but that is for another day.

Consumer Credit

There are some numbers here which in the previous regime would be too much for the morning espresso of Governor Carney and would have him summoning a flunkey from the Bank of England bar to fetch him his favourite Martini as he would be both shaken and stirred,

The weak net flows of consumer credit meant that the annual growth rate fell to 3.7% in March, lowest since June 2013. Within this, the annual growth rate of credit card lending fell to -0.3%, the first negative annual growth since the series began. The annual growth rate of other loans and advances fell to 5.6%.

The first Governor of the Bank of England to preside over negative annual credit card growth. I guess he and the new Governor Andrew Bailey will be playing a game of pass the parcel with that one!

This is a similar effect to what we saw in the credit crunch with households battening down the hatches by repaying credit with this time around settling your credit card in the van.

Households repaid £3.8 billion of consumer credit, on net, in March, the largest net repayment since the series began . Within this, credit cards accounted for £2.4 billion of net repayments and other loans and advances accounted for £1.5 billion.

Indeed the net figures may not do the gross data full justice.

This very weak net lending reflected a larger fall in new borrowing that was partially offset by slightly lower repayments. Gross lending was £5.4 billion weaker than February, while repayments were £1.3 billion lower.

Business Lending

This is something of a bugbear of mine as back in the summer of 2012 we were promised the the Funding for Lending Scheme would boost it, especially for smaller businesses. How is that going?

Within this, the growth rate of borrowing by large businesses increased sharply, to 11.8%, and growth by SMEs rose to 1.2%, from 0.9% in February.

Looking at the numbers for smaller businesses we are seeing two failures here. First the initial failure to get cash to them and second the conceptual failure over the past 8 years as the schemes to help them have recorded very little growth at best and sometimes none at all. In fact the situation has been so bad that the word counterfactual has been deployed which has two effects. For those that do not understand what it means it sounds impressive whilst leaving those that do mulling how giving £107 billion to the banks in the TFS had so little effect. Almost as if it was designed to do that.

Of course it is much easier to lend to larger businesses.

UK businesses’ deposits rose by £34.0 billion in March. Changes in deposits and loans were closely correlated across industries.

That bit is awkward. Did those that got it, not need it?

Mortgages

We open with a bit of all our yesterdays.

Mortgage borrowing picked up a little in March, with a net increase of £4.8 billion. The annual growth rate also rose a little, to 3.6%. Mortgage borrowing tends to lag approvals, however, so this strength is likely to reflect strength in approvals in previous months.

Then we get a bit more with the current reality.

In the mortgage market, evidence of a decline in housing market activity started to become apparent in March mortgage approval statistics, which fell by just over 20% (Chart 4). This was a broad based fall across reasons for applying for a mortgage. Approvals for house purchase fell by 24% to 56,200, their lowest level since March 2013; and approvals for remortgage fell 20% to 42,600, the fewest since August 2016. ‘Other’ approvals, which includes for withdrawing equity, fell back 17%, to 12,000.

Looking ahead with Gilt yields here we are likely to see more people look at a remortgage as my indicator for fixed-rate mortgage trends the five-year Gilt yield is a mere 0.1%. Of course there is also the issue of the market essentially being frozen.

Comment

Let me remind you that the broad money numbers are supposed to be a predictor of nominal GDP growth ( economic output) around two years ahead. So if we say we will be lucky to be back to where we were at the start of 2020 in two years time we would expect inflation of the order of 7% or so. Care is needed because the impulse these days is often seen in asset markets and is in my opinion a driver behind the stock market rally we have seen. That factor is why I argue to put house prices in consumer inflation measures in spite of the fact that for them “down, down” by Status Quo is more likely than Yazz’s “The only way is up” for this year. Although some seem to have spotted an alternative universe.

Nationwide said on Friday its measure of house prices rose by 0.7% in April from March and was 3.7% higher than a year earlier, stronger than forecasts in a Reuters poll of economists in both cases. ( Reuters)

Really?

Now let me look at another alternative universe or if this was a Riddick film the Underverse. You may need reminding that the official Bank of England Bank Rate is 0.1% as you read the numbers below.

Effective rates on interest bearing credit cards fell 14 basis points to 18.4%, whilst effective rates on personal loans fell 7 basis points to 6.8%.

Also the debacle at the Financial Conduct Authority which saw many overdraft rates double to around 40% is slowly being picked up in the data. Someone at the Bank of England must be torturing the series to keep the rate as low as 24% and please Governor Bailey who of course presided over the FCA at the time.

Will the new Bank of England Governor cut interest-rates like in Yes Prime Minister?

Today has brought something I have long warned about into focus. This is the so-called improvement made by Bank of England Governor Mark Carney where it votes on a Wednesday evening but does not announce the results until midday on a Thursday. With it being a leaky vessel there was an enhanced risk of an early wire for some.

The City watchdog is to investigate a jump in the pound which took place shortly before the Bank of England’s interest rate announcement on Thursday.

The rise has raised questions over whether the decision to hold the Bank’s base rate at 0.75% had been leaked.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said: “We are aware of the incident and are looking into it.”

In December, the Bank referred to the FCA a leak of an audio feed of sensitive information to traders.

The value of sterling increased about 15 seconds before midday on Thursday, when the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) made its announcement.

It rose from $1.3023 to $1.3089 against the dollar, and saw a similar increase against the euro.

( BBC )

Actually the Pound had been rallying from much earlier in the morning but perhaps the FCA was not up then. As to the enquiry we know from the TV series Yes Minister how they work.

That’s what leak enquiries are for.
Setting up.
They don’t actually conduct them.

In fact it gets better.

Members may be appointed, but they’ll never meet, and certainly never report.
How many leak enquiries can you recall that named the culprit? – In round figures.
– If you want it in round figures none.

For those of you who have never watched this series it described the UK system of government with both uncanny accuracy and humour. This week alone we saw the Chancellor call for expenditure cuts of 5% exactly as predicted. They will be promised and claimed but somehow wont actually happen if the series continues to be so prescient.

