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Impact Of PBOC (China’s Loose Monetary Policy)

Impact of PBOC's Loose Monetary Policy

BFM 89.9 asks Tony Nash from Complete Intelligence on how China’s PBOC adoption of looser monetary policy will affect the yuan and the broader Chinese economy. 

This podcast first appeared and originally published at https://www.bfm.my/podcast/morning-run/market-watch/impact-of-pboc-chinas-loose-monetary-policy on December 24, 2021.

Show Notes

SM: BFM 89 nine. Good morning. You’re listening to the morning run. I’m Shazana Mokhtar are together with Philip See. It is Christmas Eve, Friday, the 24 December 9:06 in the morning. But in the meantime, let’s take a look at the activity on Bursa Malaysia.

PS: It’s flat like Coke without any bubbles.

SM: Oh, no, that’s the worst kind of flat.

PS: Yes, the foot sabotage. Malaysia is flat slightly down .09% at 1515.

SM: So still above 1500.

PS: Still above 1500.

But it’s been yoyoing a bit green and red so far. But the rest of the markets across Asia are in green territory. The Straits time is up at 3100. Cosby also up 58% at 3015. Nikkei also up zero 6%, 28814. Now, just to bring your attention, looking at the crypto Bitcoin 5998.65 above the 50,000 mark. Theorem also uptrend 4114115.184. Now, if we shift over to the currencies, ring it to US dollar 4.11988. You’re seeing some strengthening there. But across the other two currencies pound and sing dollar, we’re seeing some weakness there.

Ring it to pound 5.62967. Ring it to Sing dollar 3.0922. Now, looking over to the value board. Really. Smattering of small caps actually driving it, but cost number one Ata IMS at .72 cent unchanged, followed by SM Track up 13% at .13, followed by Kajura Tran asphas flat at .26%.

SM: Okay, so that is the snapshot of Bursa Malaysia at 9:09 this morning. We’re taking a look now at how global markets closed yesterday.

So if we look at the US markets, they closed in the green. The Dow was up 0.6%. The S&P P 500 was up zero 6% as well. The Nasdaq was up zero 9%. So a lot of optimism going into the Christmas weekend. Joining us on the line for analysis on what’s moving markets. We have Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence. Tony, good morning. Thanks for joining us today. Now 2022 is just a week away. And given the triple headwinds of Fed tapering, Omicron and a China slowdown, will there be a difference in how developed and emerging markets in Asia are going to be impacted?

TN: I think with the tightening in the Fed and with what emerging markets are going to have to do, meaning in the near term, like China is going to have to loosen. So I think you’ll have a strengthening dollar and more of a rush for capital into the US, so that should at the margin, kind of help US markets stay strong across debt and equity. Other things. I think in emerging markets it could eventually China loosening. The PVC loosening could help demand in emerging markets, but it’s going to be hard to get around the hard slowdown that started in China around Omicron.

PS: I see.


And so when you contrast that to the Fed tightening, right. You said China PBOC is adopting a looser monetary policy. How will this affect the UN in relation to those Asian currencies in which there’s a lot of trade between these two countries?

TN: Yeah. CNY has been strong for a protracted period, and it’s made sense on one level, so China can import the energy and food, particularly and some raw materials that it needs in a time of uncertainty. So the PVC has kept it strong through this period. What we’ve expected for some time. And what we’ve shown is that after Lunar New Year, we expect the PPOC to begin to weaken the CNA. We don’t think it’s going to be dramatic, but we think it’s going to be obviously evident. Change of policy, Chinese exporters, although they’ve been producing at not capacity, but then producing pretty.


Okay. China is going to have to devalue the CNY to help those exporters regain their revenues that they’ve lost over the last two years. So we’re in a strange period globally of moving from kind of state support back to market support, whether it’s the US, Europe, Asia, we’ve really had state supportive industries, state supportive individuals as we move beyond covet. Hopefully we’re moving more into a market orientation globally, and there will be some volatility with that.

PS: Yeah, but I was wondering for China, especially, I’m interested to know what the state of the Chinese consumer will be in 2022 because the government is worried for slow down. Right. And wouldn’t they want to expedite and give a bit more ammunition to the Chinese consumer?

TN: They would. But the problem is with Chinese real estate values declining, a lot of consumer debt is secured against real estate. And so the ability of Chinese consumers to expand the debt load that they’re carrying. Is it’s pretty delicate? It’s a fine balance that they’re going to have to run. So either the economic authorities in China push real estate markets up to allow Chinese consumers to keep debt with their real estate portfolios, or they make other consumer debt type of rules that allow Chinese consumers to hold more debt.

