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News Articles

Benchmark repo rate drops first time since October amid cash glut, collateral shortage

This article first appeared and originally published at https://seekingalpha.com/news/3782474-benchmark-repo-rate-drops-first-time-since-october-amid-cash-glut-collateral-shortage.

  • In the wake of the financial system’s cash glut and collateral shortage from the Fed’s quantitative easing program, the Secured Overnight Financing Rate drops to 0.04% from 0.05% on Monday, the first decline since October.
  • Even with asset purchase tapering underway, “it’s largely the same set of circumstances as in October,” TD Securities Strategist Gennadiy Goldberg told Bloomberg. “Lots of cash in the system and not a lot of collateral and that’s weighing down repo.”
  • Meanwhile, U.S. commercial banks park yet another record $1.75T at the Fed’s overnight repo facility, implying the banks are drowning in excess reserves, while searching for yield – which is scarce as most of the Treasury yield curve trades in net negative territory on an inflation-adjusted basis.
  • There’s an “incredibly large amount of cash sloshing the market,” said Complete Intelligence Founder Tony Nash via Twitter.
  • In August, the Fed’s overnight repo facility took up more than $1T.
Categories
Podcasts

Bottlenecks To Ease With Xmas Coming?

Tony Nash gave the BFM 89.9: The Morning Run his thoughts on how the sooner-than-expected Fed rate hikes could affect global markets. Will inflation derail hastening of the tapering talk? How does crude oil look like in the next few months? As the Christmas season is coming, how much of a concern supply chains will be for the consumers and the economy? When the Fed begins normalizing rates, which currencies will be vulnerable if or when this happens?

 

This podcast first appeared and originally published at https://www.bfm.my/podcast/morning-run/market-watch/bottlenecks-to-ease-with-xmas-coming on November 25, 2021.

 

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Show Notes

 

SM: BFM 89.9 good morning. You are listening to the Morning Run. I’m Shazana Mokhtar together with Khoo Hsu Chuang and Philip See. It’s 9:07 in the morning. Thursday, the 25 November. If we look at how the US markets closed yesterday, the Dow was down marginally by 0.3%. The S&P 500 was up 0.2%. Nasdaq was also up 0.4%. So for some thoughts on where international markets are headed, we have with us on the line Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence. Good morning, Tony. So the Fed minutes revealed that the pace of tapering may be hastened, while macro data points from personal spending to job data suggest that the US economy is in quite the sweet spot, but will inflation derail this?

 

TN: Yeah. There was a statement from one of the Fed governors today talking about that inflation is not transitory in their mind or could potentially not be transitory in their mind. That’s a real danger to people who are thinking that we’re really in a sweet spot right now because it could mean Fed intervention, meaning tightening sooner than many people had counted on. So I think people had counted on some sort of intervention, maybe in Q2, but it may be happening sooner. That would have a real impact on the dollar. The dollar would strengthen, and that would have a real impact on emerging markets all around Asia, all around Africa. People would feel it in a big way where there is US dollar debt.

 

KHC: We are seeing that strengthening US dollar in our currency now. But I just want to get your perspective on crude oil because various countries from the US to China are now tapping into their strategic crude reserves to alleviate the present energy crisis. But if you look at crude now, it’s not really being responsive, right to these actions?

 

TN: Right? That’s right. So what the US agreed to release is about two and a half days of consumption. Not much. The releases agreed in the UK and India, for example, were really token releases. They weren’t really major portions of their consumption. So these countries are kind of giving a nod to the Biden administration, but they’re not really alleviating the supply concerns that are spiking prices. So it really has been a dud for the White House. It’s been kind of an embarrassment because crude prices haven’t fallen, really. They fell initially, but they really came back after the release announcement was absorbed.

 

PS: Yeah. Tony, that trickling in oil supply releases from the US government hasn’t done much to alleviate the supply concerns. Gas prices in America have been on a massive uptrend as well, just in terms of inflation and not being as transitory as people expected, as we enter Christmas season, how much of a concern is it for consumers as well as the economy?

 

TN: It’s a real concern. I have to tell you, I’ve driven halfway across the US for our Thanksgiving holiday, which is tomorrow morning. It’s Thursday here, and we’ve seen a lot of trucks with cargoes on US roads, and I make this drive pretty regularly. So it seems like a lot more on roads than I normally see. So that’s good in terms of the domestic supply chain.

 

I think it’s the international supply chain that is really concerning, and we still have those backups in the Port of Long Beach. That is the real main constraint for supply chains in the US. So I don’t think we’re going to see major disruptions outside of other ports. But through Long Beach, we definitely see issues.

 

The semiconductor supply chain is the main impact for, say, electronics and automobiles in the US. We did see semi manufacturers start to produce more auto related semiconductors, say mid-Q3 and into Q4. We should start to see those automotive supply chains, the semiconductor dependent issues and automotive supply chains alleviate, probably in Q1. So that will help.

 

But for the Christmas season, I’m not sure that there’s a whole lot that’s going to help with electronics and say automobiles.

 

PS: Yeah, Tony with JPowell still back and still in the fair chair in terms of his reappointment. And he does hike rates earlier than expected to address inflationary concerns. How much of a dangerous is to slowing down the economy in America and as  the rest of the world.

 

TN: Sure, it is a risk in America. I think it’s really hard to hire people in the US right now. There’s a lot of job switching happening and people haven’t come back into the workforce. We lost about 5 million people in the workforce in the US through the Covid period. So that’s a real issue. Anything that raises the cost of doing business is problematic for the US and will inhibit growth. The main problem in the US is that the environment right now, it continues to crush small companies. It’s very difficult for small companies. And while it may seem that small companies don’t matter that much, they are the main employer in the US and the main growth engine in the US. And the Biden administration hasn’t helped this with a lot of their policies. Their policies have been very favorable toward big companies. If the Fed pushes inflation, it will make borrowing a little bit harder. I’m sorry if the Fed pushes the interest rate, it’ll make borrowing a little bit harder. But the collapsing, say, the tapering of the Fed balance sheet will have a bigger impact on liquidity in the US.

 

SM: And if I could just touch on large US dollar debt and what happens to emerging markets when the Fed begins normalizing rates, which currencies do you see as going to be particularly vulnerable if or when this happens?

 

TN: Well, I think one that I’m really keeping an eye on is the Chinese Yuan because it’s a highly appreciated currency right now. And the Chinese government has kept the CNY strong so they can continue to import commodities and energy for the winter. And they’ll likely keep it strong through Chinese New Year. We expect CNY to really start to weaken, say, after Chinese New Year to help Chinese exporters. So winter we mostly pass. They want to help kind of push a Chinese export, so they’ll start to really devalue, seeing why probably end of Q1 early Q2.

We do see pressure, the Euro, as you’ve seen over the last three weeks, there’s been real pressure on the Euro as well. Other Asian currencies. We do think that there will be pressure on other Asian currencies. Sing Dollar will likely continue to stay pretty consistent. But we’ll see some pressure on other Asian currencies simply because of the US dollar pressure. The US dollar is something like 88% of transnational transactions. So the US dollar as a share of transnational transactions actually come up over the past two to three years. So there’s much more pressure with an appreciated dollar and it’s coming.

 

KHC: Just like the one. Tony, India Indian equities record high. Have you reached to speak considering PTM’s IPO failure?

 

TN: Yeah. I think there’s been a lot of excitement there, and I think it’s at least for now. I think it has I don’t think you can ever really claim that an equity market has hit its peak, but I think for now, a lot of the excitement is dissipated. It may come back in a month, it may come back in six months. But I think that momentum is really important. And as you see, failed IPOs, I think it’s really hard for equity investors to kind of get their mojo back.

 

SM: Tony, thank you so much as always for speaking to us and happy Thanksgiving to you and your family. That was Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence, giving us his thoughts on how the sooner-than-expected Fed rate hikes could affect global markets.

Categories
Visual (Videos)

USD unlikely to continue strengthening, CNY to stay strong

 

This is the most recent guesting of our CEO and founder Tony Nash in CNA’s Asia First, where he shares his expertise on inflation and the US economy. Will consumers continue to spend to help the economy? What’s his view on Biden’s call to boost oil supply to ease prices? Where does he think the US dollar is headed and how will that impact Asian currencies?

 

The full episode was posted at https://www.channelnewsasia.com. It may be removed after a few weeks. This video segment is owned by CNA. 

 

 

 

Show Notes

 

CNA: What’s still ahead here in Asia First. We’ll check if US companies continue to charm investors with some big earnings in focus. Plus, to give us a stake on markets inflation and the US economy, we’ll be joined by Tony Nash from Complete Intelligence.

 

US stocks closed in the red overnight as lingering inflation concerns continue to dog investors. The Dow ended lower by six tenths of one percent, dragged down by a four point seven percent. Drop in visa the S&O 500 slipped 0.2 percent. And the NASDAQ fell by 0.3 percent.

 

Now after the bell, we also had some US tech earnings. NVIDIA shares rose after it beats on the top and bottom lines. The ship maker saw its revenue jump 50 percent on year on strong gaming and data center sales. Cisco shares tumbled and extended trade after missing on revenue expectations before the quarter. The computer networking company also issued a weaker than expected guidance.

 

For more on the broader markets and economy. We’re joined by Tony Nash is founder and CEO of Complete Intelligence speaking to us from Houston, Texas. So Tony as we heard their inflation fears seem to be back despite better expected earnings but CEO’s are starting to warn of more pain when it comes to supply chains. And that could put a damper on in that could lift inflation. Do you think the US consumers will continue to spend despite all this and will that help the recovery of the US in the next year?

 

TN: Yeah, I think the real issue here is that inflation is rising faster than wages. And what we’re seeing with oil prices. These oil prices are not terrible given kind of historical prices but it’s oil prices within the context of everything else. Obviously, the supply constraints really are pushing up prices of food and other activities as well as say goods that are imported for say the holiday purchases that Americans will make.

 

So Americans have absorbed a lot of those price rises to date. They’ll continue to absorb some but I think they’re almost at their limit in terms of what they can tolerate without getting upset.

 

CNA: Yeah, Do you think there’s a disconnect here when it comes to energy because Biden administration is hoping to boost supply to ease that oil price pressure but OPEC and its allies expect surplus into the next year. So, do you think they’re looking at it differently? And who has it right here and where oil prices headed?

 

TN: Yeah, I think part of the issue in the US with crude oil is the Biden administration restrictions on pipelines and on the supply side in the US. So, Joe Biden is asking other countries Russia, Saudi Arabia, other OPEC members to supply more oil yet he’s restricting the supply domestic supply in the US. So, I think what’s happening with those other suppliers they have customers who are buying their crude oil. They don’t necessarily want to have to produce more because they want slightly higher prices. They don’t want things too high but they want slightly higher prices and so they’re pushing back on on Joe Biden and saying look you really need to look at your own domestic supply. You really need to look at at those issues yourself before we start to open up our own market.

 

So you know, the current administration is trying to have it both ways. They’re trying to restrict supply within the US. They’re trying to bring in more supply from overseas. Americans see this and they understand kind of the incongruent nature of that argument from the administration.

 

CNA: I want to get your thoughts on the US dollar, Tony. Because that hit a 16-month high amid his expectations of more aggressive policy from the Federal Reserve. Where do you think the US dollar is headed and how will that impact us here in Asia, especially Asian currencies?

 

TN: Sure, it’s a great question. We saw a lot of action with the US dollar yesterday. The dollar index as you said reached highs for in the last say 18 months, two years. And that is on Fed action but one thing to consider is we’re looking at potentially changing the Fed chairman later this year.

 

So, if the current Fed chairman is exited. There is an expectation of a more dovish Fed chair coming in that’s one possibility. I think people are really trying to… While there is upward pressure on the dollar. People are trying not to get too far too much behind it because there could be a more double dovish Fed chair coming in. So, we think the dollar is overshot just a little bit in the short term.

 

We don’t expect it to continue rallying at its current pace. We expect say the Euro has fallen quite a bit and depreciated quite a bit in the last say three weeks. It’s going to appreciate just a bit a couple cents over the next month or so. Asian currencies, we think the CNY will stay strong. We think CNY will remain strong through say March, April as they start a devaluation cycle to help exporters. We think the Singapore dollar is going to stay in the same range that it’s in about now. We don’t see much policy change in Singapore and we think with a stable dollar at these levels. We think the same dollar will stay at about the same exchange rate of Scott now.

 

CNA: All right. We’ll keep our eyes on those currency exchanges and who becomes the next Federal Reserve Chairman. Tony Nash thanks for joining us. Tony Nash there founder and CEO of Complete Intelligence joining us from Houston, Texas.