Press Conference

This was a classic Unreliable Boyfriend style performance proving that the Governor has not lost his touch. After hinting and not delivering an interest-rate cut he then in yet another innovation the Monetary Policy Report ( just like in Canada ) cut the expected economic growth rate.

Taken together, potential supply growth is projected to remain subdued, and weaker than expected a year ago.
The MPC judges that potential supply growth will remain subdued over the forecast period, at around 1% on average.
It initially falls a little from its current rate of around 1%, before rising to around 1½% in 2023 Q1.

The problem here was exposed by a good question from the economics editor of the Financial Times Chris Giles who asked why this had fallen so much in Governor Carney’s period of office? You always have an indicator of a hot potato when the question is quickly passed to a Deputy Governor. As ever the absent-minded professor Ben Broadbent waffled inconsequentially as he waited for the audience to lose the will to live. But there are clear underling issues here. The recent one is the fall in the speed limit form 1.5%  to 1% as implied here but as Chris highlighted it had already nearly halved. What Chris did not highlight but I will is the impact on this of the woeful “output gap” style thinking which I will illustrate by reminding you that the Governor originally highlighted an unemployment rate of 7% and now in the MPR we are told this.

The MPC judges that the long-term equilibrium unemployment rate has remained at around 4¼%

That is a Boeing 737 Max style error.

Today’s Data

It is hard not to recall Governor Carney tell us “this is not a debt-fuelled recovery” as you read the numbers below.

The extra amount borrowed by consumers in order to buy goods and services increased to £1.2 billion in December, in line with the £1.1 billion average seen since July 2018. Within this, net borrowing on credit cards recovered from a very weak November to £0.4 billion. Net borrowing for other loans and advances remained the same as in November, at £0.8 billion.

As you can see we are little the wiser as to why credit card spending fell in the way in did in the previous release ( November data). It may just be one of those things because the surrounding months were relatively strong a bit like we often see with the UK pharmaceutical sector which does not run in even months.

A consequence of this is below.

The annual growth rate of consumer credit rose to 6.1% in December, having ticked down to 5.9% in November. The growth rate for consumer credit has been close to this level since May 2019. Prior to this it had fallen steadily from an average of 10.3% in 2017.

So after rocketing it is merely rising very strongly! From. of course, a higher base. Can anybody think of anything else in the UK economy rising at this sort of rate? It is six times the rate at which the Bank of England now thinks the economy can grow at and around double wages growth.

Actually household consumption full stop picked up.

Net mortgage borrowing by households was £4.6 billion in December, above the £4.2 billion average seen over the past six months. Despite these stronger flows, the annual growth rate for mortgage borrowing remained at 3.4%. Mortgage approvals for house purchase (an indicator for future lending) also picked up in December, to 67,200, above the 65,900 average of the past six months. Approvals for remortgage rose slightly on the month to 49,700.

For newer readers this continues a trend started by the Funding for Lending Scheme which began in the summer of 2012. It took a year to turn net mortgage lending positive but over time this example of credit easing has had the effect you see above. Of course in true Yes Minister style it was badged as a policy to boost small business lending, how is that going?

Within this, the growth rate of borrowing from large businesses and SMEs fell to 4.4% and 0.8% respectively.

Actually and you have to dig into the detail to find this for some reason, smaller business borrowed an extra 0 in December which followed an extra 0 in November.

Comment

The last 24 hours have been an example of the UK deep-state in action. For example the ground was set for the new Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey to reward the government with an interest-rate cut in return for his appointment just like in Yes Prime Minister. Meanwhile as head of the FCA he can make sure that the leak enquiry into the current Governor does not impact in his own term in a sort of insider regulation response to possible insider trading.

Meanwhile the new Governor has already lived down to his reputation for competence.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said most High Street banks had set “very similar prices”, after it demanded changes to the system.

Several big brands including Santander, Lloyds Banking Group and HSBC are set to bring in a 39.9% rate this year.

The FCA has sent a letter to banks, asking them to explain what influenced their decision.

The City regulator has also asked how the banks will deal with any customers who could be worse off following the changes.

Yep the reforms of the FCA have more than doubled overdraft rates for some. Today’s Bank of England release has picked up a bit of this as its quoted rate is now 20.69% adding to something that I have reported throughout the life of this blog. Official interest-rates may fall but some real world ones have risen.

So as we consider Bank of England Governors let me leave you with one of the finest from the Who.

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I’ll get on my knees and pray
We don’t get fooled again

No, no!
We don’t get fooled again

 

 

 

Slow house price growth and a fall in credit card borrowing will worry the Bank of England

2020 has only just begun to borrow a phrase from The Carpenters but already the pace has picked up. Should the oil price remain above US $68 for a barrel of Brent Crude there will be consequences and impacts. But also we can look back on the Bank of England’s priority indicator in 2019 and on the subject here is the Nationwide.

Annual UK house price growth edged up as 2019 drew to a
close, with prices 1.4% higher than December 2018, the first
time it been above 1% for 12 months.

I have put in the format that would be most sensible for whoever is presenting the Bank of England Governor’s morning meeting. That is because pointing out the rise was only 0.1% in December does not seem as good and noting that unadjusted average prices fell by £452 may rewarded with an office that neither the wifi nor the cake trolley reach.

Continuing with that theme perhaps looking north of the border will help.

Scotland was the strongest performing home nation in
2019, with prices up 2.8% over the year.

Might be best to avoid this though.

London ended the year as the weakest performing region,
with an annual price decline of 1.8%.

If you are forced into looking at London then the Nationwide has done some PR spinning of the numbers.

While this marks the tenth quarter in row that prices have fallen in the capital, they are still only around 5% below the all-time highs recorded in Q1 2017 and c50% above their 2007 levels (UK prices are only around 17% higher than their 2007 peak).

Best to avoid the fact that London is usually a leader of the pack for the rest of the country.

Affordability

Should our poor graduate find themselves in this area then perhaps a new career might be advisable as even the Nationwide cannot avoid this.

