The Bank of England faces quite a dilemma

At the moment the minds of the Bank of England must be getting more befuddled than usual as jet lag adds to the usual problems. Once they get back from Australia ( Haldane and Broadbent) and Canada ( Governor Carney) no doubt they will set aside time to read Governor Carney’s latest speech on climate change. That is assuming the forward guidance of their various pilots is working much better than theirs as otherwise a few more flights will be required to get home. So let us open with some relatively rare good news for them. From the BBC.

Reaction Engines Limited (REL), the UK company developing a revolutionary aerospace engine, has announced investments from both Boeing and Rolls-Royce.

REL, based at Culham in Oxfordshire, is working on a propulsion system that is part jet engine, part rocket engine.

At the moment the sums are small but it is a reminder that space technology has been a success story for the UK economy over the past couple of years. It has been getting more and more mentions in the official statistics.

Ben Broadbent

Deputy Governor Broadbent has given a speech at the Reserve Bank of Australia this morning. Tucked away in it is something of a gem even for our absent-minded professor.

I discovered when writing the talk that my former colleague Paul Tucker made very similar arguments regarding accountability back in 2011.

The last thing any sensible person would do is equate former Bank of England Deputy Governor Paul Tucker with accountability. Many of you will remember the saga but for those that do not here is the Guardian from back then.

Paul Tucker, the former deputy governor of the Bank of England, is among several figures from the world of finance to receive a knighthood in the New Year honours list, despite claims that he was involved in the Libor interest-rate fixing scandal.

What has concerned our bureaucrat is what concerns bureaucrats the most everywhere which is a challenged to the bureaucratic empire.

Some have argued that, because there are significant interactions between the two, monetary and macroprudential policy should be housed not just in the same institution, but in the same policymaking committee
within the central bank. The distinct MPC and FPC should become a single “FMPC”.

Okay why not ?

The risk is that a single committee would pay
too much attention to its more verifiable objectives – the cyclical stabilisation of inflation and growth, currently
allocated in the main to the monetary policymaker – and too little to financial stability.

Yet he seems to forget this later as he remembers his boss is on both committees so we get this.

Even if the two hands are separate, it is important that the one should know what the other
is doing, and in that respect it helps that some people sit on both committees.

Indeed they do some things together.

Many economic
issues are relevant for both and, in the Bank of England, the MPC and FPC regularly receive joint briefings
on such matters.

Poor old Ben then trips over his own feet with this as an increasing number think that what he fears is the current state of play.

I think there would be risks in asking the central bank to meet a wide range of objectives with no distinctive accounting for the use of its various tools.

The housing market

Those at the Bank of England who have trumpeted wealth effects from higher house prices will be troubled by this from Estate Agents Today.

Prices are flat nationally but there are major regional variations with London seeing the sharpest fall in prices, according to the surveyors.

Respondents in the South East of England, East Anglia and the North East of England also reported prices to be falling, but to a lesser extent than in London.

Prices increased elsewhere in the UK in the last three months.

Will they now be so keen to try to push mortgage interest-rates higher and thus drive away the claimed wealth effects? Whereas at the moment the situation according to the credit conditions survey of the Bank of England reminds us that its previous policies are still having an effect.

A narrowing of spreads reflects an increase in the level of
competition in the mortgage market. In recent discussions, the major UK lenders noted that competition remains very strong.

Can anybody please tell me where the £127 billion of funding given to the banks by the Term Funding Scheme may have gone? It does not seem to have gone here.

The perceived availability of credit to small businesses decreased slightly in 2018 Q1, according to respondents to the Federation of Small Businesses’ (FSB) Voice of Small Business Index.

Also if we return to the argument provided by Ben Broadbent that a separate FPC is vital I wonder what he and they think of where the biggest impact of their TFS has been.

 competition remains very strong
and since November has increased in the higher LTV market,………..Consistent with this, the difference
between quoted rates on two-year fixed rate 90% and 75%
LTV mortgages has narrowed from 90 basis points in August to 69 basis points in March. ( LTV = Loan To Value).

As I understand it this is officially called vigilance these days.

Consumer Credit

Another example of “vigilance” can be provided here from today’s survey. You may recall that the Bank of England has taken something of a journey on this subject after Governor Carney told us this in February 2017.

This is not a debt-fuelled consumer expansion
that we’re dealing with.

Now the survey tells us this.

There has been a modest tightening in the availability of
consumer credit over the past year.

This is a reining back from the promises of a reduction that we saw in the survey for the third and fourth quarters of last year which they are no doubt hoping we have forgotten. Of course we see a sign of the Term Funding Scheme at play yet again.

Lending spreads have tightened in recent months as interest rates remained broadly unchanged following the rise in Bank Rate.

This provides two problems for the Bank of England. Firstly it has boosted consumer credit with its “Sledgehammer” policies and now we will have to face the consequences. Next is a confirmation of the earliest theme of this blog which is that Bank Rate has very little and sometimes nothing to do with the interest-rates charged in this area. In effect therefore it is somewhat impotent.

 

Comment

Yet again our absent-minded professor has been somewhat forgetful. For example his own move from being an “external” member to an internal one at the Bank of England was clearly beneficial for him but was bad for the idea of external members bringing fresh ideas and dare I say it independence to the Bank. Now that Rubicon has been crossed they too may now be hoping for promotion and monetary gain and hence influenced in the same way their appointment was an attempt to avoid.