Categories
Podcasts

Bottom Up is the Strategy

Tony Nash, CEO and founder of Complete Intelligence, joins the BFM 89.9 The Morning Run show to give insights on the US Market, specially now that the CPI hits 6.2%. What does this mean for the Fed Fund? They also discussed Disney Plus and how to invest in equities right now, especially how to allocate your assets in the current economic climate? Will the telecommunication and transport sector, and oil and gas benefit from the $1 trillion infrastructure spend bill that was just passed? Lastly, what is his view on the oil market? Will it continue its bullish trend, and for how long?

 

 

This podcast first appeared and originally published at https://www.bfm.my/podcast/morning-run/market-watch/bottom-up-is-the-strategy. on November 11, 2021.

 

❗️ Check out more of our insights in featured in the CI Newsletter and QuickHit interviews with experts.

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Show Notes

 

SM: BFM 89.9 Good morning. You are listening to The Morning Run. I’m Shazana Mokhtar there together with Wong Shou Ning. But for some thoughts on what’s moving global markets we have on the line with us. Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence. Good morning, Tony. Always good to have you. Can we get some of your thoughts on, I guess this red equity markets outlook? One of the stocks that reported after hours was Disney and they reported results that underwhelmed with only about 2 million new streaming subscribers added this quarter the stock is down and after market hours trading. Do you see this as a buying opportunity, or do you think that there are still headwinds when it comes to the sectors that Disney operates in?

 

TN: Yeah. I think Disney has some real headwinds. Their park attendance is down on COVID concerns and regulations. Their streaming service just doesn’t really have the content throughput meaning the new content that people would expect from, say a Netflix or a Hulu or other types of streaming services. So part of what Disney needs to do is really have much more throughput on their content on Disney+.

 

WSN: What about CPI numbers, Tony? Are you really concerned about that? They came in at 6.2%, which was higher than street expectations of 5.9%. I think from now onwards, it’s going to be very hard for the Fed to say that inflation is just transitory, right?

 

TN: Oh, very much. So the Fed targets 2%, and this was just a little bit above that to the point where it’s really turning heads now and it’s really got people afraid. So part of this is base effects on last year, but not much it really is the supply and demand are weird. In some places, you have real supply chain shocks. You also have demand issues, say winter is coming, things like natural gas, oil, these sorts of things. They’re really being impacted. Food is being impacted. So people are seeing price rises that they haven’t seen for a long, long time.

 

 

S&P500 US Stocks in 2021
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WSN: Does this change your investment strategy, Tony? Or maybe a change in terms of your asset allocation? Are you going to go long equities or short fixed income? What’s your plan for 2022 or even in the next three months?

 

TN: Well, we’ve been saying for a while that this really isn’t a broad market environment. This is individual equity or say individual commodity type of market. Because if you are investing broad, yes, you’ll get incremental gains depending on where you are in the world in which market you’re in. But it really is a stock pickers market. You really have to understand the company. You have to understand how a trade you have to understand where the value is and how that is relative to the rest of the market in the economy.

 

And you also have to understand, actually, at least in the US, you have to understand what the Fed is doing. In your own country, you have to understand what your central bank is doing and what I mean by that is how easy are the monetary conditions? How does that impact individual countries and markets? How does that impact demand and, say commodity prices? So it’s not an easy question to answer, but it is a more specific and expert-driven market than it has been for the last two years.

 

SM: All right. Sounds like you’re giving our listeners a good reason to stay tuned to our chats every morning, Tony. Turning our attention to some recent developments in the US Biden’s 1 trillion infrastructure bill has just been passed. How much of a windfall will this be for US transport infra and telecommunication companies?

 

TN: Well, it’ll be a windfall, but it’ll happen over an extended period. This really won’t be spent for probably five to eight years. It will drip out over that time. So, yes, it is a lot of money, but it’s not happening in one tranche. And by passing this bill, it’s effectively saying this is it for infrastructure for the next almost decade. Okay.

 

So those companies who can successfully lobby and or successfully bid are going to get paid well over that period, those who don’t have the infrastructure in place to do that are going to have a tougher time. So. It’s a massive number. But it’s happening over an extended period.

 

WSN: What about oil and gas? Do you see them benefiting from this push into infrastructure?

 

TN: I don’t see an immediate positive impact for oil and gas. There are other reasons I’m positive on oil and gas, but on infrastructure, because this will come out over such an extended period of time. You see, infrastructure spending is really meant to be the foundation for future growth. Right. So you create the infrastructure that, say productivity gains and other things can leverage off of in the future. If we were doing a lot of infrastructure over, say, the next three years, you would expect a lot of oil and gas to be used to manufacture that, to power that and so on and so forth. But because it’s an extended period and because it’s distributed all around the US, there really isn’t a concentration of, say, the activity and it’s happening over a long period. I know I’ve said that several times, but that’s my biggest takeaway from this bill is the slow drip that it comes out on.

ICE Brent Crude forecast with CI Futures
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WSN: But you did say that you are a bit of a oil and gas bull at this juncture. What are your reasons for it, though?

 

TN: Well, we have regional, say, shortages or regional supply chain issues, say in Europe and parts of Asia for oil and gas, particularly gas, right now, as winter is coming on. Gas has performed well over the last, say six to nine months, maybe a year, and we expect it to continue to do well for the next few months. Crude oil? It looks like we’ll see some interesting upside in crude oil as well, partly on those regional supply issues as well.

 

WSN: But historically, by this time, right. Wouldn’t the shale producers be pumping away, too? And kind of adding supply? But it doesn’t seem to be the case this time, right. Because Brent crude this morning is still $83 a barrel.

 

TN: Right. Well, the shale is a different story because there are so many restrictions and regulations put in place by the US government under the current administration that it’s taking more for them to get started. So without the, I would say, aggressive kind of enforcement and new impediments to domestic shale production in the US, Yes, I believe we would have more rigs moving by now. But because of the impediments that the administration has put in place, the US administration is asking the Middle East, and they’re asking Russia to produce more.They’re not necessarily leaning on US producers. They’re trying to minimize the production here in the US. And part of that is the Green New Deal and other things to kind of regulate green energy into existence in the US.

 

SM: Tony, thanks very much for your insights. That was Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence, talking to us about some of the trends moving markets, capping the conversation with a look at the oil and gas sector, and specifically why perhaps the US shale producers aren’t pumping out product, given the higher oil prices at the moment.

 

WSN: Yeah. I think it’s very interesting to follow this very closely because it’s almost as if the oil and gas or energy sector because of the renewables, is going through a structural change. So the transition to renewables is real. But it’s not going to be linear. And because a lot of national oil companies are shifting the way they spend their capex, it does mean that for the moment, all prices might remain elevated because we haven’t found these new energy sources to fully compensate. So I think this is an interesting time, but it also makes running a business extremely challenging, because all of us, whatever said and done are energy dependent.

 

SM: And it’s interesting for Malaysia as well, because while other consumers would Bimbo the high oil prices as a country, we do benefit from the high energy prices.

 

WSN: We are still a net energy exporter, but we do, of course, subsidized petrol at the pumps. I mean, Ron 95 is still to ring it in $0.07, but there are still going to be costs for industrial usage because that’s based on market prices. So of course, it’s inflation. That’s the thing everybody’s talking about US 6.2% never anybody would ever thought it would hit that high. Yeah.

 

SM: It really seems to look like the use of the word transitory by the Fed wasn’t completely transitory now. Maybe they may be regretting their choice of words. It is coming up to 719 in the morning. We’re taking a quick break. Stay tuned. BFM 89.9.

Categories
QuickHit

What signals are markets missing right now?

In this QuickHit episode, our guest Julian Brigden answers “What signals are markets missing right now?” How important is the equity market right now in the current economic cycle? Most importantly, how long before we can see directional change in the market, and what you should do before then?

 

Julian Brigden is based in Colorado and started in the markets in the very late 80s, trading precious metals. He moved into trading FX, then switched into sales for various investment banks. He also worked for a policy consultancy group called Medley Global Advisors in the very late 90s to early 2000s and fell in love with the research space. Just over ten years ago, he set up MI2. MI2 was grown organically. Julian can be seen together with Raul from Real Vision where he does Macro Insider.

 

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This QuickHit episode was recorded on November 3, 2021.

 

The views and opinions expressed in this What signals are markets missing right now? Quickhit episode are those of the guest and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Complete Intelligence. Any contents provided by our guest are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any political party, religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.

 

Show Notes

 

TN: Julian, I’ve watched a lot of your videos, and I love a lot of the thoughts you’ve talked about recently about velocity, about the yield curve, about central banks. It’s all great stuff. I guess one of the things that I’m really wondering right now, especially, is what is the market missing? What are market participants missing? Because this is something that I don’t hear a lot of talk about. We hear a lot of the Fed should do this or this asset is going that way or whatever. But what is the market missing right now?

 

JB: Right. So we’ve been on this inflation gig since, actually, March of 2020. Sorry. Apologies. So at the depths kind of the pandemic. It’s a very long thesis. I’ve probably been in the inflation court really since the end of 2016. But in this sort of current phase, and we’ve been in and out of them, you have to. That’s what markets are about. We have been on this inflation kick since March of 2020. And initially it was just a trade breakevens, which are a metric of inflation in the bond market had got crushed because they were held by the risk parity boys as their inflation hedge in their portfolios. And they delevered like everyone else did in the spring of 2020. And those things dropped to like, five-year inflation was priced at 50 basis points.

 

Well, Tony basically trades the cycle, right. So as the economy recovers, which you had to assume it would, they were going to come back. But as we’ve sort of taken a step back and from a bigger picture perspective, we’d always said that even as soon as Trump came in, when you start playing with just monetary, that’s one thing. But when you add that fiscal side into the equation, into the mix, it becomes totally and utterly different.

 

And we’ve actually always used the period from the mid 1960s to the late 1960s. That’s where I kind of think we are. So we’ve had these sort of pro-cyclical, unnecessary, excessively large fiscal stimulus. And they came to create this accelerative oscillation. Okay. So I’ve got a couple of very smart ones, way smarter than me.

 

Classic example of the A students working for the C student. And we were looking at inflation back in 2016, and I was just looking at the chart in the 60s, and my quant came up to me and went, Boss, that’s an accelerative oscillation. And I said, Steven, what the hell is that? And he goes, well, he was, by the way, he was a mining expert, specialized in explosives. And he said, kind of what you do when you model an explosive wave is it goes out in a wave until it hits something. And if it hits it at the wrong time, far from the wave decelerating because you expected to hit something and stop, it can actually accelerate the oscillation of the wave. And so essentially, from an inflation perspective is that the way that you think about this is you get something like the Trump stimulus, which was back in late 2016, totally unnecessary fiscal stimulus at the wrong point of the cycle, where we didn’t need it.

 

So far from sort of rolling over like a sine wave, which the economic cycles behave that way, too. And inflation cycles generally behave that way because of self limiting on the tops and the bottom, cycle actually picks up amplitude. And what you tend to do is you create policy error after policy error after policy error because you’re behind the curve all of a sudden, you know what it’s like in trading, right?

 

If you’re on your game and you’re short something or long something and it moves in your direction, you might take some profit. Look for the retracement, double up, whack it hard. You get caught the wrong way into the move and your head just becomes discombodulated. And that’s what happens from a policy perspective. So. When I look at this current situation, the first thing I would say is I think people are, they’ve finally woken up to this concept that maybe inflation is not transitory. I think they’re right. We’ve been on this gig for a long time, but the immediate risks, I think, are twofold.

 

The first one is they are not. And it’s not necessarily here in the US. I think it’s going to be a problem here in the US, but I think it could be a bigger problem, actually, in Europe and for the bond market that matters because all those bond markets are all fungible. Right. So if bonds blow out or your eyeboard, the front end contracts in Europe blow out, it’s all going to affect our markets over here. And. They’ve totally underestimated the price pressures in the pipeline.

 

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TN: In Australia, right?

 

JB: Yeah, we have. But not. I think we’ve got another maybe three months of numbers of I think could make people’s eyes bleed. You’ve got this price pressure in the system. Three possible outcomes. Price pressures dissipate. PPI pressures just dissipate. Okay?

 

Well, we just got the market survey this last week. Pressures are up. We just got the ISM services. Price pressures are back up to the previous highs. We just got the Swedish service thread bank PMI services yesterday. Price pressures at new highs. Okay.

 

TN: China’s PPI are like 14% or something year on year, right?

 

JB: Exactly. And their PMI price pressure number, which was dropping, just re accelerated. So option number one, that somehow price pressures just miraculously evaporate, doesn’t seem like an option. Option number two, the companies eat the price increases. They take them in margins. Well, if that’s the case. And this is one of the things the equity market hasn’t woken up to, then your assumptions on margin growth are. The good stuff that you can get here in Colorado, right.