“Even in the North and Scotland, where property appears
most affordable, it would still take someone earning the
average wage and saving 15% of their take home pay each
month more than five years to save a 20% deposit. In Wales
and Northern Ireland, it would take prospective buyers nearly seven years, and almost eight years for people living in the West Midlands.
“Reflecting the trend in overall house prices, the deposit
challenge is most daunting in the South of England, where it would take an average earner almost a decade to amass a 20% deposit. Again, the pressures are most acute in the
capital, where someone earning an average income would
need around 15 years to save a 20% deposit on the typical
London property (this is even longer than was the case
before the financial crisis, when it would have taken around
ten and a half years).”

So houses are very expensive and in many cases effectively unaffordable which contradicts the official measures of inflation which somehow ( somehow of course means deliberately) miss this out. So officially you are richer it is just unfortunate that you cannot afford housing….

Consumer Credit

Our unfortunate trainee cannot catch a break today as we note this.

The net flow of consumer credit was £0.6 billion in November, the smallest flow since November 2013.

Within it was something to send a chill down the spine of a modern central banker. The emphasis is mine and it will also have stood out in capitals to the Bank of England.

The extra amount borrowed by consumers in order to buy goods and services fell to £0.6 billion in November. This is the weakest since November 2013, and below the £1.1 billion average seen since July 2018. Within this, there was a net repayment of credit cards for the first time since July 2013, of £0.1 billion. Net borrowing for other loans and advances also weakened, to £0.7 billion.

Actually the stock of credit card borrowing fell by a larger amount from £72.4 billion to £72.1 billion. However whilst the drop stands out a little care is needed as the October flow was more than has become usual ( +£400 million) so the drop may be a bit of an aberration.

We learn more from the next bit.

These weak flows mean the annual growth rate of consumer credit fell to 5.7% in November, compared to 6.1% in October. It has now fallen 3.7 percentage points since July 2018, when it was 9.4%.

Whilst that may be true ( we recently had some large upwards revisions which reduced confidence in the accuracy of the data series) it dodges some important points. For example 5.7% is still much faster than anything else in the economy and because of the previous high rate of growth had to slow to some extent due to the size of the amount of consumer credit now ( £225.3 billion in case you were wondering). Also the other loans and advances section continues to grow at an annual rate of 6.6% which has not only been stable but seems to be resisting the impact of a weaker car market as car loans are a component of it.

Mortgage Lending

This morning’s release was a case of steady as she goes.

Lending in the mortgage market continued to be steady in November, and in line with levels seen over the past three years. Net mortgage borrowing fell marginally to £4.1 billion, and mortgage approvals for house purchase remained unchanged at 65,000.

The catch is that the push which began with the interest-rate cuts and QE bond buying after the credit crunch and was turbo-charged by the Funding for Lending Scheme in the summer of 2012 is losing its impact on house prices.

For those of you wondering what the typical mortgage rate now is another release today gave us a pointer.

Effective rates on new secured loans to individuals decreased 9bps to 1.87%.

For more general lending they seem a little reticent below so let me help out by saying it is 6.88%.

Effective rates on outstanding other unsecured loans to individuals decreased 4bps

That is another world from a Bank Rate of 0.75%. Meanwhile on that theme I would like to point out that the quoted interest-rate for credit cards is 20.3%. I have followed it throughout the credit crunch era and it is up by 2.5%. Yes I do mean up so relatively it has risen more as official interest-rates declined. This is something that has received a bit of an airing in the United States and some attention but not so here.

Comment

Let me open with two developments in the credit crunch era. The first is that even high interest-rates ( 20%) above do not seem to discourage credit card borrowing these days. I will also throw in that numbers from Sweden and Germany suggest that a combination of zero interest-rates for many and negative ones for some seem to encourage saving. That is a poke in not one but both eyes for the Ivory Towers.

Moving to our trainee at the Bank of England then I suggest as a short-term measure as the Governor is only around until March suggesting a man of international distinction is required to deal with issues like this.

Meteorologists say a climate system in the Indian Ocean, known as the dipole, is the main driver behind the extreme heat in Australia.

However, many parts of Australia have been in drought conditions, some for years, which has made it easier for the fires to spread and grow.

Returning to the economy then there was some better news from the broad money figures as November was a stronger month raising the annual rate of M4 growth to 4%. The catch is that it takes a while to impact and so is something for around the middle of 2021.

Me on The Investing Channel

 

 

Climate change is on Mark Carney’s agenda as he ignores the rise in consumer credit

As November ends and we move into December there is a fair bit for the Bank of England to consider.Only a week ago we were told this by the new “flash” Markit PMI business survey.

“The weak survey data puts the economy on course for a 0.2% drop in GDP in the fourth quarter, and also pushes the PMI further into territory that would normally be associated with the Bank of England adding more stimulus to the economy”

Poor old Markit never seem to question why more stimulus is apparently nearly always needed, But this was quite a different outlook to what the Bank of England had told us earlier this month.

The MPC expected continued subdued growth, of 0.2%, in 2019 Q4.

Another factor to add in is that the Bank of England has in an example of being once bitten, twice shy lost a bit of faith in the Markit PMIs since the day the absent-minded professor Ben Broadbent so lauded them.

Although business survey indicators, taken together, pointed to a contraction in GDP in Q4, the relationship between survey responses and growth appeared to have been weaker at times of uncertainty and some firms may have considered a no-deal Brexit as likely when they had
responded to the latest available surveys/

Even central bankers must realise that the panicky hints of a 0.1% Bank Rate based on the post EU Leave vote PMIs was a complete failure.

The UK Pound £

This has been in a stronger phase and was noted in the monetary minutes.

The sterling exchange rate index had
increased by around 3% since the previous MPC meeting, and sterling implied volatilities had fallen back
somewhat, although they remained significantly higher than their euro and dollar counterparts.

If we look now we see that the broad effective or trade weighted exchange rate fell to around 73.5 in mid August but is now 79.3. Under the old Bank of England rule of thumb that was considered to be nearly equivalent to a 1.5% interest-rate rise. Even if we reduce the impact as times have changed I think and trim the effect we are still left in my opinion with say a 1% rise.