Also the empire building of the current Governor who has overseen inflation in the number of Deputy Governors such as Ben is clearly something that cannot be challenged within the Bank. For example I am no great fan of macro prudential policy as when it was used in the past it failed and I notice the fanfare in favour has gone much quieter as reality has replaced hype.

Moving to the interest-rate issue that presently seems to be the topic du jour every day the Bank of England is facing something of a crisis as its forward guidance has put it between a rock and a hard place. The rock is the increases seen and expected in US interest-rates and the hard place is the trajectory of the UK economy.

Nigeria

The honesty is admirable but it is hard not to smile as you read why Nigeria released its inflation data an hour early today. The Hat Tip is to @LiveSquawk

It will be shortly. I published one hour earlier by accident. Forgot Watch still on London time so I released 8am instead of 9am as published . Probably need a break/holiday. My apologies

 

 

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What happens if consumer spending is debt fuelled but slows anyway?

Today brings us to a sector of the UK economy that has been running rather red-hot which is the unsecured credit data. The BBC caught up with this on Monday albeit from data which is incomplete.

Debt on UK credit cards is growing at the fastest rate since before the financial crisis, figures show.

The more regular use of these cards for smaller, contactless purchases explains in part the greater debt being built up over short periods.

However, figures from UK Finance show that the annual growth rate in outstanding credit card debt of 8.3% in February was the highest for 12 years.

Some of you will already be smelling a rat as you recall that it has been over 10% in response to the Bank of England opening the credit taps with its “Sledgehammer” in August 2016. It is interesting to see though that on this series we are finally getting the same message. Oh and if you are wondering who UK Finance are they are the new name for the British Bankers Association in the same way that the leaky Windscale nuclear reprocessing plant became the leak-free Sellafield.

If we look further into the data there was potentially good news for the economy which does fit with news elsewhere.

“Bank lending to businesses saw modest year-on-year growth in February, driven by investment within the manufacturing sector”

Today’s Data

The data from the Bank of England could have been released with KC and the Sunshine Band in the background.

Now it’s the same old song
But with a different meaning
Since you been gone
It’s the same old song

Or to put it another way.

The annual growth rate for consumer credit ticked up slightly to 9.4% (Table J), although net lending remains broadly in line with its previous six-month average.

The monthly number rose from £1.3 billion in January to £1.6 billion in February and the total is now £209.6 billion. If we break that down the fastest growing component is credit cards which if we annualise the quarterly growth rate have risen by 11.3% and now 11.2% in 2018 so far meaning the total is now £70.6 billion. But for that we would be worried by the larger other loans and advances ( personal loans and overdrafts ) which total some £138.6 billion and on the same criteria have grown at 8.2% and 8.5%. Individual months can be erratic but this sector has been a case of the trend is your friend for a couple of years or so now.

Never believe anything until it is officially denied

One of my favourite phrases because it works so well. Brought to you this time by the Bank of England credit conditions survey and the emphasis is mine.

The availability of unsecured credit to households was reported to have decreased again in Q4, such that reductions were reported in all four quarters of 2017 (Chart 1). Lenders expected a significant decrease in Q1. Credit scoring criteria for granting total unsecured loan applications tightened again in Q4, and lenders expected them to tighten significantly further in Q1.

So they reduced it in the third quarter if you recall as well cut it back in the 4th and then gave it a “significant decrease” to er 9.4% in February. This is heading into comical Ali territory now.

Back in February 2017 Governor Mark Carney told us this at the Inflation Report press conference.

From an MPC perspective, just to put those numbers into
context, on the most expansive definition, the increase in
consumer borrowing would contribute up to a tenth of the
increase in consumption. So it’s something, but it’s not
everything. This is not a debt-fuelled consumer expansion
that we’re dealing with.

Of course he may still have been rattled by the opening question.

Governor, back in August the forecast for GDP for this year
was 0.8%. Now it’s being forecast at 2.0%. That’s a really
hefty adjustment. What went wrong with your initial
forecast?

This is not a debt-fuelled consumer expansion

I would like to stick with the statement by the Governor and bring in this from the Office of National Statistics earlier.

The accumulation of debt (measured by the amount of short-term and long-term loans households took out) in 2017 outstripped the amount of total financial assets they accumulated in the same period. This was the first time this happened since records began in 1987.

Also is anybody thinking of the Sledgehammer QE of August 2016 and of course the promises back then of further “muscular” action in November 2016?

Up until Quarter 3 2016, the households sector was a net lender. In the five quarters since, households have been net borrowers at an average of £3.3 billion per quarter. As a result, 2017 was the first year in which households were net borrowers – meaning that they had to borrow in order to fund their spending and investment activities.

Perhaps this is what the Governor meant at Mansion House last year.

This stimulus is working. Credit is widely available, the cost of borrowing is near record lows, the economy has outperformed expectations ( his especially).

Business Lending

This was supposed to be the main target of the Funding for Lending Scheme as it was fired up in the summer of 2012. The priority was smaller businesses so how is that going?

Net lending to SMEs has increased following a rather weak January

It rose by £700 million after falling by £700 million then. This means that the annual growth rate has risen from 0% to 0.1% and reminds us yet again of the true meaning of the word counterfactual.