 

Now thus far in the United States, it’s absolutely not the case, right? Companies are pushing through those price increases. Okay. Which brings you to option number three. Price inflation, given where these PPIs are, right? So US, even the final demand, the new sort of slightly adjusted, surprising how when they do adjust these things, Tony, they generally drop from the old metric?

 

Now it’s like, two and a half to 3% under the old PPI series. But anyway, it doesn’t matter. Eight and a half percent here in the US. I think we printed another 45 high in Sweden. And I’m picking Sweden because it’s a nice open economy. And you see the data come through very quickly. I think there’s one of those 17%. Spain, 23. Eurozone, 13 and a half. Okay. So higher than the US.

 

If companies can pass those price increases on, what makes people think for a nano second that CPI is going to stay here in Sweden at two and a half in the Eurozone at four. Why couldn’t Eurozone HICP, which is their CPI, which is max only ever had a 5% spread to PPI, right? At the moment, we have a nine plus spread. Why couldn’t HICP print somewhere, my guess is between eight and a half and eleven?

 

TN: So those are Chinese figures?

 

JB: Yeah. Exactly. What the hell does this? Do you think Lagarde is going to be able to say, like King Canute, “stop?”

 

TN: So in one of your interviews that I watched, you said central bank assets and inflation are effectively the same thing. And I think that’s really interesting. Can you explain that a little bit?

 

JB: So the balance sheet? Yeah. Essentially. Look, you print money, which is what it is. QE is printing money. Monetary 101. This is how the Roman Empire ended up falling apart. And you can inflate asset prices because I know this is not how central banks initially told you it worked actually. Having said that, I do love it. And we’ll come to this, I think the second point, the markets are missing in a second, and another central banker.

 

The only central banker who’s been truly honest was Richard Fisher, the old Dallas Fed central bank chairman. And I love the Texans from the Dallas Fed because they’re just straight shooters. They’re just bloody honest, right? I mean, he came out on CNBC, and I remember watching this interview because it was done on CNBC Europe, I think. And the guy always had one of the British guys on CNBC in the US. The guy nearly fell off his damn chair when Richard Fisher said, “of course, it was about the equity market. It was always about the equity market.” Right.

 

We just front load this stuff and they could boost asset prices. And you can look at the PA of the S&P. You can look at the S&P itself. You can look at the NYSE, you can look at the value line geometric index, which is a super broad metric of US Equities, and you can put them all against the Feds balance sheet. And it’s the same thing.

 

TN: Let me ask you this. And I hear you and I am aligned with what you’re saying. The question is, why does it have to do with the equity markets? And my understanding is that it has to do with equity markets because that’s where American 401Ks are. And there’s such a large baby Boomer cohort with their money in 401Ks that they can’t be losing their wealth. Is that the reason why it’s always about equity markets?

 

JB: Well, I mean, I say it’s housing as well, right. But they tend to try and deemphasize that one because politically, that can be a bit of a pain in the ass. Right. But look, this is true monetary debasement 101, right? I mean, we wrapped it up in this veneer that is G7 central banking or the sophisticated theories. But we’ve done this throughout history, right? We just debased the currency.

 

People forget in the Weimar Republic, the Reichsmark was imploding in value. Sorry, the pre-Reichsmark was imploding in value, and the stock market was going up thousands of percent today to keep phase with this because it’s a claim on a tangible asset, right? A cash flow or a piece of land or a factory or whatever, right? So this is not new. I think this is. No, I think it’s not so much about the 401Ks. The thing that I think is truly problematic in the US is what I refer to as the financialisation of the real economy.

 

Tony, that CEOs are not paid to produce a thing. There are actually numerous companies in the S&P that I’ll argue don’t produce anything, right? They are simply an utterly shepherds of an equity price. That’s how they’re compensated. We talk about perverse incentives. Okay. That’s how they’re compensated. They basically compensate to bubblish their stock as much as they possibly can.

 

And as a result, the minute that stock prices got going up, let alone fall. They look immediately to the bottom line as to how to address costs and keep those profits falling. So if you look at the correlations between, and it’s just frightening, the correlations between total US employment and the NYSE, broad metric of US Equities, Capex and NYC. They’re the same bloody chart.

 

TN: Sure.

 

JB: So literally, you can’t really allow stocks even to go sideways for an extended period of time. You’ve got to keep this game go.

 

TN: Sure, it’s not the flow, right? We’re in a flow game. We’re not in a stock game.

 

JB: Bond markets much more flow in terms of the shape of the curve is much more a flow thing. Equities are really about, they care when the flows turned off, but they’re really about the quantity.

 

TN: Overall stock. Okay. So what else are markets missing?

 

JB: The second thing is I just want to raise this. There’s a really important Bloomberg story out today by Bill Dudley, the ex New York Fed President, ex Goldman guy. And once again, I love the honesty of these retired US Fed guys. And he’s been talking at some length about policy error. But today is fundamentally the issue.

 

So let’s use that old storyline. If a tree falls in the woods and no one hears it, did it fall? Okay. So in the last few weeks, we’ve had a lot of pressure at the front end of these bond markets. We built in rate hikes. And that’s a market assumption on what the Fed or ECB or the Bank of England or the RBA or whatever is going to do with their policy, right?

 

But at the end of the day, Tony, do we care what banks here in the US earn in the overnight from Fed funds? No. There’s literally no relevance unless you’ve got some sort of liable based funding mortgage. But really, essentially, even then, has no relevance to the real world. Right? Policymakers raise policy rates to affect broad financial conditions. And broad financial conditions are essentially five metrics depending on the waiting in every single index. And they are short term rates, let’s say two years. Long term rates, let’s say ten years. Credit, tightness. Level, equity market. And the Dollar.

 

And what you can see in the US and most other places is despite the fact that we’ve seen these big moves at the front end of these bond markets, financial conditions haven’t budged. Ten-year yields, if anything, have fallen. It’s a bare flattener. It’s kind of what you would expect at this point in the cycle. But nonetheless, there is no tightening coming from the ten year sector. Because there is no tightening coming from the ten-year sector.

 

There is no tight, not much tightening going on in the mortgage market, okay? Because there is no tightening coming from the ten-year sector, the equity market where the Algos literally just trade ten-year treasuries is their metric and wouldn’t know what a Euro dollar was, in order to fund the interest rate contract if it bit them in the proverbial ass, okay? Have completely ignored what’s going on. The dollar is caught in the wash between these various central banks who are all behind the curve and has gone nowhere. And credit hasn’t moved, because he’s looking at the equity market.

 

So there has been no tightening of financial conditions. What Bill Dudley said is that’s all that bloody matters. And so until there is a tightening of financial conditions in an economy which at least the President, probably, I suspect well into the middle of next year could change quite dramatically in the middle of next year. But for the moment, and that’s a eight, seven, eight month trading horizon, until there is a tightening of financial conditions, which means stocks down, credit wider, dollar up, ten-year yields higher. Those two year yields have to go further and further and further and further.

 

And this concept that the market is currently pricing, that we’re going to try and raise a little bit. And the whole edifice is going to blow up because they have what they refer to as the terminal rate, kind of the highest projection of where rates are essentially going to go in the tightening cycle is that one six is wrong.

 

We may have to go way through that. And Bill Dudley actually talks about 2004, 2006, where the Fed started off way behind the curve and the economy just kept running. Demand was there and they had to go 225 basis points and they had to do all sorts of other stuff before the damn things slowed down.

 

TN: True. When we consider that. So you’re saying, really seven, eight months before we see a major directional change in markets. I don’t want to put words in your mouth.

 

JB: Well, look, I think there’s sufficient, I do not see this as a slowing economy. I see this as an economy where demand is utterly excessive because central banks and policy makers misread. I think it was a fair mistake to make. I’m not critical of that, misread Covid.

 

TN: Sure. Policy errors are all over the place.

 

JB: All over the shop. Right. So we have far too easy, excessive policy. Right. Look, today the Fed is going to taper, but let’s be honest, tapering isn’t tightening. Tapering is less easing. We are driving into the brick wall that is the output gap, right. The economy at full capacity, not at 120 billion a month. But let’s say from next month, 105. Right. If you drove into a brick wall in your car at 105 versus 120, I think it would make very little difference to the outcome.

 

TN: That’s a good point. But we all remember the taper tantrum. So will we see a bit of a breather in markets before things amp up again? Or do you think people are just going to take and stride this time?

 

JB: I don’t think we get a taper tantrum this time. I think the Fed has been pretty clear. You’re sort of getting a little bit of a taper tantrum at the front end of these bull markets. But because most of the world doesn’t look at wonks like me, care what EDZ3 is, right? Or LZ3 in the UK, right? Or Aussie two year swaps. But most people don’t, aren’t aware of them, and they should be. But I mean, that’s what policymakers have to watch.

 

And as I said, I think the bigger thing is how far the rates have to go in an economy where demand is literally off the charts, where we’re seeing wage growth in the private sector from the ECI at 4.6%, where John Deere factory workers just rejected a 10% wage increase this year with following subsequent increases that probably work out around six odd percent over the next five years where they just said, forget it. Not enough, right? Not enough.

 

TN: Look at retail sales. The stepwise rise in retail sales over the past six months is incredible how quickly.

 

JB: I’m looking at stuff and if you look at the senior loan, which is the banking where they ask the bank loan offices what they intend to lend and who they’re lending to, and are they tightening conditions or whatever. Lending, they’re falling over backwards to try to lend money. Now we know that people have got some cash on sidelines because of the stimulus.

 

We know that companies have still got PPP loans that they’re still working through. So demand is a little lower, but supply is literally off the chart. So lending bank willingness to lend to consumers, decade highs, right. Bank willingness to lend to companies all time survey highs, 30-year highs. Right. So even if we were to get and I don’t think this is the case, even if wages would not keep space with inflation next year in the US, people have got plenty of places to go and borrow money to keep consuming.

 

So I just think this is an economy which is in the middle of its cycle. I mean, most cycles are three years long, three plus years long, with 15 months 16 months into this thing. I mean, this is mid cycle stuff. It’s the easiest of easy money, right?

 

TN: Okay. And so just kind of to end the three-point sermon, what else are markets missing? This is really interesting for me because I’m hearing a lot of different kinds of thesis out there every day, but very few about kind of what the market’s missing.

 

JB: Look. And I think it comes back to the final point, which we alluded to earlier. The equity market is making an assumption, of course, the equity market, I’m a bond guy and an FX guy. I hate the equity market. My glass is absolutely, defensively, half empty. Right. And ideally someone’s paid in it. But that’s the best day for it. That’s like the best market for me. Right. But the XG market is doing its classic thing where they’re just assuming the best of both worlds. So they’re assuming that margins are going to grow, so there is no cost pressure that could infringe on those. And we’re starting to see that.

 

I think Q4 numbers that we get in Q1 will start to get a little bit more interesting. Right. But we sure what wild wings or whatever the thing is called the Buffalo Wing place just got stumped because their wage costs were up and their input costs were up and they couldn’t pass it on. Right. But the equity market, as is classic, has taken the highest margins in 20 years, which is what we have now. And they’ve assumed that next year it grows even more. And in ’23, it grows yet again. Okay.

 

So as I said, if you’ve got this cost push and firms can’t pass it on, that doesn’t happen. Margins get crushed. Don’t think that’s a risk here in the US at the moment. Do think that’s a risk in Europe because these PPI increases are just so large. Right. And if you’re a Spanish company and your PPI went up 23.6%, you cannot pass on 23.6% increases to the consumer. In the US, if your prices went up eight and a half, you can wiggle a little bit through productivity, maybe a couple. You can probably get away with 5% price increases. Okay. So margin assumptions may be utterly wrong, but if they aren’t, what does that mean, Tony? It means that price inflation is rising, and in which case inflation is not transitory. And that’s the second big assumption. So they’ve assumed margins rise. Oh, and conveniently, inflation is transitory. And that in a cost push environment, you can’t square that circle. Right. One has to be wrong.

 

My gut is at the moment, it’s the latter in the US, not the former, more worried about the former in Europe in Q4. But that’s another thing, which I think the market has miraculously misread. But as I said, as those pricing pressures come through, I think policymakers and markets will have to adjust significantly. And I think it set us up for a policy error sometime next year. Probably huge. Probably.

 

TN: We’ll trip over ourselves with policy errors until we see this. And then when we do see some sort of reckoning, we’ll have even more policy errors.