Real estate is the part that’s really tricky in this whole equation in China, because if real estate values are falling, the perceived wealth of those consumers is falling pretty rapidly as well, and the desire to consume excessively, it’s just tempt out.

SM: And I suppose still sticking to our view of China looking at metal commodities, what metals have been affected by the slowdown of demand in China? And do you foresee a recovery for them in early 2022?

TN: Yeah. We’ve seen industrial metals like copper and steel, and those sorts of things really slow down dramatically compared to where they were earlier in 2021. We’re seeing reports of, say, copper shortages at the warehouse level at the official warehouses in China, but that’s not real. What we’re seeing and I speak to copper producers in Australia and other places. What they’re telling us is that those copper inventories are being shifted to unofficial warehouses to create a perception of shortage. So we may see a run. We may see an uptick in, say, industrial metals prices in early 22, but we don’t expect it to last long because the supply of constraint is not real.


So until demand picks up for manufacturing and goods consumption. And the other thing to remember is we’ve had a massive durable goods wave through covet. Everyone’s talked up on durable goods. Okay, so there is almost no pent up demand for durable goods. And this is the stuff that industrial metals go into on the demand side, there are some real problems on the supply side. There seems to be plenty of supply in many cases. So we don’t necessarily see the pressure upward, at least in Q1 of 2022 on industrial metals.

PS: And that’s why I’m quite interested where you say that this demand is, I think slowly going to dissipate because yesterday key US inflation gauge sharpest rise in nearly 40 years, right? Personal consumption expenditure surged 5.7% in November. How long do you think this elevator level will last?

TN: Well, US consumers are pretty tapped out. So I think inflation happens for a couple of different reasons. Some people say it’s only monetary. Not necessarily true. We’ve seen real supply constraints that contribute to inflation. We’ve seen demand pulls because of overstimulating economies, and those two things together have accelerated inflation. And so we have to remember at the same time in 2020, we saw prices. If things go down pretty dramatically around mid year, say a third of the way through the year to mid year to just after mid year.

Some of these inflationary effects have been a little bit base effects because prices fell so hard in 2020. But we have seen consumption ticking up because of government stimulus. And we have to remember if the Fed is tightening things like mortgage backed securities, their purchases of mortgage backed securities will slow. Okay, so if people can’t refinance their house or buy new houses again, those wealth effects dissipate if you have a home. If your home price is rising, whether it’s the US or China or elsewhere, the wealth perception is there and people have a propensity to spend.

But if the Fed is pulling back on mortgage backed securities, then you won’t necessarily have that wealth effect that will dissipate. So government spending will decline marginally because build back better didn’t pass. We won’t have that sugar rush of government spending flowing into the economy early in 2002, although we may see something later. I believe governments love to spend money. So I believe the US government will come with some massive package later in the year to bring government spending back up.

SM: Tony, thanks very much for speaking to us. And an early Merry Christmas to you. That was Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence, giving us a quick take on what he sees moving markets in the final year. In the final weeks of 2021. Looking ahead to 2022.

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QuickHit

Sentiment has soured: How will governments and companies respond? (Part 1)

Sentiment has soured: How will governments and companies respond? (Part 1)

Companies are saying that the Q3 revenues will be down a bit. What’s really happening and how long will this last? Chief Economist for Avalon Advisors, Sam Rines, and a returning guest answers that with our first-time guest Marko Papic, the chief strategist for Clocktower Group.

 

In addition, both the Michigan Consumer Sentiment and the NY Manufacturing survey down as well. Watch what the experts are seeing and what they think might happen early in 2022.

 

Watch Part 2 here. 

 

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This QuickHit episode was recorded on August 19, 2021.

 

The views and opinions expressed in this Sentiment has soured: How will governments and companies respond? (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 I guess we’ve started to see some negative news come in with the Michigan Consumer Sentiment with the New York Manufacturing Survey and other things. Most recently, we had some of the housing sentiment information come in. And I’ve heard companies talk about their revenues for Q3 will be down a bit. And so I wanted to talk to you guys to say, are we at a turning point? What’s really happening and how long do you expect it to last? Marko, why don’t you let us know what your observation is, kind of what you’re seeing?

 

MP: Well, I think that, you know, the bull market has been telling us that we were going to have an intra cyclical blip, hiccup, interregnum, however you want to call it since really March. And there’s, like, really three reasons for this. One, the expectations of fiscal policy peaked in March. Since then, the market has been pricing it less and less expansion of fiscal deficits. Two Chinese have been engaged in deleveraging, really, since the end of Q4 last year, and that started showing up in the data also on March, April, May.