Comment

So the beat goes on for UK unsecured credit although it seems to have taken UK Finance quite some time to catch up. The national accounts breakdown also tells us that there has been something of a shift although it includes secured debt and has issues with accuracy. On that subject if we stay with GDP here is an example of something from the research centre of the UK ONS.

Our initial results suggest that imputation of pension
accruals raises both the Gini coefficient and the geometric mean of equivalised household income materially, while the effects of imputing investment income are more marked on the Gini coefficient than on the geometric mean of household income.

So if we have imputed rent, pensions and investment income why not stop counting anything and simply input the lot and tell us that tractor production is rising. You may not be surprised to read that one of the authors is Martin Weale who is building a consistent track record.

Moving back to unsecured debt I note that the Bank of England ( of course Dr. Weale’s former employer )  is of course vigilant. But in spite of all this vigilance even growth at these levels does not seem to be helping the retail sector much as we observe a steady stream of receiverships and closures. On the more hopeful side falling inflation will help improve the real wages situation this year and mean that we may get some more of this.

UK gross domestic product (GDP) increased by 1.8% between 2016 and 2017, revised upwards by 0.1 percentage points from the second estimate of GDP published on 22 February 2018.

Happy Easter to you all.

The more we are told UK household debt is not a problem the more worried we should be

We have reached a stage where the UK establishment is paying more and more attention to household debt issues. This reminds me of the explanation of the bureaucratic response to such issues explained by Yes Prime Minister. All we have to do is switch from foreign to economic policy. From imdb.com.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Then we follow the four-stage strategy.

Bernard Woolley: What’s that?

Sir Richard Wharton: Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.

Sir Richard Wharton: In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.

Sir Richard Wharton: In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there’s nothing we *can* do.

Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it’s too late now.

The other part of the strategy or game is to make it appear that you are on the case which these days in monetary or economic policy is summed up by the use of the word vigilant which seems set to become a metaphor for anything but in the way that Forward Guidance has become.

The Financial Conduct Authority

The Director of Supervision at the FCA Jonathan Davidson told us this yesterday,

The consumer credit sector is by far and away our largest sector in terms of number of firms with almost 40,000 firms registered with the FCA. And as a sector you have been growing – according to the Bank of England, consumer credit grew 9.3% over the last year.

Regular readers will of course be aware of this and we have looked at the issues below too.

After all, none of us can forget the context in which we are operating. Total credit lending to individuals is currently very close to its September 2008 peak. The circumstances are different now than 10 years ago, but there are still worrying numbers of householders who may still be in too deep. For example, 1 in 5 mortgages today are interest only mortgages, many of which were made at the height of the credit boom to borrowers with little equity in their homes and not a lot of disposable income. And they won’t mature until about 2032.

Indeed the circumstances are different as for example real wages are lower but I am not entirely sure that is what he means! The reminder about the scale of interest-only mortgages does make me think that an establishment solution for that would be to push house prices higher, oh hang on! If we look around we see that such a policy has worked in the south-east and other areas but would be struggling for example in Northern Ireland. As to affordability I guess Mr, Davdson would point us to this from the Office for National Statistics.

The median equivalised household disposable income in the UK was £27,300 in the financial year ending (FYE) 2017. After taking account of inflation and changes in household structures over time, the median disposable income has increased by £600 (or 2.3%) since FYE 2016 and is £1,600 higher than the pre-economic downturn level observed in FYE 2008.

Of course the aggregate numbers can hide trouble.

The Bank of England’s Financial Stability Report last year noted that consumer credit has grown rapidly and that, relative to incomes, household debt is high. And there are a significant number of households that are in so deep that the slightest sign of rough weather could see them in over their heads.

If we go back to the press conference back then Governor Carney told us this.

So there are pockets of risk, consumer credit is a pocket of risk, it’s been growing quite rapidly.

That made him sound a little like the “pocketses” of Gollum in the Lord of the Rings, Unfortunately this was not followed up as the press corps was only really interested in Brexit but here are the numbers from the report.

The total stock of UK household debt in 2017 Q2 was
£1.6 trillion, comprising mortgage debt (£1.3 trillion),
consumer credit (£0.2 trillion) and student loans (£0.1 trillion). It is equal to 134% of household incomes , high by historical standards but below its 2008 peak of 147%. Excluding student debt, the aggregate household debt to income ratio is 18 percentage points below its 2008 peak.

Fascinating isn’t it that they continue the campaign to exclude student debt from the numbers. Maybe it is because it is growing so fast or maybe like me they feel most of it will never be repaid. But in my view you cannot ignore it because it is having effects and implications right now. Also there is the false implication that just because the numbers are not quite as bad as 2008 we can sing along with Free.

All right now, baby, it’s a-all right now.
All right now, baby, it’s a-all right now

Interest-Only Mortgages

Oh and if these are an issue then  genuinely vigilant regulators might be on the case here.

However, since reaching a low-point in 2016, the interest-only market is starting to show signs of life again as lenders re-enter the market………However more recently, there are signs that lenders are starting to expand interest-only lending again, which rose to £5.4bn in Q3 2017, a 45% increase on the previous year. ( Bank Underground).

Everything is fine

Back in January research from the Bank of England via Bank Underground told us everything is fine.