 

JB: Correct. As Raul and I say constantly on Macro Insiders you just do buy the dip. You just got to figure out when the dip comes because you don’t want to be in when the dip comes and when you hold your nose and grab your bits and decide that you’re going to jump into the deep end and buy it by the seller.

 

TN: Great. Julian, thank you so much for your time. This has been fantastic for everyone watching. Please subscribe to our YouTube channel. It really helps us a lot to get those subscribers. And Julian, I hope we can revisit with you again sometime soon. Thanks very much.

 

JB: Thanks. Bye bye.

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China’s Belt And Road Has Failed. TONY NASH In Conversation With Daniel Lacalle

Tony Nash joins Daniel Lacalle in a discussion on the rise of the machines in a form of AI and machine learning and how Complete Intelligence helps clients automate budgeting with better accuracy using newer technologies like now casts. How GDP predictions are actually very erroneous yet nobody gets fired? And how about China’s GDP as well, and why it’s different from other economies? All these and so much more in markets in this fun discussion.

 

The video above is published by Daniel Lacalle – In English.

 

Show Notes

 

DL: Hello everyone and welcome to this podcast. It is a great pleasure to have somebody that you should actually follow in social media on Twitter, Tony Nash. He is somebody that you definitely need to need to look for because it has very very interesting ideas. Tony, how are you?

 

TN: Great, thanks Daniel. Thanks so much for having me today.

 

DL: It’s a tremendous pleasure as I said I was very much looking forward to to have a chat with you. Please introduce a little bit yourself. A little bit to our audience and let us know what is it that you do.

 

TN: Sure, thanks Daniel. My name is Tony Nash. I live in Houston, Texas. I’ve spent actually most of my life outside of the U.S. I spent most of my 20s in Europe, North Europe, the UK, Southern Europe and from my 30s to almost the end of my 40s I was in Asia. And so you know being in the U.S., Europe and Asia has really given me personally an interesting view on things like trade economics markets and so on and so forth.

 

During that time I was the global head of research for the economist out of London, I was based in Singapore at the time. Led the global research business. I moved from there to lead Asia consulting for a firm called IHS Markit which is owned by S&P now.

 

And after that I started my current firm Complete Intelligence which is a machine learning platform. We do global markets currencies, commodities, equity indices, economic concepts. We also do corporate revenue and expense forecasting so we’ll automate budgeting for large multinational firms.

 

DL: Wow! amazing. Truly amazing. You probably have a very interesting viewpoint on something that a lot of the people that follow us have probably diverging views. Know the situation about the impact of algorithms in the market the impact of high frequency trading and machines in markets.

 

We had a chat a few months ago with a professor at the London School of Economics that he used to invite me to his year-end lectures to to give a master class. And he mentioned that he was extremely concerned about the almost the rise of the machines. What is your view on this?

 

TN: I think so an Algo is not an Algo, right? I mean, I think a lot of the firms that are using Algo’s to trade are using extremely short-term algorithmic trading say horizons. Okay? So they’re looking at very short-term momentum and so on and so forth. And that stuff has been around for 10 plus years, it continues to improve. That’s not at all what we do we do monthly interval forecasts, Okay?

 

Now, when you talk to say an economist they’re looking at traditional say univariate and multivariate statistical approaches, which are kind of long-term trendy stuff. It’s not necessarily exclusively regression, it gets more sophisticated than that.

 

When we talk to people about machine learning, they assume we’re using exclusively those kind of algorithms. It’s not the case. There’s a mix we run what’s called an ensemble approach. We have some very short-term approaches. We have some longer-term traditional say econometric approaches. And then we use a configuration of which approach works best for that asset or that revenue line in a company or that cost line or whatever for that time.

 

So we don’t have let’s say, a fixed Algo for gold, Okay? Our algorithm for the gold price is continually changing based upon what’s happening in the market. Markets are not static, right? Trade flows economics, you know, money flows whatever they’re not static. So we’re taking all of that context data in. We’re using all of that to understand what’s happening in currencies, commodities and so on, as well as how that’s impacting company sales. Down to say the department or sub department level.

 

So what we can do with machine learning now. And this is you know when you mentioned should we fear the rise of the machines. We have a very large client right now who has hundreds of people involved in their budgeting process and it takes them three to four months to do their budgeting process. We’ve automated that process it now takes them 72 hours to run their annual budgeting process, okay? So it was millions of dollars of time and resources and that sort of thing. We’ve taken them now to do a continuous budgeting process to where we churn it out every month. So the CFO, the Head of FP&A and the rest of the say business leadership, see a refresh forecast every month.

 

Here’s the difference with what we do, compared to what a lot of traditional forecasters and machine learning people do, we track our error, okay? So we will as of next month have our error rates for everything we forecast on our platform. You want to know the error for our gold price forecast, it’ll be on there. You’ll know the error for our Corn, Crude, you know, JPY whatever, it’s on there. So many of our clients use our data for their kind of medium term trades so they have to know how to hedge that trade, right? And so if we have our one, three month error rates on there, something like that it really helps them understand the risk for the time horizon around which they’re trading. And so we do the same for enterprises. We let them know down to a very detailed level to error rates in our forecast because they’re taking the risk on what’s happening, right? So we want them to know the error associated with what they’re doing with what we’re doing.

 

So coming out of my past at the economist and and IHS and so on and so forth. I don’t know of anybody else who is being transparent enough to disclose their error rates to the public on a regular basis. So my hope is that the bigger guys take a cue from what we’re doing. That customers demand it from what we’re doing. And demand that the larger firms disclose their error rates because I think what the people who use information services will find is that the error rates for the large firms are pretty terrible. We know that they’re three to seven times our error rates in many cases but we can’t talk about that.

 

DL: But it’s an important thing. What you’ve just mentioned is an important thing because one of the things that is repeated over and over in social media and amongst the people that follow us is well, all these predictions from the IMF, from the different international bodies not to the IMF. Actually the IMF is probably one of the one that makes smaller mistakes but all of these predictions end up being so aggressively revised and that it’s very difficult for people to trust those, particularly the predictions.

 

TN: Right. That’s right.

 

DL: And one of the things that, for example when we do now casts in our firm or when with your clients. That’s one of the things that very few people talk about, is the margin of error is what has been the mistake that we have made in the in that previous prediction. And what have we done to correct it because one might probably you may want to expand on this. Why do you think that the models that are driving these now cast predictions from investment banks in some cases from international bodies and others? Are very rarely revised to improve the prediction and the predictability of the of the figures and the data that is being used in the model.

 

TN: It’s because the forecasters are not accountable to the traders, okay? One of the things I love about traders is they are accountable every single day for their PNO.

 

DL: Yeah, right.

 

TN: Every single day, every minute of every day they’re accountable for their PNO. Forecasters are not accountable to a PNO so they put together some really interesting sophisticated model that may not actually work in the real world, right? And you look at the forward curves or something like that, I mean all that stuff is great but that’s not a forecast, okay? So I love traders. I love talking to traders because they are accountable every single day. They make public mistakes. And again this is part of what I love about social media is traders will put their hypothesis out there and if they’re wrong people will somewhat respectfully make fun of them, okay?

 

DL: Not necessarily respectfully but they will.

 

TN: In some cases different but this is great and you know what economists and industry forecasts, commodity forecasters these guys have to be accountable as well. I would love it if traders would put forecasters up to the same level of criticism that they do other traders but they don’t.

 

DL: Don’t you find it interesting? I mean one of the things that I find more intellectually dishonest sometimes is to hear some of the forecasters say, well we’ve only made a downgrade of one point of one percentage point of GDP only.

 

TN: Only, right. It’s okay.

 

DL: So that is that we’ve grown accustomed to this idea that you start the year with a prediction of say, I don’t know three percent growth, which goes down to below two. And that doesn’t get anybody fired, it’s sort of like pretty much average but I think it’s very important because one of the things. And I want to gather your thoughts about this. One of the things that we get from this is that there is absolutely no analysis of the impact of stimulus packages for example, when you have somebody is announcing a trillion dollar stimulus package that’s going to generate one percent increase in trendline GDP growth it doesn’t. And everybody forgets about it but the trillion dollars are gone. What is your thoughts on this?

 

TN: Well, I think those are related in as much as… let’s say somebody downgraded GDP by one percent. What they’re not accounting for, What I think they’re not accounting for is let’s say the economic impact kind of multiplier. And I say that in quotes for that government spending, right? So in the old days you would have a government spending of say you know 500 billion dollars and let’s say that was on infrastructure. Traditionally you have a 1.6 multiplier for infrastructure spend so over the next say five years that seeps into the economy in a 1.6 times outs. So you get a double bang right you get the government spending say one-to-one impact on the economy. Then you get a point six times that in other industries but what’s actually happened.

 

And Michael Nicoletos does some really good analysis on this for China, for example. He says that for every unit of say debt that’s taken out in China, which is government debt. It takes eight something like eight units of debt to create one unit of GDP. So in China for example you don’t have an economic multiplier you have an economic divisor, right?

 

DL: Exactly.

 

TN: So the more the Chinese government spends actually the less GDP growth which is weird, right? But it tells me that China is an economy that is begging for a market. A real market, okay? Rather than kind of central planning and you and Europe. I’m sure you’re very familiar with the Soviet Union. I studied a lot of that in my undergrad days very familiar with the impact of central planning. China there’s this illusion that there is no central planning in China but we’re seeing with the kind of blow-ups in the financial sector that there is actually central planning in China.

 

And if you look at the steel sector you look at commodity consumption, these sorts of things it’s a big factor of china still, right? So but it’s incredibly inefficient spending. It’s an incredibly inefficient way and again it’s a market that is begging for an open economy because they could really grow if they were open but they’re not. They have a captive currency they have central planning and so on and so forth.

 

Now I know some of the people watching, you’re going to say you’ve never been to China, you don’t understand. Actually I have spent a lot of time in China, okay? I actually advise China’s Economic Planners for about a year and a half, almost two years on the belt and road initiative. So I’ve been inside the bureaucracy not at the high levels where they throw nice dinners. I’ve been in the offices of middle managers for a long time within the Chinese Central Government so I understand how it works and I understand the impact on the economy.

 

DL: Don’t you think it’s interesting though that despite the evidence of what you just mentioned. And how brutal it has been because it’s multiplied by 10. How many units of debt are required to generate one unit of GDP in a little bit more than a decade? Don’t you find it frustrating to read and hear that what for example the United States needs is some sort of central planning like the Chinese one. And that in fact the the developed economies would be much better off if they had the type of intervention from from the government that China has?

 

TN: Sure, well it’s it’s kind of the fair complete that central bankers bring to the table. I have a solution. We need to use this solution to bring fill in the blank on desired outcome, okay? And so when central bankers come to the table they have there’s an inevitability to the solution that they’re going to bring. And the more we rely on central bankers the more we rely on centralized planning. And so I’ve had so many questions over the last several years, should the us put forward a program like China’s belt and road program, okay?

 

We know the US, Europe, the G20 nobody needs that, okay? Why? Because Europe has an open market and great companies that build great infrastructure. The US has an open market and although European infrastructure companies are better. The US has some pretty good companies that build infrastructure in an open market. So why do we need a belt and road program? Why do we need central planning around that? And we can go into a lot of detail about what’s wrong with the belton road and why it’s not real, okay? But that type of central planning typically comes with money as the as kind of the bait to get people to move things. And so we’re already doing that with the FED and we’re already doing that with treasure with money from the treasury, right?

 

And if you look at Europe you’re doing it with the ECB. You’re doing it with money from finance ministries. The next question is, does the government start actually taking over industries again? And you know maybe not and effectively in some ways they kind of are in some cases. And the real question is what are the results and I would argue the results are not a multiplier result they are a divisor result.

 

DL: Absolutely. Absolutely it is we saw it for example. I think it’s, I mean painfully evident in the junk plan in Europe or the growth and jobs plan of 2009 that destroyed four and a half million jobs. It’s not easy to to achieve this.

 

TN: You have to try to do that.

 

DL: You have to really really try it, really try.

 

I think that you mentioned a very important factor which is that central banking brings central planning because central banks present a program of monetary easing of monetary policy. And they say well we don’t do fiscal policy but they’re basically telling you what fiscal policy has to be implemented to the point that their excuse for the lack of results of monetary policy tends to be that the that the transmission mechanism of monetary policy is not working as it should. Therefore because the demand for credit is not as much as the supply of money that have invented. They say, well how do we fill in the blank? Oh it has to be government spending. It has to be for planning. It has to be so-called infrastructure spending from government.

 

You just mentioned a very important point there is absolutely no problem to invest in infrastructure. There’s never been more demand for a good quality infrastructure projects from private equity, from businesses. But I come back to the point of of central banks and a little bit about your view. How does prolonging easing measures and maintaining extremely low rates affect these trends in growth and in these trends in in productivity?