 

And then the final issue is that the big topic right now is something we’ve been focused on for a while, too, which is this handover from goods to services, which is really problematic for the economy. We had the surge of spending on goods, and now we all expected a YOLO summer where everybody got to YOLO. It really happened.

 

I mean, it kind of did. Things were okay but, that handoff from good services was always gonna be complicated, anyways. And so I’m going to stop there because then I can tell you where I stand and going forward. But I think that’s what’s happening now and what I would be worried about. And I really want to know what Sam thinks about this is that the bull market been telling you this since March. There’s some assets that were kind of front load. The one asset that hasn’t really is S&P 500, as kind of ignored these issues.

This chart of S&P 500 Stock Market (SPX) is generated from CI Futures, an app forecasting nearly a thousand assets across currencies, commodities, market indices, and economics using artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. Curious how it can you and your business? Book a time with our expert and get free trial.

 

TN: Right. Sam, what are you seeing and what do you think?

 

SR: Yeah, I’ll jump in on the third point that Marko made, which is that handoff from services or from goods to services. That did not go as smoothly as was planned or as thought by many. And I don’t think it’s going to get a whole lot better here. You have two things kind of smacking you in the face at the moment. That is University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment and the expectations. Neither of those came in fantastically. Today isn’t great. Tomorrow isn’t expected to be great.

 

Part of that is probably the Delta variant, depending on what part of the country you’re in, that is really beginning to become an issue. Not necessarily, I mean, it’s nowhere near as big of an issue as COVID was for death and mortality in call it 2020. But it’s a significant hit to the consumer’s mindset. Right?

 

And I think that’s the part, what really matters is how people are thinking about it. And if people are thinking about it in a fear mode, that is going to constrain their switch from goods to services and the switch from goods to services over time is necessary for the economy to begin growing again at a place that is both sustainable and is somewhat elevated. But at this point, it’s really difficult to see exactly where that catalyst is going to come come from, how it’s going to actually materialize in a way that we can get somewhat excited about and begin to actually become a driver of employment. We do need that hand off to services to drive employment numbers higher.

 

And what we really need is a combination of employment numbers going higher, GDP being sustainably elevated to get bond rates higher. So I think Marko’s point on what the treasury market is telling us should not be discounted in any way whatsoever.

 

The treasury market is telling us we’re not exactly going to a 4% growth rate with elevated inflation.

 

United States GDP Annual Growth Rate
This chart of United States GDP Annual Growth Rate is generated from CI Futures, an app forecasting nearly a thousand assets across currencies, commodities, market indices, and economics using artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. Curious how it can you and your business? Book a time with our expert and get free trial.

 

TN: Right.

 

SR: It’s telling us we’re going to something between Japan and Germany at this point.

 

TN: Yeah. That’s what I’m a bit worried about. And with the consumer sentiment especially, I’m a bit worried about sticky sentiment where we have this Delta variant or other expectations, and they remain on the downside, even if there are good things happening.

 

Do you guys share those worries, or do you think maybe the Michigan survey was a blip?

 

SR: Oh, I’ll just jump in for 1 minute. I don’t think it was a blip at all. I think what people should be very concerned about at this point is what the next reading is. That reading did not include the collapse of Afghanistan. It did not include any sort of significant geopolitical risk that is going to be significant for a number of Americans.

 

Again, it’s kind of like Covid. It might not affect the economy much. It’s going to affect the psyche of America significantly as we move forward. And if consumer sentiment were to pick up in the face of what we’ve seen over the last few days, I would be pretty shocked.

 

TN: It would be remarkable. Marko, what do you think about that?

 

MP: So I’m going to take the other side of this because I have a bet on with Sam, and the bet is, by the end of the year, I’m betting the 10-year is going to be closer to 2%. He’s betting it’s going to be closer to 1%. So he’s been winning for a long time, but we settled the bet January 1, 2022.

CBOT 10-year US Treasury Note
This chart of CBOT 10-year US Treasury Note is generated from CI Futures, an app forecasting nearly a thousand assets across currencies, commodities, market indices, and economics using artificial intelligence and machine learning technologies. Curious how it can you and your business? Book a time with our expert and get free trial.

 

Here’s why I think I would take the other side of a lot of the things, like when we think about where we’re headed. So first, I think there’s three things I’m looking at. There’s really four things. But the fourth is the Fed. And I’m going to like Sam talk about that because he knows a lot more than I do. The first three things I’m looking at is, as I said, there are reasons that the bond market has rallied. And I think a lot of these reasons were baked in the cake for the past six months, or at least since March.