We can look at that in two ways.Firstly it has a material impact and secondly it has hard not to have a wry smile. After all who can actually see the present Bank of England raising interest-rates by 1%?! Events would have to have taken over.

Broad Money

We can also look at the likely outlook via the money supply numbers. This morning the Bank of England has told us this.

Broad money (M4ex) is a measure of the amount of money held by households, non-financial businesses (PNFCs) and financial companies that do not act as intermediaries, such as pension funds or insurance companies (NIOFCs). Total money holdings in October rose by £1.6 billion, this was weak compared to both September and the average of the previous six-months.

That is a slowing after three better months. This is an erratic series and we see that this month businesses were responsible.

The amount of money held by households rose by £3.7 billion in October, primarily driven by increased holdings of interest bearing sight deposits. NIOFC’s money holdings fell by £2.4 billion, while the amount held by PNFCs rose by £0.4 billion.

If we switch to what does this mean? Well broad money impacts nominal output around 18 months to 2 years ahead.  So with an annual rate of growth of 3.6% we would expect economic growth of 1.6% assuming the Bank of England hits its 2% inflation target. That’s the theory as reality is usually not so convenient so please take this as a broad brush.

The good news is that the last 6 months or so have seen a pick-up so we may see one in 2021.The problem is that the numbers had been falling since the impact of the “Sledgehammer QE” of the summer/autumn of 2016. So it is no great surprise to those who look at the monetary data that economic growth has been weak and using it suggests similar as we head into 2020.

Mortgage Lending

We cannot look into the mind of a central banker without noting the large area taken up by the housing market.From that perspective this is good news below.

Net mortgage borrowing by households was £4.3 billion in October, £0.4 billion higher than in September. The recent stability in the monthly flows has left the annual growth rate unchanged at 3.2%, close to levels seen over the past three years. Mortgage approvals for house purchase (an indicator for future lending) fell slightly in October, to 65,000, but remained within the narrow range seen over the past two years.

Indeed their hearts must have been racing when they read this in the Guardian yesterday.

House price growth in the UK has picked up

Only to be dashed when they read further down.

The average price of a home rose by 0.5% in November to £215,734, according to Nationwide building society. This is the biggest monthly rise since July 2018, and up from 0.2% in October. The annual growth rate picked up to 0.8% from 0.4%, the highest since April.

Whilst we welcome the relative improvement in affordability from the point of view of the Bank of England this will lead to head scratching. They went to a lot of effort with the Funding for Lending Scheme back in the summer of 2012 to get net mortgage lending back into positive territory. But it and real wage growth have lost their mojo for now in this area.

Consumer Credit

By contrast this has lifted off again.

The extra amount borrowed by consumers in order to buy goods and services rose to £1.3 billion in October, above the £1.1 billion average since July 2018. Within this, net borrowing for both credit cards and other loans and advances rose, to £0.4 billion and £1.0 billion respectively.

The annual growth rate of consumer credit was 6.1% in October, up from 5.9% in September.

Is there anything else in the UK economy rising at an annual rate of 6.1%? Also there is an element of being economical with the truth below.

This is the first increase in the annual growth rate since June 2018, but it remains considerably lower than its post-crisis peak of 10.9% in November 2016.

You see last month they revised the figures by adding an extra £6.1 billion or around 5 months worth of growth at the current rate. Anyway the total is now £225 billion.

Comment

For the moment the Bank of England is in a type of purdah period which the Governor is using to expand into other areas.

The world needs a new, sustainable financial system to stop runaway climate change…….A new, sustainable financial system is under construction. It is funding the initiatives and innovations of the private sector and amplifying the effectiveness of governments’ climate policies—it could even accelerate the transition to a low-carbon economy. ( IMF )

Those worried about the future of the planet should be terrified at the present march of the globetrotting central bankers onto their lawns.Just look at their track record! But I guess Governor Carney is in need of a new job.

Returning to his present job we see that an interest-rate cut on the 19th of next month is looking increasingly likely. After all they are seldom much bothered by issues such as consumer credit rising although these days they seem to be having ever more trouble simply counting.

Some statistics on the outstanding amount of lending and deposits within the banking sector have been revised for September. In the first vintage of September’s statistics, some of this data was reported using an approach that was inconsistent to previous data, and reduced the total amounts outstanding. The current vintage of data corrects for this.

Even less reason for them to be involved in the future of the planet and that is before we get to their forecasting record….

The Investing Channel

Good news for the UK economy on the wages and broad money front less so on consumer credit

Today I feel sorry for whoever has to explain this at the Bank of England morning meeting.

“Annual house price growth remained below 1% for the 11th
month in a row in October, at 0.4%. Average prices rose by
around £800 over the last 12 months, a significant slowing
compared with recent years – for example, in the same
period to October 2016, prices increased by £9,100.”

That was from the Nationwide Building Society which has brought news to spoil a central banker’s breakfast. After all they have done their best.

“Moreover, mortgage rates remain close to all-time lows –
more than 95% of borrowers have opted for fixed rate deals
in recent quarters, around half of which have opted to fix for five years.”

The irony here is that they have made their own Bank Rate changes pretty impotent. I recall in the early days of this decade noting that nearly all mortgages in Portugal were fixed-rate ones and thinking we were different. Well not any more!

But unlike Governor Carney I consider this to be a good news story because of this bit.

the unemployment rate remains close to 40 year lows and real earnings growth (i.e. after taking account of inflation) is close to levels prevailing before the financial crisis.

So houses are becoming more affordable in general terms and the Nationwide is beginning to pick this up as its earnings to house price ratio has fallen from 5.2 to 5. Although the falls are concentrated in London ( from 10 to 8.9) and the outer London area ( 7.2 to 6.7). Both Northern Ireland ( now 4) and the West Midlands ( now 4.7) have seen small rises.

UK Wages

We can look at the wages position in more detail because this morning has brought the results of the annual ASHE survey.