 

TN: Well, okay, so what you brought up about central banks and the government as the transmission mechanism is really important. So low interest rates Zerp and Nerp really bring about an environment where central banks have forced private sector banks to fail as the transmission mechanism. Central banks make money on holding money overnight, that’s it. They’re not making money necessarily or they’re not doing it to successfully to impact economies. They’re not successfully lending out loans because they say it’s less risky buying bonds. It’s less risky having our money sit with the Fed. It’s less risky to do this stuff than it is to loan out money. Of course it’s less risky, right? That’s goes without saying.

 

So you know I think where we need to go with that is getting central banks out of that cycle is going to hurt. We cannot it… cannot hurt, well I would say baby boomers in the West and and in Northeast Asia which has a huge baby boomer cohort. Until those guys are retired and until their incomes are set central banks cannot take their foot off the gas because at least in the west those folks are voters. And if you take away from the income of that large cohort of voters then you’ll have, I guess I think from their perspective you’ll have chaos for years.

 

So you know we need to wait until something happens with baby boomers. You tell central banks and finance ministries or treasuries will kind of get religion and what will happen is behind baby boomers is a small cohort generally, okay? So it’s that small cohort who will suffer. It’s not Baby Boomers who will suffer. It’s that small cohort who will suffer. It’s the wealth of that next generation that Gen x that will suffer when central banks and finance ministries get religion.

 

So we’re probably looking at ten more years five more years of this and then you’ll see kind of… you remember what a rousing success Jeff Sax’s shock therapy was, right?

 

DL: Yeah.

 

TN: So of course it wasn’t and it’s you know but it’s gonna hurt and it’s gonna hurt in developed countries in a way that it hasn’t hurt for a long time. So that kind of brings to the discussion things like soundness of the dollar, status of the Euro that sort of thing. I think there are a lot of people out there who have this thesis. I think they’re a little early on it.

 

DL: Yeah, I agree.

 

TN: So economists you know these insurance people see it from a macro perspective but often they come to the conclusion too early. So I think it’s a generational type of change that’ll happen and then we start to see if the US wants the dollar to remain preeminent. They’re going to have to get religion at the central bank level. They’re going to have to get religion at the fiscal level and really start ratcheting down some of the kind of free spending disciplines they’ve had in the past.

 

DL: Yeah, it’s almost inevitable that you’re in a society that is aging. The net prison value of bad decisions for the future is too positive for the voters that are right now with the middle age, in a certain uh bracket of of age. Me, I tried the other day my students I see you more as the guys that are going to pay my pension than my students. So yeah…

 

TN: But it’s you and me who will be in that age bracket who will pay for it. It’s the people who are 60 plus right now who will not pay for it. So they’ll go through their lives as they have with governments catering to their every need, where it’s our age that will end up paying for it. So people our age we need to have hard assets.

 

DL: Absolutely.

 

TN: You know when the time comes we have to have hard assets because it’s going to be…

 

DL: That is one of one of the mistakes that a lot of the people that follow us around. They they feel that so many of the valuations are so elevated that maybe it’s a good time to cash in and simply get rid of hard assets, I say absolutely the opposite because you’ve mentioned a very important thing which is this religious aspect that we’ve that we’ve gotten into. And I for just for clarity would you care to explain for people what that means because…

 

TN: I say get religion? I mean to become disciplined.

 

DL: I know like you because that is an important thing.

 

TN: Yes, sorry I mean if anybody but to become disciplined about the financial environment and about the monetary environment.

 

DL: Absolutely because one of the things that people tend to believe when you talk about religion and the the state planners religion and and central bank’s religion is actually the opposite. So I wanted to write for you to very make it very clear. That what you’re talking about is discipline you’re not talking about the idea of going full-blown MMT and that kind of thing.

 

TN: No. I think if there is if there is kind of an MMT period, I think it’s a I don’t think it’s an extended period. I think it’s an experiment that a couple of countries undertake. I think it’s problematic for them. And I think they try to find a way to come back but…

 

DL: How do you come back from that because one of the problems that I find when people bring the idea of well,  why not try. I always, I’m very aware and very concerned about that thought process because you know I’ve been very involved in analyzing and in helping businesses in Argentina, in Hawaii, in Brazil and it’s very difficult to come back. I had a discussion yesterday with the ex-minister of economy of Uruguay and Ignacio was telling me we started with a 133 percent inflation. And we were successful in bringing it down to 40 and that was nine years.

 

TN: Right. So, yeah I get how do you come back from it look at Argentina. look at Zimbabwe. I think of course they’re not the Fed. They’re not you know the EU but they are very interesting experiments when people said we’re going to get unhinged with our spending. And we’re going to completely disregard fundamentals. Which I would say I would argue we are on some level disregarding fundamentals today but it’s completely you know divorced from reality. And if you take a large economy like the US and go MMT it would take a very long time to come back.

 

DL: Absolutely.

 

TN: So let’s let’s look at a place like China, okay? So has China gone MMT? Actually, not really but their bank lending is has grown five times faster than the US, okay? So these guys are not lending on anything near fundamentals. Sorry when I say five times faster what I mean is this it grew five times larger than the bank lending in the US, okay? So China is a smaller economy and banks have balance sheets that are five times larger than banks in the US. And that is that should be distressing followers.

 

DL: Everybody say that the example of China doesn’t work because more debt because it’s growing faster what you’ve just said is absolutely critical for for some of our followers.

 

TN: Right, the other part about China is they don’t have a convertible currency. So they can do whatever they want to control their currency value while they grow their bank balance sheets. And it’s just wonderland, it’s not reality so if that were to happen there are guys out there like Mike Green and others who look at a severe devaluation of CNY. And I think that’s more likely than not.

 

DL: Yeah, obviously as well. I think that the the Chinese government is trying to postpone as much as it can the devaluation of the currency based on a view that the imbalances of the economy can be sort of managed through central planning but what ends up happening is that you’re basically just postponing the inevitable. And getting a situation in which the actual devaluation when it happens is much larger. It reminds me very much. I come back to the point of Argentina with the fake peg of the peso to the dollar that prolonging it created a devastation from which they have not returned yet.

 

TN: Right. And if you look at China right now they need commodities desperately, okay? Metals, they need energy desperately and so on and so forth. So they’ve known this for months. So they’ve had CNY at about six three, six four to the dollar which is very strong. And it was trading a year ago around seven or something like that. So they’ve appreciated it dramatically and the longer they keep it at this level. The more difficult it’s going to be on the other side. And they know it these are not stupid people but they understand that that buying commodities is more important for their economy today because if people in China are cold this winter and they don’t have enough nat gas and coal then it’s going to be a very difficult time in the spring for the government.

 

DL: And when you and coming back to that point there’s a double-edged sword. On the one side you have a currency that is out to free sheet are artificially appreciated. On the other side you also have price controls because coal prices are limited by the government. And therefore you’re creating on the one hand a very big monetary hole and on the other hand a very big financial hole in the companies that are selling at a loss.

 

TN: That’s true but I would say one slight adjustment to that things like electricity prices are controls. When power generators buy coal, they buy that in a spot market, okay? So coal prices have been rising where electricity prices are highly regulated by the government this is why we’ve seen blackouts and brownouts and power outages in China. And why it’s impacted their manufacturing base because they’re buying coal in a spot market and then they’re having to sell it at a much lower price in the retail market.

 

And so again this is the problem with central planning this is the problem with kind of partial liberalization of markets. You liberalize the coal price but you keep the electricity price regulated and if you don’t have the central government supporting those power plants they just blow up all over the place. And we’ve seen the power generators in the UK go bankrupt. We saw some here in Texas go bankrupt a couple years ago because of disparities like that and those power generators in the UK going bankrupt that’s the market working, right? So we need to see that in China as well.

 

DL: Yeah, it’s a very very fascinating conversation because on the other hand for example in Europe right now with the energy shortage we’re seeing that a few countries Spain, France, etc. are actually trying to convince the European Union, the European Commission to try to get into a sort of intervened market price in the in the generation business. Which would be just like you’ve mentioned an absolute atrocity very very dangerous.

 

TN: This creates a huge liability for the government.

 

DL: It creates a massive liability for the government. This is a key point that people fail to understand the debate in the European union is that, oh it’s a great idea because France has this massive utility company that is public. And therefore there’s no risk it had to be bailed out twice by the taxpayers. People tend to forget that you’re paying for that.

 

TN: But again this is what’s that block of voters who doesn’t really care about the impact 10 or 20 years down the road. That’s the problem. There’s a huge block of voters who don’t really care what the cost is because the government’s going to borrow money long-term debt. And it’s going to be paid back in 10 or 20 years and the biggest beneficiaries of this and the people on fixed incomes they actually don’t care what the cost is.

 

DL: Yeah, yeah exactly, exactly. There’s this fantastic perverse incentive to pass the bill to the next generation. And that obviously is where we are right now. Coming back to the point of the infrastructure plans and the belt and road plan. What in your view are the the lessons that we must have learned or that we should be learning from the Belgian road initiative?

 

TN: So here’s a problem with the Belton road and I had a very candid discussion with a senior official within China’s NDRC in probably 2015 which was early on, okay? And this person told me the following they said the Belgian road was designed to be a debt financed plan. What’s happening now, and again this was six or seven years ago, very early on in the in the belts and road dates. They said the beneficiary countries are pushing back and forcing us to take equity in this infrastructure, okay?

 

Now why does that matter well the initial build out of infrastructure is about five percent of the lifetime cost of that asset, okay? So if you’re if China is only involved in the initial build out they’re taking their five percent, it’s a loan and they get out. If they’re equity holders in that let’s say they’re 49 equity holders in an Indonesian high-speed rail then they become accountable for part of that build-out. And then they have to maintain the other 95 of the cost for the next 30 to 50 years. So they thought they were going to be one and done in and out. We do this infrastructure we get out they owe us money and it’s really clean what’s happened is they’ve had to get involved in the equity of those assets.

 

And so I’ve since had some uh government officials from say Africa ask me what do we do with the Belton road with china? Very simple answer force them to convert the debt to equity, okay? They become long-term involved on a long-term basis. They become involved in those assets and then they’re have a different level of interest in them in the quality maintenance and everything else but they’re also on the long-term basis accountable for the costs.

 

So they don’t just build a pretty airport that and I’m not saying this necessarily happens but they don’t just build a pretty airport that falls apart in five years, okay? They then have to think about the long-term impacts and long-term maintenance costs of that airport, right? And so but you know the original design of the Belton road was debt financing. Mobilizing workers and so on and so forth what it’s become is a mix of debt and equity financing. And that’s not what the Chinese government has wanted.

 

So I’ve been telling people for three or four years the Belton road is dead, okay? And people push back me and say no it’s not, you know think tank people or whatever. But they don’t understand the fundamental fact of how the Belton road was designed it was designed as a one-and-done debt financed infrastructure build out it’s become a long-term investment all around the world. So it’s a different program. It’s failed, okay?

 

They’re not going to make the money they thought yes they’ll keep some workers busy but they’re not going to make the money they thought. All of those assets, almost all those assets are financed in US dollars, okay? So they’re not getting their currency out. It’s not becoming an international unit like they had hoped. They’re it’s not they’re not clean transactions and so on and so forth. So this is what’s happened with the Belgian road. So the lesson learned is they should have planned better. And they should have had a better answer to you become an equity owner. And uh

 

I think you know if any western governments want to have kind of a belt and road type of initiative. They’re going to have to contend with the demand from some of these countries that they become equity owners. And I think that’s a bad idea for western governments to be equity owners in infrastructure assets so you know this is this is the problem.

 

Japanese have taken a little bit different because of where the Yen is and because of where interest rates are in Japan. Japanese have basically had kind of zero interest or close to zero interest on the infrastructure they’ve built out. And so they haven’t gone after it as aggressively as China has. They’ve had a much cleaner um structure to those agreements. And so they’ve been, I think pretty successful in staying out of the equity game and staying more focused on the debt financing for their infrastructure initiatives.

 

DL: Oh, absolutely big lesson, big lesson there because the we see now that the vast majority of those projects are impossible to the debt is impossible to be repaid. There’s about 600 billion dollars of unpayable debt out there. And we also have the example from from the internationalization of the French, Spanish, Italian companies into Latin America that they fell into the same trap. They started with a with a debt-financed infrastructure build type of clean slate program that ended up owning equity. And in some cases with nationalizations hopefully that will not…

 

TN: And watch for debt to equity conversions in these things. It’s good. There’s going to be huge pressure because the Chinese say the exit bank the CDB. A lot of these organizations are going to be forced to convert that debt to equity and then unload it on operating companies in China. They’re not going to want to do it but we’re going to start to see more and more pressure there over the next couple of years.