 

The first and foremost is China. And China is no longer deleveraged. The July 30th Politburo meeting clearly had a policy shift, but I would argue that that been the case since April 30. They’ve been telling us they are going to step off the break. And, quite frankly, I don’t need them to search infrastructure spending a lot. I don’t need them to do a lot of LGFB. I just need them to stop the leverage. And so they’re doing that.

 

And the reason they’re doing that is fundamentally the same reason they crack down on tech. And it has to do with the fact that Xi Jinping has to win an election next year. Yeah. And an election. It’s not a clear cut deal. He’s going to extend his term for another five years. CCP, The Chinese Communist Party is a multi sort of variant entity, and he has to sell his peers in the communist party that the economy is going to be stable.

 

And so we expect there to be a significant policy shift in China. So one of the sort of bond bullish economic bearish variables is shifting. The second is fiscal policy. Remember I mentioned that in March, investors basically started, like the expectations of further deficit increases, basically whittle down. This was also expected.

 

The summer period was also going to be one during which the negotiations over the next fiscal package were going to get very difficult. I would use the analog of 2017. Throughout the summer of 2017, everybody lost faith in tax cuts by the Trump administration. And that’s because fundamentally, investors are very poor at forecasting fiscal policy. And I think it has to do with the fact that we’re overly focused on monetary policy. We’re very comfortable with the way that monetary policy uses forward guidance.

 

I mean, think about it. Central bankers bend over backwards to tell us what you’re going to do in 2023. Fiscal policy is a product of game theory, its product of backstabbing, its product of using the media to increase the cost of collaboration, of cooperation. And so I think that by the end of the year, we will get more physical spending. I think the net deficit contribution will be about $2 trillion, the net contribution to deficit, which is on the high end. If you look at Wall Street, most people think 500 billion to a trillion, I would take double of that.

 

And then the final issue is the Delta. Delta is going to be like any other wave that we’ve had is going to dissipate in a couple of weeks. And also on top of that, the data is very, very robust. If you’re vaccinated, you’re good. Now, I agree with everything Sam has said. Delta has been relevant. It has, you know, made it difficult to transition from goods to services, but it will dissipate. Vaccines work. People with just behavior. So.

 

TN: Let me go back to the first thing you mentioned, Marko, is you mentioned China will have a new policy environment. What does that look like to you?

 

MP: There’s going to be more monetary policy support, for sure. So they’ve already, the PBOC has basically already told us they’re going to do an interest rate cut and another RRR cut by the end of the year. Also, they are going to make it easier for infrastructure spending to happen. Only about 20-30% of all bonds, local government bonds have been issued relative to where we should be in the year. I don’t think we’re going to get to 100%. But they could very well double what they issued thus far in eight months over the next four months.

 

So does this mean that you should necessarily be like long copper? No, I don’t think so. They’re not going to stimulate like crazy. The analogy I’m using is that the Chinese policy makers have been pressing on a break, really, since the recovery of Covid in second half of 2020. They’ve been pressing on the breaks for a number of reasons, political, leverage reasons, blah, blah, blah. They’re not going to ease off of that break. That’s an important condition for global economy to stabilize.

 

Thus far, China has actually been a head wind to global growth. They’ve been benefiting from exports, you know, because we’ve been basically buying too many goods. They know the handoff from goods to services is going to happen. Goods consumption is going to go down. That’s going to hurt their exports. On top of that, they have this political catalyst where Xi Jinping wants to ease into next year with economy stable.

 

Plus, they’ve just cracked down on their tech sector. They’re doing regulatory policy. They have problems in the infrastructure and real estate sectors. And so we expect that they will stimulate the economy. Think about it that way. Much more actively than they have thus far.

 

TN: Great. Okay. That’s good news. It’s very good news. Sam?

 

SR: Yeah. So the only push back that I would give to Marko and it’s not really pushback, given his assessment, because I agree with 99% of what he’s saying. But the one place that I think is being overlooked is, one thing is the fiscal policy with 2 trillion is great, but that’s probably spread over five to ten years, and therefore it’s cool. But it’s not that big of a deal when it comes to the treasury market or to the economic growth rate on a one-year basis. It’s not going to move the needle as much as the middle of COVID.

 

TN: Let me ask. Sorry to interrupt you. But when you say that’s going to take five to ten years, when we think about things like the PPP program isn’t even fully utilized. A lot of this fiscal that’s been approved over the last year isn’t fully utilized. So when these things pass and you say it’s going to take five to ten years, there’s the sentiment of the bill passing. But then there’s the reality of the spend. Right. And so you just take a random infrastructure multiplier of 1.6 and apply it.

 

There’s an expectation that that three and a half trillion or whatever number happens, two trillion, whatever will materialize in the next year. But it’s not. It’s a partial of it over the next, say, at least half a decade. Is that fair to say?