Insight 1: Credit growth has not been driven by subprime borrowers

Insight 2: People without mortgages have mainly driven credit growth

Insight 3: Consumers remain indebted for longer than product-level data implies

I have to confess I am always somewhere between cautious and dubious about such detailed analysis I have seen it go wrong and more often than not spectacularly wrong so often. After all the “liar loans” pre credit crunch would have officially looked good. Also the authors seem keen to cover all the bases.

But vulnerabilities remain. Consumers remain indebted for longer than previously thought. And renters with squeezed finances may be an increasingly important (and vulnerable) driver of growth in consumer credit.

Motor Finance

Mr.Davidson offered some reassuring words on this subject.

The growth of PCP contracts in the motor finance market is a good example of an innovation that has had a significant impact………

So financing of car ownership has become more affordable, allowing more consumers to have more expensive cars. Indeed, the number of point-of-sale consumer motor finance agreements for new and used cars has nearly doubled from around 1.2m in 2008 to around 2.3m in 2017.

This type of innovation, and business model diversity, paints a really attractive picture of your industry.

Is it a miracle? Well please now re-read the quote using the definition of innovation from my financial lexicon for these times which was taught us by the Irish banks which is claimed triumph followed by disaster. I guess such thoughts will be reinforced by this bit.

It is important to me that we continue this innovation in the sector,

Also although he does not say it I am for some reason reminded of Royal Bank of Scotland by this.

A key observation and concern for us is that there are some business models for which customers who can’t afford to repay the principal are profitable, sometimes very profitable

Comment

There is much to consider here and let me give you a clear theme. Individual speeches are welcome and well done to Mr.Davidson but a succession of them means that the establishment is not  preparing us for moonlight and music and love and romance but rather

There may be trouble ahead……..

There may be teardrops to shed

Whilst they will be mulling this line.

Before the fiddlers have fled,

If we consider the overall position the reverse argument to mine is that collectively the debt is affordable and in theory and up in the clouds with the Ivory Towers it is. But when we return to earth reality is invariably far less convenient as this from Mr,Davidson’s speech suggests.

We are also seeing younger people borrowing a lot more relative to their incomes than my, baby boomer, generation. Why is this? It’s because of:More student borrowing. Our financial lives survey showed that 30% of 25-34 year olds have a Student Loan Company loan. The higher cost of getting onto the housing ladder. Shifting patterns of savings, borrowing and consumption. You don’t need to wait, you can have it now.

 

Among 25-34 year olds, 19% have no savings whatsoever, and a further 30% have less than a £1000 saved to use on a rainy day. Indeed, 36% had been overdrawn in the last 12 months.

At the same time, the number of self-employed people in the UK has risen by more than 1.5m since the turn of the century (a 45% increase), and more than 900 thousand people currently are on zero-hours contracts. The gig economy is growing strongly.

When bubbles blow up or pockets develop holes in them it is invariably something relatively small that is the trigger. The consequences however are usually widespread.

The Bank of England has a credit problem

This morning has opened with news that the winter chill affecting the UK has blown down Threadneedle Street and into the office of Governor Mark Carney at the Bank of England.

House prices fell by 0.3% over the month, after
taking account of seasonal factors…..“Month-to-month changes can be volatile, but the slowdown is consistent with signs of softening in the household sector in recent months.”

That was from the Nationwide Building Society – as ever care is needed as it is only Nationwide customers – and it backed it up by saying that the outlook was also not so good.

Similarly, mortgage approvals declined to their weakest
level for three years in December, at just 61,000. Activity
around the year-end can often be volatile, but the weak
reading comes off the back of subdued activity in October
and November (approvals were around 65,000 per month
compared to an average of 67,000 over the previous 12
months). Surveyors report that new buyer enquiries have
remained soft in recent months

So at this point Governor Carney will be miserably observing weaker business for the “precious” and a monthly house price fall. If he is cold prospects may not be so good. From the Guardian.

National Grid has issued a warning that the UK will not have enough gas to meet demand on Thursday, as temperatures plummeted and imports were hit by outages.

Good to see that there has been plenty of forward planning on this front.

The crunch is also the UK’s first major energy security test since the country’s biggest gas storage facility was closed by Centrica last year. The Rough site in the North Sea had accounted for 70% of the UK’s gas storage.

Forward guidance anyone?

Three cheers from Governor Carney

However there was something of a warm fire in the Governor’s office today as he observed this from his own data.

Mortgage approvals increased in January for both house purchase and remortgaging, to 67,478 and
49,242 respectively.

The plan that started back in the summer of 2012 with the Funding for Lending Scheme continues.

Annual growth in secured lending was unchanged at 3.3% in January , with net lending at £3.4 billion.

In essence the plan was a type of credit easing where feeding cheap cash to the banks was designed to boost the UK economy via turning net mortgage lending from negative to positive. It took around a year to work but as mortgage rates fell ( initially by around 1% and later by more) net mortgage lending turned positive and has remained so. The Governor’s office will feel ever warmer as he observes this from the Nationwide.

net property wealth is the second largest store of household wealth after private pension wealth and amounted to c.£4.6 trillion over the July 2014 to June 2016 period – equivalent to around two and a half times UK output in 2016.

Any Bank of England economist looking for career advancement only has to write about these wealth effects feeding into the economy. Should he or she want solitude then all they have to do is point out the madness in using marginal prices especially at lower volumes to value a stock of housing. Then before you can cry “Oh Canada” they will be dispatched to a dark damp dungeon where the Bank of England cake trolley never arrives.