 

DL: Great! Well I’m absolutely convinced that will happen. Tony, we’ve run out of time so it’s been an incredible conversation lots of things that are very very interesting for our followers. We will give all the details to follow you and to get more information about your company in the details of the of the video. And thank you so much for your time. I hope that that we will be able to talk again in a not too distant future.

 

TN: Thank you Daniel. Anytime. Thank you so much.

Categories
QuickHit

EM Meltdown: China, Turkey & Russia (Part 1)

The emerging markets expert Michael Nicoletos shares his insights into the Chinese economy and why it’s in a very big trouble?

 

This is the first part of the discussion. Subscribe to our channel to get notified when Part 2 is out.

 

In this first part, Michael talked about China’s household debt and how much is that? Can they ever recover from the Evergrande disaster? And how they got into it in the first place? Is CNY still valuable? How do the Chinese get dollars now with their very limited FX reserve? Should you use the digital Yuan? How much is China spending right now to up its GDP?

 

Michael Nicoletos have spent most of his life around markets, and I used to run a hedge fund for more than 10 years on emerging markets. He shut it down in 2019 to take a sabbatical and Covid 19 hit the world. Now, he is doing a lot of research on emerging markets and trying to see what the next steps will be in terms of the investment world. But in the meantime, he is also advising a few firms on their investment.

 

Tony Nash met Michael at a Real Vision event in 2019, when he was giving a presentation on China, and he had a chart in there that was actually Michael’s chart. They had a conversation after that and have stayed in touch occasionally since then.

 

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This QuickHit episode was recorded on October 20, 2021.

 

The views and opinions expressed in this EM Meltdown: China, Turkey and Russia (Part 1) Quickhit episode are those of the guest and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Complete Intelligence. Any contents provided by our guest are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any political party, religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.

Show Notes

 

TN: So on China. Michael, I wanted to ask you, you sent out a tweet. I think it was last week talking about China’s household debt and it’s on the screen now. So it’s talking about how China’s household debt is at $10 trillion and looking at the ratio of China’s household debt to say, Hong Kong and the US. So can you talk to us a little bit about China’s household debt loads and what that really means for the Chinese economy?

 

Banking bubble in China and Hong Kong

 

MN: Well, as we all know, it’s been in the news lately. The Evergrande imminent. I don’t know if it’s going to be a default because there are some discussions right now to find a solution. But either way, it’s very hard for it to be repaid at its face value.

 

Now, the problem here is twofold. One problem is that China is highly levered as a whole, approximately more than 270% of GDP. The other thing is that real estate is approximately 62 trillion, I’d say the property market, which includes also home prices and everything. It’s about 62 trillion, of which around 10 trillion around sold properties. So it’s a very big backlog. The real estate crisis has started with Evergrande, and we’ve seen actually bond yield spiking in China real estate bond prices. And the big issue here is that banks are the ones who lend obviously to the real estates. So right now, banking assets in China are around 400% of GDP. And in Hong Kong, which is a proxy to China is around 900% of GDP. Just to put it in perspective.

 

In 2007, the relevant numbers for the US was 230%. And Ireland where the crisis started was like 700%. So we’re past both those levels. So we see that there’s a very big debt problem within China. Now, because China has capital controls in place, money cannot leave the country. So the bubble grows, grows, grows. But the money stays in the system.

 

So people now are starting to be afraid. And it’s the first month after six years that retail prices started falling in China. So this is creating a vicious loop. That fear that the contractor will not deliver your house. It means that you’re not going to purchase a new house. So you’re afraid. People in China have stopped buying, which creates a negative, vicious look.

 

So China has tried to avert this at least three or four times in the past ten years. Every time China is trying to stem back from giving you debt, we see such a small crisis, and then China is forced to reverse immediately because it cannot afford. It’s too big of an economy. Real estate is approximately 29% of China’s GDP. So you understand that something like that is very hard to control.

 

Now, China has been a rock in a hard place because I’ve been trying to shift from an investment, let’s say, investment intensive economy to a more consumption driven economy.

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TN: This has been a 20-year transition, right? It’s not something they started two years ago. They’ve been trying to do this for, like, 20 years, right?

 

MN: They’ve been trying to do this, say ten years. But let’s see, consumption as a percentage of GDP is around 38%. When in the US, it’s around 70%. It’s very hard to get that number higher. And given that all the wealth or most of the wealth by Chinese people, is linked directly or indirectly to real estate, you understand that this is a chicken and egg problem. If you try to stop one problem, you’ll create the other problem.

 

TN: Sure.

 

MN: So there are these problems right now in China. I think China will be forced to reverse course again. I don’t think you can afford to create a real estate crisis. I don’t think there would be a world contagion, by the way. But I think it could create a spillover effect with other real estate entities. Evergrande, the size was around 300 billion. It’s actually the biggest one. So we’ve seen the biggest one. And the thing is this could spill over to the whole industry.

 

Now, what’s the problem here, besides that? The problem is that China has been trying to convince banks and actually all the regions to stop giving loans, which are unproductive. Now, because GDP in China is an input number and not an output number like it’s in the Western countries, whatever the number the government sets, that’s what everyone tries to achieve and they can achieve it by giving more money.

 

TN: I just want to stop you there because I don’t think that point is well understood. When you say GDP is an input number in China and it’s an output number everywhere else. I’ve been trying to make this point for years to people, and you say… Help me understand, when you say it’s an input number. What do you mean in simple terms?

 

MN: In simple terms is the government wants 7% growth, so everyone will do the best they can to achieve that 7% growth, no matter what. So it means if I’m a bank or if I’m a region in China and I need to do more, I need to produce more growth. I’ll give out loans, which could be unproductive.

 

What do I mean? If I build a bridge, this is the most common example. If I build a bridge, when I build a bridge, this is counted in the GDP growth. Now, if I destroy the bridge, that is not deducted by the GDP. Right? If I rebuild the bridge, it’s added again. So in theory, you could make one bridge, build it, destroy it, build it, destroy it. And you would only have growth. So when China wants an input number, it will create bridges. The bridges could be, as we say, the usual “bridges to nowhere.” The famous quote. Or it could be bridges, which are useful. So all these unproductive debt went mostly to properties. And that’s why we see all these vacancies and all these ghost towns around China which actually were built and this was added in the GDP growth numbers. But then no one went to live there and the towns are there, and now they have to bring them down.

 

TN: Right. Now, you’re famous for kind of calculating for every say CNY spent by the Chinese government, it results in X amount of GDP, right? There used to be a multiplier effect to CNY spent and GDP. But you started seeing as that was diluted. So when you last calculated that, what was that number? For every say Chinese Yuan spent how much GDP was created?

China credit to GDP ratio

 

MN: So your viewers can understand because it’s a bit technical. So let’s assume you’re an economy and you create debt. You want that debt to create more GDP than the debt you’re giving. So if you’re giving one unit of debt, you want that one unit of debt to create one point, something of GDP.

 

So in theory, you would want it to be two, three, four. Okay, that’s not very easy. But if it’s a plus, it means that your debt was accredited. So it helped the economy. The problem here is, since 2008, China from using approximately let’s say, two units of debt to create one unit of GDP. So we’re already negative, because when you have two units of debt to create one unit of GDP, it means that that one unit will end up as a bad debt at some point. It’s not imminent, but at some point it will add up. So we went from 1 to 2.2 units of debt to create one unit of GDP. And right now we’re approximately between eight and nine units of debt to create that same one unit of GDP. So China needs more and more debt to sustain the same rate of growth.

 

TN: Right. So instead of a multiplier effect, which is what kind of economic impacts people usually talk about, there’s almost a divisor effect in China.

 

MN: You could say that. But because it’s a closed economy, that money can’t leave the system. So in theory, if you had a free account or if you had an open capital account, the Chinese will say, oh, my God, my currency is overvalued. Or let me take some money out of China and make a dollar. Now, this is not possible because Chinese have, I think, a quota of $50,000 a year they can take out? Something like that. Now, obviously, there are ways to take money out, but it’s not the easiest thing, and it’s not for everyone.

 

TN: I guess. It’s jewelry and watches the latest.

 

MN: Right. Okay. It was also Bitcoin. They try to be creative. Well, there’s a good ratio here, which is pretty interesting, and people forget. Now, if you devise the M2, the FX reserves to M2, why do I do that? Because let’s assume money is the money supply within the system. The ratio goes to 9%. Now, the Tiger countries in the Asia crisis in ’97 had the same ratio of approximately 25% to 30%. When it dropped below the 25%, you had the big devaluation.

 

Now, China doesn’t have a big external debt. So since it doesn’t have a big external debt, there is no trigger from that side of the equation for China to be forced to liquidate that fixed reserves to cover for it. But even though they have approximately $3.2 trillion of FX reserves and maybe another trillion from the banks and everything. I’d say 4 trillion. The M2 is approximately around $36 trillion right now. So these numbers… Imagine a hot balloon that you put air. At some point it’s going to blow. We don’t know what that level is. Okay. It could be like ten years before that happened. Or we could see, in my view, the Japan-like model where for ten years, you have an anemic growth. But you don’t see anything really, not a substantial bust. Because one thing.

 

TN: You also just destroyed the idea of China becoming a global currency, of the CNY becoming a global currency. Right. Because if they do have to trade on an open basis, then it’s way overvalued. Right. It’s like monopoly money.

 

MN: Well, China tried or is trying, at least. And it appears through Alipay and WeChat to create a digital Yuan. Why does he want to create a digital Yuan. It’s pretty simple. If the world is using a digital Yuan outside China, it means that the CNY or Yuan or Renminbi or whatever you want to call it, will be used abroad. So this means that it’s usage outside China will increase.

 

We’ve seen, however, that during the last two years, and I’m sure you have the guests, which are better to talk about this, know this subject a bit better than me. The dollar usage has gone up. The dollar is around 87% of global transactions. It actually went up. So there’s a discussion where everyone says the dollar is dying. The dollar is dying, the dollar is dying. Okay. And I understand where it’s coming from because of the policies. But monetary policies are relative. They’re not absolute. Maybe US is doing something bad, but the rest of the world is not doing something better.

 

So right now, the US dollar dominance increases. Now. I’m pretty sure I understand that this cannot stay at current levels. But going from 87% to being to 5%, it’s not something that’s going to happen in the next 2 years.

 

TN: I think the dollar had been down to like 82% six to seven years ago. And seeing it go up to 87%, that’s not a small amount. But the Fed does not want to be the World Central Bank. The US Treasury does not want to be the world’s treasury. So there’s this belief that the US wants to be the dominant global currency. I don’t necessarily believe that’s true. I think there are advantages to having a large portion of global currency usage, but I think 87% is just way too much. It’s way too much concentration of risk, actually, for the Fed and for US monetary officials. Go ahead. Sorry.

 

MN: No, you’re absolutely right. I think you’re right. However, the US, I think would like to remain the number one. Now, I don’t know what the percentage, the optimal percentage would be. But I’m pretty sure they prefer being the dominant than not being the dominant.

 

TN: Oh, yeah, absolutely. They want to say number one, but 87% is just too much.

 

MN: Since we’re talking about the dollar. The important thing about the dollar is that if the dollar strengthens, okay. And I don’t have a strong view here, I think it’s going to strengthen, but I understand if it doesn’t. If the dollar strengthened, this puts the pressure on emerging markets as a whole, because usually emerging markets tend to borrow in foreign currency because the foreign currency interest rate is much lower than the local currency.

 

For example, in Turkey, it’s 20%. The dollar is 0%. So if there’s a Turkish corporate wants to launch a bond, it will borrow on dollars at five 6% instead of borrowing at 20%. So they try to do that.

 

Now, as the dollar strengthens, especially for emerging markets, this puts pressure to repay the debt and it becomes harder and harder. So if the dollar were to strengthen, that would create a very, very big problem. I think the Goldman Sachs issued a report where it showed that the growth divergence between emerging markets and developed markets is at its lowest point. If you look at the cycles and it leaves that it could expand and right now, I think it discounts like a 4% growth for EM as a total.

 

So if the dollar strengthens, I don’t think we’ll see these numbers. I think you’ll see pressure on EM. Huge.

 

TN: Talking about EMs, and we talked about reserves and you mention Turkey. Let’s talk about Turkey Turkey for a minute because you’ve made some really interesting statements about Turkey. And I’d like to really understand your perspective.