Median weekly earnings for full-time employees reached £585 in April 2019, an increase of 2.9% since April 2018….In real terms (after adjusting for inflation), median full-time employee earnings increased by 0.9% in the year to April 2019.

So we see something of a turning in the situation for the better although sadly the situation for real wages is not that good, as it relies on the Imputed Rent driven CPIH measure of inflation. So maybe we had 0.5% growth in real wages.

Even using the fantasy driven inflation measure we are still worse off than we once were.

Median weekly earnings in real terms are still 2.9% lower (£18 lower) than the peak in 2008 of £603 in 2019 prices.

These numbers conceal wide regional variations as highlighted here.

In April 2019, the City of London had the highest gross weekly earnings for full-time employees (£1,052) and Newark and Sherwood had the lowest (£431).

Also the way to get a pay rise was to change jobs.

In 2019, the difference in growth in earnings for full-time employees who changed jobs since April 2018 (8.0%) compared with those who stayed in the same job (1.6%) was high, suggesting stronger upward pressure on wages compared with other years.

Tucked away in the detail was some good news for part-time workers.

Median weekly earnings for part-time jobs increased at a greater rate. In 2019, earnings increased by 5.2% in nominal terms, which translates to a 3.1% increase in real terms. The median weekly earnings for part-time employee jobs of £197 is 6.5% higher than in 2008 in real terms.

It seems that the changes in the national minimum wage have had a positive impact here.

Meanwhile far from everyone has seen a rise.

The proportion of employees experiencing a pay freeze or a decrease in earnings (in real terms) in 2019 (35.7%) is lower than in 2018 (43.3%) and in 2011 (relative to 2010) when it was 60.5%.

Mortgages

From the Bank of England today.

Mortgage market indicators point to continued stability in the market. Net mortgage borrowing by households was little changed at £3.8 billion in September. The stability in the monthly flows has left the annual growth rate unchanged at 3.2%. Growth rates have now remained close to this figure for the past three years. Mortgage approvals for house purchase (an indicator for future lending) were also broadly unchanged in September, at 66,000, and remained within the narrow range seen over the past three years.

As you can see this was a case of what Talking Heads would call.

Same as it ever was
Same as it ever was
Same as it ever was
Same as it ever was

Although there is a nuance in that the longer-term objective of the Bank of England is still in play. The true purpose of the Funding for Lending Scheme of the summer of 2012 was to get net mortgage credit consistently positive. That was achieved as there have been no monthly declines since ( unlike in 2010 and 2011) and over time the amount has risen. Nothing like the £9 billion pluses of 2007 but much higher than post credit crunch.

Consumer Credit

The credit impulse provided by the Funding for Lending Scheme was always likely to leak into here.

The annual growth rate of consumer credit was 6.0% in September. This growth rate has now been falling steadily for nearly three years. Revisions to the data this month, however, mean that the annual growth rate has been revised up slightly over the past two and a half years.

Let me give you an example of how the rate of consumer credit growth has been falling from last month’s update.

The annual growth rate of consumer credit continued to slow in August, falling to 5.4%.

The “revised up slightly” means it is now being reported as 6.1%. This is really poor as we can all make mistakes but this is a big deal and needs a full explanation as something has gone wrong enough on a scale to change the narrative.

Assuming this number is correct here is the detail for September itself.

The extra amount borrowed by consumers in order to buy goods and services fell slightly to £0.8 billion in September, and for the second month in a row was below £1.1 billion, the average since July 2018.

Broad Money

There was some good news in this release for the UK economy.

Total money holdings in September rose by £10.9 billion, broadly flat on the month, and remaining above the average of the past 6 months.

The amount of money held by households rose by £5.5 billion in September, primarily driven by increased holdings of interest bearing sight deposits. NIOFC’s money holdings rose by £4.3 billion, while the amount held by PNFCs rose by £1.0 billion.

I am a little unclear how a rise of just under £11 billion is “broadly flat”! But anyway this continues the improvement in the annual growth rate to 3.9% as opposed to the 1.8% of both January and May. Individual months can be erratic but we seem to have turned higher as a trend.

Comment

There have been several bits of good news for the UK economy today. The first is the confirmation of the improvement in the trajectory for real wages and some rather good growth for those working part-time. This feeds into the next bit which is the way that houses and flats are slowly becoming more affordable albeit that much of the progress has been in London and its environs. Looking ahead we see that the improvement in broad money growth is hopeful for the early part of 2021.

The higher trajectory for consumer credit growth is mixed,however. Whilst it will have provided a boost it is back to the age old UK economic problem of borrowing on credit and then wondering about the trade gap. It is especially poor that the Bank of England has been unable to count the numbers correctly. Also it is time for my regular reminder that the credit easing policies were supposed to boost lending to smaller businesses. How is that going?

while the growth rate of borrowing by SMEs rose slightly to 1.0%.

Woeful and a clear misrepresentation of what they were really up to.

NB

I later discovered that the Bank of England revised Consumer Credit higher by some £6.1 billion in August meaning that as of the end of September it was £225.1 billion.

 

 

 

Helicopter Money is not the answer to our economic problems

One of the features of the credit crunch era is the way that policies which seem extraordinary have a way of coming to fruition. We have seen many examples of this in the world of monetary policy. The two headliners would be negative interest-rates and Quantitative Easing or QE bond buying. The latter had previously only been a feature of the response to the “lost decade” in Japan but is now widespread. If it had worked we would not be discussing the “lost decades” but that seems to bother only me. Also these moves are invariably badged as temporary but so far none of them have gone away. Indeed in my home country the Bank of England is currently making QE look about as permanent as it can be.

As set out in the minutes of the MPC meeting ending on 31 July 2019, the MPC has agreed to make £15.2bn of gilt purchases, financed by central bank reserves, to reinvest the cash flows associated with the maturity on 7 September 2019 of a gilt owned by the Asset Purchase Facility (APF).

It will reinvest another £1.27 billion today but it is tomorrow that will be the real example of “To Infinity! And Beyond!” when it buys long and ultra-long dated Gilts.