Overheating

After the speech from Chair Powell on Tuesday this has become something of a theme and there is a clear example of it in the UK unsecured credit data.

The annual growth rate for consumer credit has slowed over the past year to 9.3%, driven by other
loans and advances.

This is where we get a lesson in number crunching from the Bank of England as this is represented as slowing whereas say wage growth is always on its way to a surge. In reality consumer credit has been on something of a tear and the monthly growth of around £1.4 billion has been fairly consistent whereas wage growth has so far gone nowhere. Or to put it another way the economy is growing at around 2% so there has been a 7/8% excess for quite some time now. One area which was driving this seems now to be a fading force.

The UK new car market declined in the first month of the year, according to figures released today by the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT). 163,615 cars were driven off forecourts in January, a -6.3% fall compared with the same month in 2017.

This fading has been reflected in the UK Finance and Leasing Association figures.

 New business in December 2017 fell 2% by value and 5% by volume compared with the same month in 2016.

Yet unsecured lending has continued on its not so merry path and has now risen to £207.5 billion.

Business Lending

This was the main aim of the Bank of England especially for the smaller business sector, at least that is what we were told. Indeed  the scheme was modified we were told to improve that success. How is that going?

Lending to non-financial businesses fell by £1.6 billion in January . Loans to small-and-medium
sized enterprises fell by £0.7 billion, the largest decline since December 2014.

If we look for some perspective we see that three of the last four months have seen credit contractions and the six month average is -£100 million. So the Bank of England arrow if I may put this in Abenomics terms missed the smaller businesses target completely but scored a bullseye in consumer credit which is still growing at 9.3% per annum. The latter is of course in spite of us being told that conditions were much tighter in the latter part of 2017.

Comment

Those who have followed the UK economy over the years and indeed decades will know that today’s data follows a familiar theme. An easing of monetary policy such as the credit easing of the FLS and now the Term Funding Scheme ( £115.4 billion) followed by the Bank Rate cut and Sledgehammer QE of August 2016 would be expected to have the following results. A rise in mortgage lending and then later a rise in unsecured lending it has been ever thus. This is because it is easy to do for the banks and it is an area in which they excel whereas business lending is both more complex and harder to do. Track records do matter as I recall my late father telling me (he had a plastering business) that when he really needed finance the banks took it away whereas at other times it was plentiful. Please remember that when we are told small businesses “do not want to borrow” it may be because they have much longer memories than the banks.

Oh and in case the Bank of England tries to tell us unsecured credit growth can be cut by a Bank Rate rise or two please remember that credit card debt costs around 18% per annum according to its data.

If we switch to the real economy then there is another area where the Bank of England is lost in a land of confusion. This is the impact of the post EU leave vote fall in the UK Pound £ which according to the PMI business survey this morning seems to have helped UK manufacturers.

the continued rise in export orders s and an uplift in new orders from the domestic market provided evidence that the
foundations for continued growth were still buoyant………New orders
showed the largest monthly gain since November
and are outpacing the rate of growth in output to
one of the greatest extents in more than a decade.

It is possible that we are seeing import substitution as well as export growth. It makes you wonder how well they would be doing if the banks supported them with more and better finance doesn’t it?

Me on Core Finance TV

http://www.corelondon.tv/feds-powell-needs-just-get/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

What is happening to US consumer credit and car loans?

If we take a look at the US economy then we see on the surface something which looks as it is going well. For example the state of play in terms of economic growth is solid according to the official data.

Real gross domestic product (GDP) increased at an annual rate of 3.2 percent in the third quarter of 2017 (table 1), according to the “third” estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the second quarter, real GDP increased 3.1 percent.

Looking ahead the outlook is bright as well.

The New York Fed Staff Nowcast stands at 3.9% for 2017:Q4 and 3.1% for 2018:Q1.

That would be a change as the turn of the year has tended to under perform in recent times. Also if we use the income measure for GDP the performance is lower. But if we continue with the data we see that both the unemployment rate ( 4.1% in December) and the underemployment rate ( 8.1% in December) have fallen considerably albeit that the latter nudged higher in December.

Less positive is the rate of wage growth where ( private-sector non farm) hourly earnings are currently growing at 2.5%. This is no doubt related to this issue.

In the 2007-2016 period, annual labor productivity decelerated to 1.2 percent at an annual average rate, as compared to the 2.7 rate in the 2000-2007 period.

So a familiar pattern we have observed in many places although the US is better off than more than a few as it has real wage growth albeit not a lot especially considering the unemployment rate and at least has some productivity growth.

Interest-rates are rising

Whilst wages have not risen much in response to a better economic situation interest-rates are beginning to. The official Federal Reserve rate is now 1.25% to 1.5% and is set to rise further this year. If we move to how such things impact on people then the 30 year (fixed) mortgage rate is now 4.06%. It has had a complicated picture not made any easier by the current government shutdown but in broad terms the downtrend which took it as low as 3.34% is over.

How much debt is there?

As of the end of the third quarter of 2017 the total mortgage debt was 14.75 trillion dollars. This is not a peak which was 14.8 trillion in the spring/summer of 2008 but if we project the recent growth rate we will be above that now. Of course the economy is now much larger than it was then.

If we move to consumer credit then we see the following. It was 3.81 trillion dollars at the end of November and that was up 376 billion dollars on a year before.