Categories
QuickHit

Quick Hit Cage Match: Van Metre vs Boockvar on Inflation (Part 2)

This is Part 2 of the inflation discussion with Steven van Metre and Peter Boockvar with your host Tracy Shuchart. In this second part, they talked about the possibility of the Fed tapering this year or early in 2022. How about the possible rate hike and what will possibly happen in other parts of the world like Bank of Japan and Bank of England if ever this happens? What is Powell doing exactly and why? Is there a possibility of a new Fed chair next year? And what do they think about stagflation?

 

For Part 1 of this QuickHit Cage Match episode, please go here. 

 

Steven van Metre is a money manager who have invented a strategy called Portfolio Shield. He also has a YouTube show that discusses economic data and the news three days a week.

 

Peter Boockvar is the Chief Investment Officer and portfolio manager at Bleakley Advisory Group. He has a daily macromarket economic newsletter called The Boock Report.

 

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📊 Forward-looking companies become more profitable with Complete Intelligence. The only fully automated and globally integrated AI platform for smarter cost and revenue planning. Book a demo here.

📈 Check out the CI Futures platform to forecast currencies, commodities, and equity indices

 

This QuickHit episode was recorded on October 14, 2021.

 

The views and opinions expressed in this Quick Hit Cage Match: Van Metre vs Boockvar on Inflation Part 2 episode are those of the guest and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Complete Intelligence. Any contents provided by our guest are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any political party, religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.

Show Notes

 

TS: Do you see the Fed tapering? And if they do, how much is this going to affect inflation? And also, I know the market is saying the Fed is going to raise rates in ’22, 2023. But is this a reality at all?

 

But before we jump into that, I just wanted to remind you to please subscribe to our YouTube channel.

 

PB: I think the Fed will at least start the taper and see how it goes. The thing that is different with this taper is that it’s coinciding with central banks around the world that are also beginning to remove accommodation. However slow, however glacial that process is, they’re all outside of the BOJ. They’re all doing it at once.

 

So if the Fed starts to taper in December, which they basically told you that they will, well, the Bank of England could be raising rates in December. We recently got a rate hike from Norway a month or two ago from South Korea. We’ve had Canada and Australia trimmed QE. Even the ECB has trimmed QE. So there’s a global shift to tightening. And I do believe tapering is tightening to define that. Just as we saw last year, the past 18 months obviously massive global easing.

 

Now I can’t even discuss the rate hike situation because I’m not even sure that they’re going to be able to get through the tapering. If you look back to 2010, every single notable market correction in equities and also fixed income markets outside of Covid and the one evaluation in August 2015 coincided with the end of QE, where it was a hard stop QE1 and QE2. And then obviously you had the taper 2013 and then obviously around rate hikes. Every single one coincided with a tightening of policy. And even again, it was gradual. It still affected markets. And we’re going to have it again to think that we’re going to somehow get through tapering without any accidents, I think, is delusional. And you believe that there’s a free lunch and it’s a matter of what kind of accident occurs by this.

 

Now QE itself essentially, at the end of the day, it’s an asset swap. And yeah, does some of that money sort of filter into markets? Yeah, maybe, I guess. But a lot of it’s psychological, but it also does help to, at least on the short end, suppress interest rates to where they would be otherwise. That said, when QE has been on, you’ve been paid to steepen the curve when QE is off, it pays to flatten it. And I think we’ve seen some recent flattening in the yield curve. And I think that that has been the right trade to do when QE is about to turn off.

 

But to Steve’s point about the bottom 50%. Well, if you get a short equity market correction, well, the top 50% is going to feel that as well. And yeah, can that filter into how they spend for sure? But that doesn’t necessarily resolve the supply issues.

 

That’s how this inflation story is going to recalibrate. The supply side is going to take a couple of years, and it’s going to be less demand. That is going to recalibrate this inflation story. And I think that is. No central bank wants to preside over a declining economy. But unfortunately, you’re going to have to have a trade off. You want lower inflation and a slower economy or an economy, as is but fast inflation, that’s going to hurt the people that can least afford it.

 

SVM: Yeah, this balance sheet taper thing is really interesting because I will be on record. I’ll hold on record still, and I don’t think the Fed’s going to do it. Although, as Peter mentioned, you just said that you think that the Fed is going to start and then quit. I’ve had to come to your side of the fence on that deal, mainly because when Powell spoke at Jackson Hole, it seemed like he was saying, we can’t make this mistake. We got to keep easing because we could let off the gas too soon.

 

And then for whatever reason, there’s this massive pivot between that and the last meeting. And he’s going to have a disadvantage going into the November F-O-M-C. And not have the non farm payroll report because he concludes me on Wednesday. Nonfarm payroll is out on Friday. Maybe he’s got some early access, who knows? But it seems like all of a sudden he’s in a panic to start tapering.

 

Now, could this be because we know the treasury is going to reduce their issuance of notes and bonds as we borrow less money, and he doesn’t want to be over purchasing? Sure. Could it be, as Peter mentioned, that the other central banks are tapering and starting to raise hike rates. And that’s interesting, because the way I look at it is that would be a catalyst if the Fed doesn’t start tapering, that the dollar goes higher.

 

Well, there’s part of the inflation story that almost nobody is looking at. What if the dollar gets up into 96, 97, maybe even close to 100? I mean, we’re talking about destroying the inflation story just from the dollar alone. And is this one of those things where we had coordinated easing? So now we need to have coordinated tapering to keep the dollar from going up too much? I’m not sure what his motivation is, but I will say this. There’s no way that they get to the end of that taper. There’s a 0% chance they’re going to raise rates. And even if they did, it doesn’t matter. They’ve effectively given the banks a pass by saying, look, there’s no reserve requirement because, well, you’ve got all these QE reserves you don’t need anymore.

 

The whole idea that we’re going to get this balance sheet unwound. I think the bond market is telling us the Fed’s making a mistake. I think, Peter, you and I agree that we don’t know how many months they’re going to go? The only question is, at what point is there a payroll report or some data that comes out that the Fed goes, “Oh, my God, we made a big mistake.”

 

PB: I’ll tell you why he’s doing this. Well, first of all, the whole purpose of monetary policy, as we know, is to push the demand side. And if you look at what are the two most interest rate sensitive parts of the economy — it’s housing and autos. So is Powell with a straight face going to say, I need to pedal to the metal, continue to stimulate the demand for housing and autos, when you can’t find an auto and the price of the home is worth 20% more than last year? They need to take their foot off that demand pedal. And he does not want to be Arthur Burns. He does not want to be Arthur Burns. And right now he is headed towards being Arthur Burns.

 

And the Fed is going to reach a pivot point, where if inflation still remains sticky and persistent, but growth is really decelerating to a greater extent than it already is. And we know that the Atlanta Fed third quarter GDP number has one handle on it. He’s going to have to reach a point, do I try to come inflation, but then risk further weakness in the economy and a fall in asset prices, which JPowell obviously inflated. Where is he going to just not really respond quick enough. And being in Washington, we can be sure he probably leans towards trying to save the economy, but then that creates its own problems.

 

The one thing in the dollar, the dollar is going to get tied into this, too, because if he remains too easy for too long, well, that may sacrifice the dollar. If he is more aggressive at dealing with inflation, well, then you can see a faster move in the dollar. So he’s just been an absolutely no win situation here. But there is going to be a pivot point where he’s going to reach that we’ll have to see, does he go down the Paul Volcker route, or is he going to go continue down the Arthur Burns route?

 

SVM: See, Peter, you just said it best. He didn’t know what his situation. And all we’re debating is, at what point does he back off and quit because he realizes it’s not working? I mean, we can look at the velocity of money and see the monetary policy is not functioning properly.

 

I mean, there was a lot of people that predicted at the end of the last quarter that as economy reopen, velocity would pop. But it didn’t because of the fact that monetary policy is not transmitting into the economy. And so now the real issue is if he starts tapering and it does do what it’s supposed to do, does he inadvertently tighten financial conditions? I mean, this is such a mess of what he’s got to deal with. And I don’t know if you’ll agree with me honest, but I don’t think they have a clue what they’re doing.

 

I think they’re just betting that this is all going to work out, that Powell, as himself, is going to get renominated. And somehow, in the end, either he’s going to look like a superhero and say, look, see, I did it and go out as one of the most celebrated Fed chairs ever. Or he’s going to find someone else to blame this on when it doesn’t work.

 

PB: The Fed has been winging it for decades, and this all goes back to Greenspan. In 1994, he raised rates aggressively. We know he blew up Mexico, he blew up Orange County, California, and he took that at heart. He learned a lesson. And so you go into the late 90s when everything is on fire. Stock market bubble. We know he was very slow to raise interest rates because he didn’t want to repeat 1994.

 

And then, of course, you have the blow up. And he’s obviously quick to raise interest rates. But remember the mid 2000s, every single. When he started raising interest rates, he did it every single meeting, and in every single statement, it said, we are doing this at a measure pace, because he didn’t want to repeat 1994.

 

And then what we have, obviously, the housing bubble and so on and so on. And then now you take Powell. We know Janet Yellen was afraid to raise interest rates. Took them seven years to get off zero. And then after finally raising, took them another twelve months to finally raise rates again. And then Powell started to pick up the pace. And then he blew himself up in the fourth quarter of 2018. And then that helps to explain why they’re going so slow now.

 

Then you throw in, of course, the whole social justice. The Feds become the Ministry of Social Justice now and how they view monetary policy. But yeah, to your point, they are winging it. And they’ve been winging it for decades.

 

SVM: And you bring up an interesting point about 2018. I’m really glad you did, because a lot of people forgot that we started easy to the point that it didn’t really make a lot of sense from the outside look in it. And so now this whole notion, and I don’t know what your reaction was, but I remember hearing the press conference when he’s like, okay, when Powell said, “We’re going to gradually unwind the balance sheet by mid 2022.” I’m like, since when is “gradual” six months. There’s no way this is going to work for you, buddy, but good luck if you’re going to pull it off.

 

PB: Yeah. And the Fed got lucky for a period of time. They got lucky in 2017 because the markets rallied and ignored Fed rate hikes and the beginning of the shrinking of their balance sheet. They were double tightening and they got bailed out because everyone focused on the corporate income tax cut. That obviously happened at the end of 2017. But that entire year, the Vix got down to eight. Every dip was bought because everyone was pricing in that tax cut. But once that tax cut was in place, the Fed then raised interest rates again in January 2018. And then we immediately shift back to the Fed is double tightening here between the balance sheet and rates. And that obviously coincided with the fourth quarter of 2018.

 

So we know in the Fed tapering, the Fed tightens until they hit a wall. The Fed tightens until something breaks, and you can be sure something will break in 2022. It’s just a matter of how deep they get. And also one last point here is that having low inflation gives central banks that Wayne’s World Concert pass that all access to do anything they want for how long as they want, when there’s no inflation. But once you get inflation into the numbers, into the economy, their flexibility is greatly diminished. And that will be an interesting sort of tug of war as they get further into the tapering and something eventually breaks.

 

TS: One last question, a couple of last question. How do you feel about Stagflation? I kind of amend the Stagflation camp. Do you think that’s a cop out or how do you feel about that?

 

SVM: I think it’s temporary. I mean, we’re supposed to be rising unemployment. I mean, I guess with people coming off the ranks, I don’t know. Maybe it’ll go back up. I don’t think that’s likely to happen. And then you tend to get that with higher prices. But when we start looking at the bond market. The bond market is starting to tell us that, hey, this Stagflation is going to be transitory. And then the risk that I see is that we get into outright deflation from here.

 

PB: To me, I just look at stagflation as just slower growth and higher inflation. And in an economist textbook, they think that slow growth means lower prices. Faster growth means higher prices. I’m just looking at the Bank of Japan. The Bank of Japan said we need to get inflation at 2%, and somehow that will then generate faster growth. To me, they’ve got that backwards. You need stable prices in order to develop and sustain healthier growth.

 

So right now. But the Stagflation it’s sort of intertwined in the sense that it’s the inflation and what is driving it. So it’s the inflation itself that is beginning to impact consumer spending. And it’s the factors that are creating the inflation, like the supply bottlenecks that in itself, are also creating slower growth.

 

TS: Excellent. One last question, just for a thought experiment. I mean, say Powell does leave the Fed next year and we have find a Dove, right. So what does the Fed look like at that point if we have a dove as a Fed chair?

 

PB: Well, 2022 becomes completely politicized. The Fed’s already politicized, but it becomes Uber politicized in 2022 because of the elections in November. And if a Lael Brainard becomes the next Fed chair in February, 2022, you can be sure that Steve and I are right, that there’s no chance in hell they’re going to finish this taper because the second something breaks, you know, they’re going to back off and they’re going to do their best to, or at least the Democrats headed by the Lael Branard will do their best to maintain control of Congress.