These themes were on my mind when I noted this in the Daily Telegraph.

A radical world of “helicopter money” – where central banks fund government spending – is “inevitable” as policymakers run out of ammunition ahead of the next recession, top economists have warned.

Central banks are likely to “explore more unconventional policies” in the next downturn and blur the lines between fiscal and monetary policy with radical new tools, such as monetary financing, Deutsche Bank argued.

Let us just mark the issue that Deutsche Bank are top economists and move on. As to the details here is the original suggestion from Milton Friedman.

Let us suppose now that one day a helicopter flies over this community and drops an additional $1,000 in bills from the sky, which is, of course, hastily collected by members of the community. Let us suppose further that everyone is convinced that this is a unique event which will never be repeated.

Those of you who follow me on social media will know that I note the daily RAF Chinook flights over Battersea as they could carry a lot of notes. Perhaps they could name them “Carney’s Cash” and “Broadbent’s Bonanza” for the occasion.

The one time this sort of thing was tried it was in fact via a tax rebate in Japan and amounted to £142 if my memory serves me correctly. However being Japanese they mostly saved it so it was not repeated. So any UK repetition of this would be different as if you look at out habits we would be likely to spend it which starts well but then of course would be likely to make our current account deficit worse. Here from this morning is a reminder of it.

The UK current account deficit narrowed by £7.9 billion to £25.2 billion in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2019, or 4.6% of gross domestic product (GDP).

Whilst it is welcome we did better the overall picture is this.

The UK has run a current account deficit in each quarter since Quarter 3 (July to Sept) 1998 or, when considering annual totals, 1983.

So there is an issue although I have many doubts about the accuracy of the numbers especially when we get to investment flows. Let me give an example from the savings numbers released this morning.

The most notable recent revision was in 2017, when the previously published lowest annual saving ratio on record was revised upwards from 3.9% to 5.3%, meaning that the lowest annual saving ratio on record is now observed in 1971 where it stood at 4.8%.

If you remember the media furore at the time that is quite a big deal. Also it gets worse.

The annual households’ saving ratio in 2018 was revised upwards 1.9 percentage points to 6.1%.

Let’s us move on by noting how an emergency measure is being presented as almost normal which of course is more than familiar. We will know when they intend to begin it because we will see a phase of official denials as they get their PR spinning in first.

GDP Growth

This morning’s UK release was rather inconvenient for the monetary expansion apologists as we saw this.

UK gross domestic product (GDP) contracted by an unrevised 0.2% in Quarter 2 (Apr to June) 2019, having grown by an upwardly revised 0.6% in the first quarter of the year.

This meant that the annual rate of growth rose to 1.3% which is better than the Euro area’s 1.2%. I point this out because Michael Saunders of the Bank of England was telling us on Friday that we were in a weaker position. Also there was this.

Annual GDP growth in 2017 is now estimated at 1.9%, revised up from 1.8%,

So we move on knowing that the past was better than we thought. or if you prefer that economic growth has slowed by less than we thought.

Money Supply

There has been an improvement in recent months and here is this morning’s release from the Bank of England.

Broad money (M4ex) is a measure of the total amount of money held by households, non-financial businesses (PNFCs) and NIOFCs. In August, money holdings rose by £10.4 billion, with positive contributions from all sectors.

 

The total amount of money held by households rose by £4.6 billion in August. This was primarily due to a large increase in non-interest bearing deposits. The total amount of money held by NIOFCs rose by £3.3 billion, while the amount held by PNFCs rose by £2.5 billion.

Sorry for their love of acronyms and NIOFCs are non intermediating financial companies.

This means that the annual rate of growth for broad money is 3.3% as opposed to the 1.8% registered in May. The main changes have come in July and now August.

If we switch to M4 lending which is sometimes a useful guide then things have improved considerably as the rate of annual growth has pushed up to 5.5%. As mortgage lending remained pretty similar it has been driven by this.

Borrowing by financial companies that do not act as intermediaries, such as pension funds or insurance companies (NIOFCs), rose to £16.6 billion in August, the largest amount since monthly figures were first collected in 2009. Fund managers were the largest contributor to this strength.

Thus as so often with this sort of data ( bank lending) we are left wondering what the economic impact will be?

Consumer Credit

This continues on its merry way.

The extra amount borrowed by consumers in order to buy goods and services fell to £0.9 billion in August, slightly below the £1.0 billion average since July 2018.

The Bank of England are keen to point out this.

The annual growth rate of consumer credit continued to slow in August, falling to 5.4%. This remains considerably lower than its peak of 10.9% in November 2016, and is the lowest level since February 2014.

There are several elements of context to this. Firstly the rate of growth has been so fast it has raised the total to £218.6 billion so percentages would naturally fall. Also the weakening of the car market has contributed. Next the numbers are still much higher than anything else in the economy.

Small Business Loans

Remember when the monetary easing was supposedly for smaller businesses? Well there is a reason why that went quiet.

In contrast, the growth rate of borrowing by SMEs weakened slightly to 0.7%.

Comment

If we consider the overall situation we find several problems with helicopter money. The first is that it is supposed to be an emergency response when we keep being told we are not in an emergency but rather a recovery. It is a bit like putting an electric shock on a heart which is still beating. The next is that it would be an extraordinary move and yet again a big change would be made by unelected technocrats. This reminds me that some years ago I made the case for Bank of England policymakers to be elected. Finally it is just another way of the establishment making things easier for itself at the expense of the wider population.

This is because the wider population would be at risk of inflation and maybe much more inflation. This need not be consumer inflation as so far in the credit crunch era we have seen moves in asset prices such as bonds, equities and house prices. The latter of course allows the establishment to claim people are better off when first-time buyers are clearly worse off. Putting it another way this is why they are so resistant to putting house prices in the inflation indices and the new push to use fantasy rents suggests they fear helicopter money and negative interest-rates are on the horizon.

Podcast

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are the prospects for UK mortgage rates?