In November, consumer credit increased at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 8-3/4 percent. Revolving credit increased at an annual rate of 13-1/4 percent, while nonrevolving credit increased at an annual rate of 7-1/4 percent.

So quite a surge but care is needed as the numbers are erratic and October gave a much weaker reading. So we wait for the December data. If we look into the detail we see that student loans were 1.48 trillion dollars as of September and the troubled car loans sector was 1.1 trillion dollars. For perspective the former were were 1.05 trillion in 2012 and the latter 809 billion.

In terms of interest-rates new car loans are 5.4% from finance companies and 4.8% from the banks for around a 5 year term. Credit cars debt is a bit over 13% and personal loans are 10.6%.

Credit cards

The Financial Times is reporting possible signs of trouble.

The big four US retail banks sustained a near 20 per cent jump in losses from credit cards in 2017, raising doubts about the ability of consumers to fuel economic expansion……Recently disclosed results showed Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America and Wells Fargo took a combined $12.5bn hit from soured card loans last year, about $2bn more than a year ago.

It suggests that the rise in lending that has been seen is on its way to causing Taylor Swift to sing “trouble,trouble,trouble”

Yet borrower delinquencies are outpacing rising balances. While still less than half crisis-era levels, the consultancy forecasts soured credit card loans will reach almost 4.5 per cent of receivables this year, up from 2.92 per cent in 2015.

The St.Louis Federal Reserve or FRED is much more sanguine as it has the delinquency rate at 2.53% at the end of the third quarter of 2017. So up on the 2.29% of a year before but a fair way short of what the FT is reporting.

Maybe though there have been some ch-ch-changes.

“The driving factor behind the losses is that banks are putting weaker credits on the books,” said Brian Riley, a former credit card executive and now a director at Mercator.

Car Loans

According to CNBC lenders are being more conservative in the automobile arena.

The percentage of subprime auto loans saw a big decline in the third quarter despite growing concerns that auto dealers and banks are writing too many loans to borrowers with checkered credit histories, according to new data.

In fact, Experian says the percentage of loans written for those with subprime and deep subprime credit ratings fell to its lowest point since 2012.

In terms of things going wrong then we did not learn much more.

In the third quarter, there was a slight decrease in the percentage of loans 30 days overdue and slight increase in those that were 60 days delinquent.

Although a development like this is rarely a good sign.

Meanwhile, Experian says the average term for a new vehicle auto loan hit an all-time high of 69 months, thanks in part to a slight increase in the percentage of loans schedule to be repaid over 85 to 94 months.

“We’re starting to see some spillover to loans longer than 85 months,” said Zabritski.

This morning’s Automotive News puts it like this.

Smoke expects higher interest rates and tighter credit this year will drive many consumers to buy a used vehicle instead of a new one. Most of those buying used cars will be millennials, who are often saddled with student loans and remain credit challenged, he said.

It is no fun being a millennial is it? Although I suppose much better than being one in the last century as we have so far avoided a world war.

This piece of detail provides some food or thought.

Last year, the U.S. Federal Reserve raised interest rates three times for a total of 75 basis points, and data show that auto-loan lenders have been tightening credit for six straight quarters, but auto loans for “superprime borrowers” increased by just 20 basis points, Smoke said.

Are lenders afraid of raising sub-prime borrowing rates? Not according to The Associated Press.

Subprime buyers got substantially better rates even a year ago. The average subprime rate of 5.91% last year has jumped to 16.84% today, Smoke says. For a 60-month loan of $20,000, that means a monthly payment hike of more than $100, to $495.

Comment

There is a fair bit to consider here as we mull how normal this is for the mature phase of an economic expansion? Also how abnormal these times have been in terms of whether the benefits of the economic growth have filtered down much to Joe Sixpack? After all wage growth could/should be much better and the unemployment figures obscure the much lower labour participation rate. We will be finding out should interest-rates continue their climb as we mull the significance of this.

Securitisations of US car loans hit a post-financial crisis high in 2017, as investor demand for yield continued to provide favourable borrowing conditions across a range of credit markets. Wall Street sold more than $70bn worth of auto asset backed securities, which bundle up car loans into bond-like products, this year, the highest level since 2007, according to data from S&P Global Ratings. ( Financial Times).

One thing we can be sure of is that we will be told that everything is indeed fine until it can no longer possibly be denied at which point it will be nobody’s ( in authority) fault.

Jimmy Armfield

Not only a giant in the world of football in England but in my opinion the best radio summariser by a country mile. RIP Jimmy and thank you.

 

 

 

The Bank of England has a credit problem

There is a lot to consider already today as I note that my subject of Monday Bitcoin is in the news as it has passed US $10,000 overnight. The Bank of England must be relieved that something at least is rising faster than unsecured credit in the UK! Sir John Cunliffe has already been on the case.

.@BankofEngland Sir JohnCunliffe says cryptocurrencies not a threat to financial stability – but says it is not an official currency and urges investors to be cautious @BBCr4today ( h/t Dominic O’Connell )

It is probably a bit late for caution for many Bitcoin investors to say the least. However if we return to home territory we see an area where the Bank of England itself was not cautious. This was when it opened the UK monetary taps in August 2016 with its Bank Rate cut to 0.25%, £60 billion of extra Quantitative Easing and the £91.4 billion and rising of the Term Funding Scheme. This has continued the house price boom and inflated consumer credit such that the annual rate of growth has run at about 10% per annum since then.