 

SVM: Yeah. I’ll put that as a low probability chance that Powell is out. If he does, I’m 100% agree.

 

PB: I agree. I think he stays as well.

 

SVM: Yeah, 100% agree. I think it’s a big risk for the Biden administration to pull him. He hasn’t really done anything wrong. But if he does, again, I think Peter is spot on. I mean, now it becomes even more political than the Fed is supposed to be. And he’s right, as soon as something goes wrong, I mean, we’re going to 120 billion a month. Yeah, right. It’ll be multiples of that in a second.

 

TS: All right. Well, I want to thank you both again for everything you shared with us today. Can you each tell us where we can find you on social media or otherwise?

 

PB: Well, I just want to say thank you to Tracy and Steve. Thank you for having me in this debate and discuss this with you. It was definitely a fun time. If you want to read my daily readings, you can subscribe to boockreport.com. boockreport.com And our wealth management business is at bleakley.com.

 

TS: Excellent.

 

SVM: I want to thank you as well. Peter, you and I know this has been a long time coming for us to be on the same screen together. I had a blast. Totally looking forward to the next time. If you want to find more about me, you could go to my website. stevenvanmetre.com On Twitter @MetreSteven. On YouTube at @stevenvanmetrefinancial.

 

TS: Great. And for everyone watching, please don’t forget to subscribe to our YouTube channel and we look forward to seeing you on the next QuickHit.

Categories
QuickHit

Quick Hit Cage Match: Van Metre vs Boockvar on Inflation (Part 1)

This special QuickHit Cage Match edition is joined by opposing sides of inflation versus deflation with Steven van Metre and Peter Boockvar. Why one thinks we’re having deflation and the other believes in inflation? How soon will this happen and to which commodities and industries?

 

This is the first part of the discussion. Subscribe to our Youtube Channel to get notified when Part 2 is out.

 

Part 2 is out. Watch it here.

 

Steven van Metre is a money manager who have invented a strategy called Portfolio Shield. He also has a YouTube show that discusses economic data and the news three days a week.

 

Peter Boockvar is the Chief Investment Officer and portfolio manager at Bleakley Advisory Group. He has a daily macromarket economic newsletter called The Boock Report.

 

 

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This QuickHit episode was recorded on October 14, 2021.

 

The views and opinions expressed in this Quick Hit Cage Match: Van Metre vs Boockvar on Inflation episode are those of the guest and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Complete Intelligence. Any contents provided by our guest are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any political party, religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.

Show Notes

 

TS: I kind of want to start broadly here. So if you could give me your two minute elevator pitch on your view on whether you’re an inflationist or deflationist, even though we already know who is who. And how fluid is your view?

 

PB: So if we just break down, inflation is just the simple, too much money chasing too few goods. We certainly have too few goods with supply challenges around the world and too much money with a lot of fiscal spending over the past 18 months financed by the Federal Reserve buying most of that debt that the treasury issued to finance a lot of this fiscal spending. So it’s combining with inflation situation where it’s really just a good side. That is the part of the debate.

 

Services inflation is rather persistent. For the past 20 years leading into Covid, services inflation XNERGY is averaged almost 3%, but goods have been basically zero. And it’s always that trade off that has resulted in an inflation rate of 1% to 2% over the last couple of decades. But now you are back on trend with services inflation, and I’ll argue that will accelerate from here because of rents. And now you combine that with a period of goods inflation. Now, goods inflation is typically cyclical, if history is any guide. But how long of a cyclical rise we have really is the question. And I just think it’s not going to be so short term that it could last a couple of years.

 

SVM: Yeah. So I think that the inflation story is going to be more, at least the former Fed’s view of being on the transitory side, and I take that view strictly from my understanding of how the monetary system works, looking at the velocity of money, the fiscal stimulus cliff going away.

 

While I do agree that Peter will be right and that we will likely see higher inflation, and I agree in where he thinks it’s coming from in terms of the supply chain. I completely agree with that. But I do think ultimately those higher prices will get rejected without a sustained amount of new money coming in from fiscal or other means or from lending growth. And so even though we’ll see rising prices and they will probably go up a bit more, ultimately, I think the consumer will reject them just like we saw during the great financial crisis and that we are more likely to see inflation turn down pretty hard and perhaps even into the deflation.

 

TS: Either one of you can jump in here. Where do you see inflation, deflation hitting the soonest and the hardest? We’re looking at commodities that are still running very hot, supply chains that are very stressed. At what point do you think we see demand destruction? And how long do you think that we’re going to see these extremes in the destruction and supply chains that are causing much of this current inflation?

 

PB: Well, we’re already seeing some demand responses. We are seeing a slowdown in economic growth. Part of that is a pushback against these price increases. If you look at the housing market, there’s particularly the first time home buyer that has sticker shock and doesn’t want to pay for a home that’s priced 20% more than it was a year ago. And they’re saying, okay, let me take a pause here.

 

So there is some of that. But then, of course, there’s also some forced demand destruction because enough product can’t be delivered and that an auto plan has to shut down an assembly line because they can’t get enough parts, and they’re not sure when they’re going to be able to get enough. Or it’s Nike that can’t deliver enough store product to foot locker because it’s going to take 80 days to get it from their factory in Vietnam rather than 40 days.

 

Now, at some point, goods, inflation is going to be temporary. The question is, how long does it take to resolve itself? And one of the things that I think will unfold here is that let’s just take transportation costs, because that is a main factor in the rise in inflation, because every single thing that’s made in this world ends up on a plane, a ship, a truck or a railroad to get it from point A to point B.

 

So let’s just say I’m a toy manufacturer, and my transportation costs are now 35% year of year on top of the cost of my wholesale cost to actually get the product, and my cost of labor is up 5% to 7% year over year. Well, I’m not going to recoup that all in one shot by raising prices to Walmart by 10%. It could take me a couple of years to recoup that. But I promise you, I’m going to do my best to do so, and I’m going to space that out. I’m going to try my best to cushion the blow to that end, buyer who’s buying for their kids for Christmas by spacing out that price increase. But I know I’m going to have visibility because everyone else is going to be doing the same thing for the next three years in raising prices so I can recapture, I may not be able to regain completely, but recapture some of my lost profit margin. So that’s one of the reasons why I think this is going to be sticky.

 

And to Steve’s point, yes, there’s going to be a fiscal fall up next year to some extent. We’ll see how much of the lost transferred payments are going to be offset by both the child tax money, plus people going back to work. We saw jobs claim have a two handle today for the first time since pre-Covid and to what extent wage increases can offset the rise in the cost of living? And yeah, we’ll have to see that. But the question is, how much do prices come back in?

 

You take lumber, for example, and I’ll give it to Steve right after this, lumber prices in the heart of the housing bubble in the mid 2000s was about $300. Now it went up to $1600 now it’s about 650. The cost of a home, construction wise, and what a builder would charge their customer is not going back to where it was. They are going to use this and fatten their margin as best they can, and it’s going to take years for that buyer to experience what is truly reflected at 650 lumber, but that’s even more than double where it was. So it’s still multiple years of price increases that are going to flew through the chain.

 

SVM: Yeah. Peter, you bring up some absolutely excellent points about how long this could go. And that’s something I really haven’t considered that it could run a couple of years because I look at this fiscal cliff and to me, you go back to the pandemic and we know all this was driven by fiscal stimulus. And without it, and I know we still have the child tax credit for a bit. I’m just concerned that this drop off comes a lot stronger than most people are expecting. And I do realize a lot of these goods are sitting off ports waiting to get shipped in, waiting for truckers to take them to warehouses and eventually on the stores.

 

The question I keep asking is when those goods hit the shelves, will consumers be there with money? Do they have the money to spend? Are they going to go back to work fast enough? And even though, as you mentioned, we had a two handle today, we both know that that’s almost 50% higher than normal.

 

So the question is we still see this huge amount of job openings everywhere. We’re not seeing people go back to work. We saw the jolt state. I know you looked at that recently from the other day where people are quitting their jobs. And so I keep coming back to the same question is will consumers come and spend and keep these prices up? If they don’t, then we get the reversal. But that’s my question. Do they come?

 

PB: It’s a great question of whether that will be the case. I don’t think the labor market is going back to where it was pre Covid. And all you have to do is look at the participation rate to confirm that, particularly for the age group of 25 to 54 year olds, which is sort of the core wage earning population, and it’s still well below where it was in February 2020. So, yeah, we’re not going back to a 3.5% unemployment rate with the same number of employed people anytime soon.

 

Now, what is replacing a lot of the lost sort of or not made up fiscal money that has been spent, particularly December 2020 with Trump’s last fiscal package and then repeated just a few months later with Biden, is that eventually we do have that child tax money that’s going out. We do have an increase in food stamps. Basically that reservation wage, which is basically the wage level at which someone has a tough choice of whether do they go take that job or do they collect all the government handout? That continues to go up.

 

So that person who may not want to go back to work while they’re getting a lot of benefits elsewhere. And while the aggregate, we’re going to probably see some sort of fiscal drop off. The question is, is that enough from the demand side to offset what’s going on in the supply side?

 

Now, again, supply side is going to normalize at some point. There’s no question about it. Just a matter of when. Taiwan semi is spending billions of dollars that just broke ground in June in Arizona to build a semi plant. Well, it’s not going to be done until 2024.

 

Now, there could be a lot of double ordering, triple ordering that’s going on in Semis right now. We’re going to have this major inventory hangover. We’re already actually seeing it in DRAM, for example. And that could happen. And there’s going to be a mess at the other end of this. I just think that this drags out and also a key part of this inflation debate, too, is in what context is this coming in?

 

If we had a Fed funds rate in the US of 3%, if we had a ten year at four to five, if we didn’t have such thing as negative interest rates, I’d say, “you know what the world can handle about of higher inflation because interest rates are higher. If equity valuations weren’t as extreme as they are and they were more in line with history,” I would say, okay, “we can absorb it.” But that’s not the case right now. We have valuations that are excessive in a variety of different things. Obviously, we have zero interest rates, negative interest rates, QE and so on. So even if inflation decelerated to, let’s just say a 3% rate for a year or two. I just don’t think that the world is positioned for that.

 

SVM: Yeah. I’m not worried about the upper 50%. I’m really curious about the bottom 50%, who is really the big recipients. I know a lot of people got the fiscal checks, but my wife is a fourth grade teacher, and one of the problems they’re having in schools right now, and you’ve probably been hearing about this is a kid or a staff or a teacher gets Covid, and next thing you know, they’re quarantining out segments of the classroom. They’re sending them home. And the parents are really struggling with this because they want to go back to work. But then all of a sudden, their kids back and they can’t.

 

And so they’re forced to stay at home and they don’t have the family support. Maybe they don’t want to send the kids to grandma and grandpa because they don’t want them to get sick in case their kid has it. And so I keep wondering, without all this fiscal support from the government is the natural expectation, particularly with higher energy prices, as we go into the winter, that these cash-strapped households are going to ultimately make the choice to I’ve got to buy food. We all know that’s gone up. We have to pay for energy. We know that’s gone up. As Peter, as you mentioned earlier, that rents are probably going up. So what does that leave in terms of discretionary income to spend to drive inflation?

 

And I kind of wonder, without their spending power, how is this going to last? And that’s my big concern is I don’t think it does. I think consumers are going to reject it. I don’t think they have the income. I don’t think the money supply is growing fast enough. And then you start looking at the dollar and interest rates and you would want to see the dollar going down. You want to see interest rates going up and we keep seeing the dollar fighting to go higher.

 

We keep seeing interest rates trying to press back lower, and it’s telling us that financial conditions are tight. And, of course, the Feds potentially about to taper and start to remove their support of that. And I just keep kind of shaking my head going, like, how are we going to get through the holiday season unless consumers come out and spend a big way? I’m just not convinced.

 

TS: Well, perfect segue into what I kind of wanted to get into next was talking about the Fed tapering. So first, because everybody’s talking about this. Do you see the Fed tapering? And if they do, how much is this going to affect inflation? And also, I know the market is saying the Fed is going to raise rates in ’22, ’23. But is this a reality at all?

Categories
QuickHit

Quick Hit: Are you a deflationist or an inflationist?

Brent Johnson of Santiago Capital tweets, “If you believe additional QE is on the way, you are secretly a deflationist. And if you believe in the taper, you are secretly in the inflation camp.” What does he mean by that? Also discussed in this QuickHit episode:

  • What are the considerations around inflation this time?
  • “Negative velocity of money.” What does that mean?
  • Why are banks not the transmission mechanism that they should be?
  • How China plays a part in the world economy?
  • How long will the supply chain issues will be resolved?

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