Today I thought I would reverse things around and look at a consequence of one of 2019’s themes. So let me hand you over to Moneyfacts.

The data shows that the largest rate reduction has been recorded in the five year maximum 80% loan-to-value (LTV) tier, which has fallen by 0.09% to 2.78%, followed by the five year maximum 70% and 85% LTV tiers, which have both decreased by 0.07% to 2.99% and 2.80% respectively. In fact, the only LTV tier to see a rate increase is the two year fixed at a maximum 65% LTV, which has increased by 0.01% to 2.03% from this time last month.

Oh and remember all the rhetoric from politicians after the credit crunch about there being no future for risky mortgage lending?

Since the beginning of this year, our analysis shows that the strongest rate competition appeared to take place at the maximum 95% LTV market, with lenders attempting to attract potential first-time buyers, which are considered the lifeblood of the mortgage and property market. As a result, the two year average fixed rate at this tier was driven down from 3.46% on 1 January to 3.24% by 16 May, where this rate has relatively remained unchanged since.

However those are averages which of course contain more than a few non-competitive offers. If we look further you can borrow at 1.33% from the Post Office for 2 years and at 1,67% from it for five years. These are remortgage rates with 40% equity.

Switching now to the driver of all this let me now point out that the two-year Gilt yield is 0.37% and the five-year is 0.3%. There are two perspectives on this of which the opening one is that the five-year fixed looks a worse deal in a relative comparison. However if we look back we see that it is five-year mortgage rates which have plunged. According to Statista the five-year mortgage rate was some 2% higher in June 2014 ( 3.69%) and apart from a small blip up when Bank Rate was raised to 0.75% has essentially been falling ever since. So five-year fixed rate mortgages are tactically bad but strategically good.

Just for clarity it is not the Gilt yields themselves that directly impact fixed-rate mortgages it is the swap rates that they influence. But with things as they are I expect the downwards pressure to remain.

What about a Bank Rate cut?

I am sure many of you thinking this so let me address it. As we stand UK Gilt yields are expecting two Bank Rate cuts of 0.25% so fixed-rate mortgages are already adjusting to that. Whereas in such a scenario variable-rate mortgages would fall and may well over the next couple of years be a better deal. Of course interest-rates could rise after October 31st should we Brexit on that date but we know that Bank of England Governor Carney cuts interest-rates with the speed of Usain Bolt but raises them at the speed of a tortoise which is hibernating. So only a real calamity would cause the latter. After all this is the world in which we now live.

Danish banks now buckling under the pressure of negative interest rates, with another lender announcing it will impose fees on large retail deposits. ( h/t Tracy Alloway)

Or indeed a world where the benchmark yield in Italy fell below 1% yesterday.

Just for clarity these are my opinions and not advice. Also there is the issue raised by Robert Pearson in the comments section about the banks having higher cost of funds limiting possible mortgage-rate falls.

The Outer Limits

Time for a reminder of something which has ignored the falls in Bank Rate and everything else. The Bank of England quoted interest-rate for credit cards is 20% and has risen in the credit crunch era.

What about the Mortgage Market?

We had figures earlier this week but today the Bank of England offered a wider view.

Net mortgage borrowing by households picked up in July, rising to £4.6 billion. While this was the strongest since March 2016, it reflected a fall in repayments rather than an increase in new lending. The annual growth rate remained at 3.2%, close to the level seen since 2016. Mortgage approvals for house purchase (an indicator for future lending) increased in July to 67,300. This was the strongest since July 2017, but remains within the very narrow range seen over the past two years.

The fall in repayments is curious and amounted to £900 million on a monthly basis and repeats what happened in June. It is dangerous to extrapolate too much from a couple of months but maybe some borrowing is going through this route or at current interest-rates some think it is not worth repaying.

Overall these are better numbers but not as strong as the UK Finance ones from Wednesday.

House Prices

In spite of the favourable situation provided by falling mortgage rates as we have just looked at and improving real wages house prices are not responding. From the Nationwide.

Annual house price growth remained below 1% for the ninth
month in a row in August, at 0.6%. While house price
growth has remained fairly stable, there have been mixed
signals from the property market in recent months.

In fact the unadjusted price fell by around £1600 on a monthly basis.

Unsecured Credit

The Bank of England slips this headline in for the copy and pasters.

Net consumer credit rose by £0.9 billion in July, broadly in line with the average seen over the past year.

But this represents this.

The annual growth rate of consumer credit remained at 5.5% in July, markedly lower than its peak of 10.9% in November 2016. This slowing reflects the weaker monthly lending flows over most of the past year.

Is there anything else growing at an annual rate of 5.5% in the UK? Perhaps the Bank of England is being wistful for the days when its Sledgehammer QE drove the annual rate of growth up to 10.9%. Also care is needed here about the slowing as much of it may simply reflect a slowing in car loans about which the Bank of England mostly keeps the data to itself ( I have asked).

Broad Money

If we look further ahead ( around 18 months) there was a glimmer of sunlight for the wider economy this morning.

Broad money (M4ex) is a measure of the total amount of money held by households, non-financial businesses (PNFC’s) and financial corporations that do not act to intermediate financial transactions (NIOFCs). In July, total money holdings rose by £18.9 billion, the largest monthly increase since May 2018. The increase on the month was driven by PNFCs, for which money held rose to £5.1 billion following a fall in June

The annual rate of growth is now 3.1% which is the best it has been since this time last year. M4 lending has also been picking up and is now 4.3% so there are some positive signs albeit from low levels.

Comment

We live in a curious world because let me add in another factor. The mortgage rates and yields we are discussing today are all strongly negative in real terms when we allow for inflation. Not only are Gilt real yields negative bit the ordinary person can borrow at negative real rates too if they have some equity. Not on a credit card though!

On current trends we may well get very low longer-term fixed-rate mortgages as presumably the ten-year fixed mortgage-rate will start to tumble too. In the uncertainty we face that could look very attractive I think. But again that is simply my opinion and not advice.