The credit problem

As well as the banking stress tests yesterday the Financial Stability Report was published and it spread a message of calm and not a little complacency.

The overall stock of outstanding private non-financial sector debt in the real economy has fallen since prior to the crisis,though it remains high by historical standards, at 150% of GDP.

There are two immediate problems here. The credit crunch was driven by debt problems so using it as a benchmark is plainly flawed. Secondly many of those making this assessment are responsible for pushing UK credit growth higher with their monetary policy decisions so there is a clear moral hazard. In addition students will be wondering why what are likely to appear large debt burdens to them are ignored for these purposes?

Excluding student debt, the aggregate household
debt to income ratio is 18 percentage points below its 2008
peak.

This is particularly material as we know that student debt has been growing quickly in the UK due to factors such as the rises in tuition fees. From HM Parliament in June.

Currently more than £13 billion is loaned to students each year. This is expected to grow rapidly over the next few years and the Government expects the value of outstanding loans to reach over £100 billion (2014 15 prices) in 2018 and continue to increase in real terms to around £330 billion (2014 15 prices) by the middle of this century.

Pretty much anything would be under control if you exclude things which are rising fast! On that logic thinks are okay especially if use inflation to help you out.

Credit growth is, in aggregate, only a little above nominal GDP growth. In the year to 2017 Q2, outstanding borrowing by households and non-financial businesses increased by 5.1%; in that same period, nominal GDP increased by 3.7%.

They have used inflation ( currently of course above target ) to make the numbers seem nearer than they are. This used to be the common way for looking at such matters but that was a world where wage growth was invariably positive not as it is now. If we switch to real GDP growth which was 1.7% back then or wages growth which this year has been mostly a bit over 2% in nominal terms things do not look so rosy.

If we apply the logic applied by the Bank of England above then this below is a sign of what Elvis Presley called “we’re caught in a trap”

The cost of servicing debt for households and businesses is
currently low. The aggregate household
debt-servicing ratio — defined as interest payments plus regular mortgage principal repayments as a share of household disposable income — is 7.7%, below its average since 1987 of 9%.

So not much below but something is a lot below. There are many ways of comparing interest-rates between 1987 and now but the ten-year Gilt yield was just under 10% as opposed to the 1.25% of now. So we cannot afford much higher yields or interest-rates can we?

Consumer credit

The position here is so bad that the Bank of England feels the need to cover itself.

consumer credit has been growing rapidly,
creating a pocket of risk

Still pockets are usually quite small aren’t they? Although the pocket is expanding quite quickly.

The outstanding stock of consumer
credit increased by 9.9% in the year to September 2017

What are the numbers for economic growth and wages growth again? There is quite a gap here but apparently in modern language this is no biggie.

Rapid growth of consumer credit is not, in itself, a material risk to economic growth through its effect on household spending. The flow of new consumer borrowing is equivalent to only 1.4% of consumer spending, and has made almost no contribution to the growth in aggregate consumer spending in the past year.

This is odd on so many levels. For a start on the face of it there is quite a critique here of the “muscular” monetary policy easing of Andy Haldane. Also if the impact was so small the extra 250,000 jobs claimed by Governor Carney seems incredibly inflated. In this parallel world there seems almost no point to it.

Yet if we move into the real world and look at the boom in car finance which supported the car market there must have been quite a strong effect. Of course that has shown signs of waning. Also if you look at what has been going on in the car loans market and the apparent rise of the equivalent of what were called “liar loans” for the mortgage market pre credit crunch then the complacency meter goes almost off the scale with this.

Low arrears rates may
reflect underlying improvement in credit quality

Number crunching

I know many of you like the data set so here it is and please note the in and then out nature of student debt.

The total stock of UK household debt in 2017 Q2 was
£1.6 trillion, comprising mortgage debt (£1.3 trillion),
consumer credit (£0.2 trillion) and student loans (£0.1 trillion).
It is equal to 134% of household incomes (Chart A.9), high by historical standards but below its 2008 peak of 147%.(1)
Excluding student debt, the aggregate household debt to
income ratio is 18 percentage points below its 2008 peak

Most things look contained if you compare them to their peak! Also if we switch to mortgages we get quite a few pages on how macroprudential regulation has been applied then we get told this.

The proportion of households with high mortgage
DTI multiples has increased somewhat recently, although it
remains below peaks observed over the past decade ( DTI = Debt To Income)

Comment

The issue here can be summarised by looking at two things. This is the official view expressed only yesterday.

Lenders responding to the Credit Conditions Survey reported that the availability of unsecured credit fell in both 2017 Q2 and Q3, and they expect a further reduction in Q4.

Here is this morning’s data.

The annual growth rate of consumer credit was broadly unchanged at 9.6% in October

As you can see the availability of credit has been so restricted the annual rate of growth remains near to 10%. The three monthly growth rate accelerated to an annualised 9.6% and the total is now £205.3 billion.

The situation becomes even more like some form of Orwellian scenario when we recall the credit easing ( Funding for Lending Scheme) was supposed to boost lending to smaller businesses. So how is that going?

in October, whilst loans to small and
medium-sized enterprises were -£0.4 billion

There is of course always another perspective and Reuters offer it.