As for how low can they go? For the moment a base seems to have formed around the unwillingness/fear of banks on countries with negative interest-rates to actually impose this on the ordinary depositor. But we also know that our central planning overlords have several cunning plans in mind for this.

 

Retail Sales continue to be a bright spot for the UK economy

Today brings us up to date on the UK retail sector but before we get to it there is something that will have the full attention of the Bank of England. Let me hand you over to City-AM.

The Royal Bank of Scotland was hit this morning on the news that two brokers had lowered their forecasts for the company’s shares.

Analysts at Macquarie downgraded the company from buy to neutral this morning, slashing its target price to 201p, from 246p.

Meanwhile, Goldman Sachs reiterated its buy rating on the stock, but lowered its target price to 325p from 360p.

Shares were trading down around eight per cent to 182.5p.

Firstly at least I warned you as those who read my post on the sixth of this month will be aware. The theme of the credit crunch era has been that RBS is always about to turn a corner ( as in a way highlighted by a 360p price target) but the path turns out to be this one.

We’re on a road to nowhere
We’re on a road to nowhere
We’re on a road to nowhere

If you believed Brewin Dolphin on the 6th you may be wondering what happened to the ” path to redemption”? Also those with longer memories may be wondering about the “nest egg”

City Minister Lord Myners yesterday claimed that the ownership of RBS and LBG – which were both rescued from collapse by the Treasury in the credit crisis – represented a “nice little nest egg” for the taxpayer. ( Evening Standard September 2009)

I have picked this out for a reason because the Ivory Tower of the Bank of England has trumpeted the “Wealth Effects” of its policies whereas RBS has been a spectacular case of wealth destruction. I can widen this out as Barclays is at a recent low at 138 pence reminding me that the chairman who promised to double the share price has gone I think, which is for best because it has halved. The Zombie Janbouree continues with HSBC below £6 and Lloyds at 59 pence.

This is way beyond just a UK issue as for example the European banks are in quite a mess headlined by Deutsche Bank falling back below 6 Euros this morning. Or in some ways more so by the Spanish banks as the economy is still doing well but they look troubled too. Here is Mike Bird of the Wall Street Journal.

Japanese regional bank share prices have now broken below their Feb 2016 lows. The sector is, to use the technical terminology, completely screwed.

This is quite a change of approach from Mike who is something of the order of my doppleganger on Japan. Anyway my point is that the them here is that there have been no wealth effects from the banks and more seriously they cannot be supporting the economy.

The official Bank of England view is that banks are “resilient” and it is “vigilant”

Bond Yields

On the other side of the coin support is being provided by another surge in the UK Gilt market. These are extraordinary times with the UK having a ten-year yield of 0.44% and a five-year yield of 0.35%. Those who have owned UK Gilts have seen extraordinary gains and this includes the ordinary person with pension savings. However this is no silver bullet as we would be in a better place than we are if it was, But it does support the economy.

Whilst I am looking at this area let me deal with all the inverted yield curve mania going on via a tweet that proved rather popular yesterday.

Some worry about the yield curve ( 2s/10s) being inverted but I am sanguine about that. This is because when it bought £435 billion of UK Gilts the Bank of England distorted the market giving us an example of Goodhart’s Law.

It does not buy two-year Gilts thereby distorting the market and making past signals unreliable.

The Bank (as agent for BEAPFF) purchases conventional gilts with a minimum residual maturity of greater than three years in the secondary market.

Retail Sales

This morning has brought another good set of retail sales figures for the UK.

The quantity bought in July 2019 increased by 0.2% when compared with the previous month, with strong growth of 6.9% in non-store retailing.

The duff note there is the implication for the high street but the numbers below confirm that the situation for the UK economy overall remains positive.

In the three months to July 2019, the quantity bought in retail sales increased by 0.5% when compared with the previous three months, with food stores and fuel stores seeing a decline…….Year-on-year growth in the quantity bought increased by 3.3% in July 2019, with food stores being the only main sector reporting a fall at negative 0.5%.

The positive spin in the decline of the high streets is provided by this.

In July 2019, online retailing accounted for 19.9% of total retailing compared with 18.9% in June 2019, with an overall growth of 12.7% when compared with the same month a year earlier.

The flipside is that less money flows through the high street and sadly I suspect this is not a new trend.

Department stores’ growth increased for the first time this year with a month-on-month growth of 1.6%; this was following six consecutive months of decline.

Comment

Let me shift now to why is this happening? The situation regarding the UK consumer is strong and has been supported by several factors. The first is in the numbers themselves and repeats a theme I first highlighted on the 29th of January 2015.

Both the amount spent and the quantity bought in the retail industry reported strong growth of 3.9% and 3.3% respectively when compared with a year earlier.

That gives us an ersatz inflation measure of the order of 0.6% which made me look it up and the official deflator is 0.8%. That is very different to the ordinary inflation measures we see which are 2%-3%. So in a sense your money goes further ( strictly declines in value more slowly) and is compared to this.

Estimated annual growth in average weekly earnings for employees in Great Britain increased to 3.7% for total pay (including bonuses) and 3.9% for regular pay (excluding bonuses).

So in real terms there are gains in this sector. Thus it is no great surprise it has done well.

Also there is the fact that whilst the annual rate of growth has slowed we are still on something of an unsecured credit orgy.

The additional amount borrowed by consumers to buy goods and services was £1.0 billion in June, compared with £0.9 billion in May…….The annual growth rate of consumer credit continued to slow in June, falling to 5.5%

Is anything else growing at an annual rate of 5.5%.

Cauliflowers

There seems to be something of a media mania here as this from BBC Essex illustrates.

“Customers I’ve never seen before are coming in just for cauliflowers” Great Baddow greengrocers Martin and George Dobson are selling imported cauliflowers at cost price as Britain experiences a shortage. Prices have reached £2.50

I checked in two local supermarkets and they were selling then for £1 albeit they were from Holland. Then I went to Lidl and they were selling UK cauliflowers for 75 pence. Maybe a bit smaller than usual but otherwise normal so I bought one.