Growth in lending to British consumers cooled again in October to an 18-month low, according to data that may ease concerns among Bank of England officials concerned about the buildup of household debt………The growth rate in unsecured consumer lending slowed to 9.6 percent in the year to October from September’s 9.8 percent, the slowest increase since April 2016.

 

 

 

The continuing surge in UK unsecured credit adds to Mark Carney’s woes

This week will be a significant one for Mark Carney and the Bank of England as we await their decision on UK interest-rates. Today brings us another brick in the wall in terms of factors which will influence them as we receive the latest money supply and unsecured credit data. On the latter the Bank of England has undergone something of a change because if we go back to January 2016 Governor Carney told us this.

This has not been a debt-fuelled recovery. Aggregate private credit growth is modest compared to pre-crisis conditions, and is just now coming into line with nominal GDP growth.

However if we step forwards to the 30th of November of that year the BBC was reporting this.

The governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, has given a warning about the high level of debt in UK households.

In particular he said that consumers were borrowing more on their credit cards and other unsecured debt.

Figures from the Bank this week showed that credit card lending is at a record level, up by £571m in the last month.

Overall unsecured debt – which includes overdrafts – is rising at its fastest pace for 11 years.

“We are going to remain vigilant around the issue, because we have seen this shift,” he told a press conference at the Bank.

The really awkward point about all this arrives if we note who was at the van of causing the problem. From the Bank of England on the 4th of August and the emphasis is mine

This package comprises: a 25 basis point cut in Bank Rate to 0.25%; a new Term Funding Scheme to reinforce the pass-through of the cut in Bank Rate; the purchase of up to £10 billion of UK corporate bonds; and an expansion of the asset purchase scheme for UK government bonds of £60 billion, taking the total stock of these asset purchases to £435 billion.

As so often it was something which was not a headline maker that was the main player here as the banks were given access to cheap central bank funding.

In order to mitigate this, the MPC is launching a Term Funding Scheme (TFS) that will provide funding for banks at interest rates close to Bank Rate. This monetary policy action should help reinforce the transmission of the reduction in Bank Rate to the real economy to ensure that households and firms benefit from the MPC’s actions.

A further smokescreen was provided by the claims about business lending which was unlikely to change materially and even to some extent mortgage lending as the Bank of England had pushed that higher a few years before. Thus a fair bit of the cheap funding was likely to head for the unsecured credit sector. So the problem the Bank of England has been warning about is a consequence of its own policies.

Today’s data

Credit continues to flow to the UK economy.

The net flow of sterling credit remained robust at £9.6 billion in September. Within this, lending to households has been growing steadily at around 4% per year.

The outlook for secured credit to households continues pretty much as before.

Mortgage approvals for house purchase fell slightly to 66,232 in September, close to their recent average .

But the worrying news for the Bank of England is this.

The annual growth rate of consumer credit has remained broadly unchanged since June, at around 10%. The flow was £1.6 billion in September, also close to its recent average

So contrary to what we have been told the flow of unsecured credit remains strong to the UK economy. There have been various claims that it has been slowing but so far each monthly update has kept the rate of annual growth around 10%. In addition this month has seen some upwards revisions to past data.

Left: old
Right: new pic.twitter.com/nEZQyzlsnE

— Gavin Jackson (@GavinHJackson) October 30, 2017

 

Business Lending

At the start of each new policy initiative we are invariably told that it is to boost business lending.

Large non-financial businesses made net repayments of £1.8 billion of loans in September (Table M), with manufacturing contributing the most to this movement.

From this we learn several things. Firstly some of the welcome boost seen in lending to manufacturing a couple of months or so ago has dissipated away. But if we look at the general picture there is no great sign of any surged. As it happens smaller businesses ( SMEs) had a better September borrowing some £400 million but this only raised the six month average to £100 million. The official response involves quoting a counterfactual world where lending to smaller businesses was even lower. Odd that they do not feel the for counterfactuals about unsecured credit don’t you think?

What about interest-rates?

If we look first at savings rates we see that the Bank of England thinks that new deposits will now get a bit over 1% ( 1.11%) driven by this.

Effective rates on new individual fixed-rate bonds between 1 and 2 year, and over 2 year maturity have increased by 16bps from 1.13% to 1.29% and 1.32% to 1.48%, respectively.

Of course this means that in real terms they are losing at a bit under 2% if you use the CPI inflation measure and a bit under 3% if you use the RPI. Meanwhile new mortgage rates remain below 2% ( 1.97%). Also “other loans” ( unsecured credit) have ignored the rhetoric of the Bank of England and got a bit cheaper as 7.54% in June has been replaced by 7.15% in September.

Comment

So we see that unsecured credit growth remained strong in the third quarter of 2017. This leaves us wondering if earlier this month the banks pulled the wool over the eyes of the Bank of England.

Lenders responding to the CCS reported that the availability of unsecured credit fell in both Q2 and Q3.

Indeed this morning’s upward revisions change the narrative somewhat for the sector below.

This decline was mainly due to weaker growth in lending for dealership car finance, although this continues be a key driver of consumer credit

Thus we see that the “unreliable boyfriend” will be finding it ever harder to be unreliable with economic growth nudging higher and unsecured credit continuing to surge especially with inflation above target. Perhaps he will concentrate on the weaker CBI surveys we have seen but there will be quite a debate going on this week in Threadneedle Street. Especially as the unsecured credit boom is something the Bank of England lit the blue touch-paper on.