 

SR: Correct? Yeah. Which is great. It’s better than nothing in terms of a catalyst to the economy. The key for me is it’s not being borrowed all at once. It’s not being spent all at once. Right.

 

If it was a $2 trillion infrastructure package to be spent in 2022, I would lose my bet to Marko in a heartbeat. It would be a huge lose for me, and I would just pay up. But I would caution to a certain degree, it’s $200 billion a year isn’t that big of a deal to the US economy, right. That’s a very de minimis. Sounds like a big number, but it’s rather de minimis to the overall scale of what the US economy is.

 

And you incorporate that on top of a Federal Reserve that’s likely to begin pulling back, or at least intimate heavily that they’re going to begin pulling back incremental stimulus or incremental stimulus by the end of 2021 and 2022. And all of a sudden you have a pretty hawkish kind of outlook for the US economy as we enter that 2022 phase. And it’s difficult for me, at least, to see the longer term, short term rates, I think, could move higher, particularly that call it one to three year frame. But the ten to 30-year frame, for me is very difficult to see those rates moving higher. With that type of hawkish policy in coming to fruition, it’s kind of a push and pull to me. So I’m not obviously, I don’t disagree with the view that China is going to stimulate and begin to actually accelerate growth there. I just don’t know how much that’s actually going to push back on America and begin to push rates higher here.

 

I think we’ve had max dovishness. And strictly Max dovishness is when you see max rates and when you begin to have incremental hawkishness on the monetary policy side and fiscal side. And 2 trillion would be slightly hawkish versus 2020 and early 2021. When you begin to have that pivot, that it’s hard for me to see longer term interest rates moving materially higher for longer than call it a month or two.

 

TN: Okay, so a couple of things that you said, it sounds like both you agree that China is going to do more stimulus. I think they’re late. I think they should have started five or six months ago, but better now than never. Right. So it sounds to me like you believe that there will be the beginning of a taper, maybe a small beginning of a taper late this year. Is that fair to say.

Categories
Podcasts

Claims, Caution, and China

Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence speaks with BFM 89.9 about the US market rebound, what to expect in the third quarter of 2020, jobless claims and US unemployment, and Hong Kong amid the US-China cold war or trade war.

 

BFM Notes

It’s been an eventful weekend in politics, and all eyes are on whether markets will reflect the renewed uncertainty. We reached out to Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence, to help us break down Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell’s comments before the US Senate Banking Committee, data expectations, and what the potential impact of Hong Kong losing its special status might be on emerging market currencies.

 

Produced by: Michael Gong, Roshan Kanesan

Presented by: Noelle Lim, Roshan Kanesan, Lyn Mak

 

Listen to the BFM Podcast here.

 

 

Show Notes

 

BFM: Thanks for joining us, Tony. So now, Jerome Powells made some comments before the Senate Banking Committee pointing towards a cautious rebound in the US economy. But nevertheless, U.S. markets closed in the green on the back of some positive housing data. So could you help shed some light on what’s happening here?

 

TN: Sure. We had the positive housing data. We had a broad tech rally. We also had Boeing like 14 percent today on a test flight on the 737 Max. So it was simply a test flight and it was a successful test flight and Boeing rallied 14 percent. It’s a major component and it has an impact on broad market activity. So there are some good things happening, but certainly low expectations environment.

 

BFM: Do you expect end of quarter rebalancing by funds, would that costs significant market volatility? I mean, could you just give us some thoughts about this?

 

TN: As we’ve said before, we expect volatility to continue through probably mid-August. So we will see some rebalancing and we will see as these investors figure out what the right value is for the assets they’re invested in. So we’ll see some change. We’ll see a lot of people kind of take it in Q2. And Q3 is a brand new quarter, so they’ll wipe the slate clean. We’ve seen a lot of companies dump everything but the kitchen sink into the Q2 earnings. Well, but we expect them to. And so Q3 will be hopefully a whole new world. And and we’ll be approaching something more positive by then.

 

BFM: Right. And Tony, when we look at the every week, we’ve been paying very close attention to the jobless claims numbers, right? What are your expectations of the US Weekly jobless claims numbers this week and June Non-Farm payroll data that’s expected on Thursday or Friday overtime?

 

TN: Well, we saw a huge jump in non-farm payrolls in May of 2.5 million, which was pretty massive. Also, the unemployment rate improved from almost 20 percent to like 13 percent. So, we expect things to improve gradually. We don’t expect the two million, although I hope we do, but we don’t expect that magnitude. But we do expect jobs to continue to accumulate as companies gradually come back. So the initial wave of companies opening up in the US produced a lot of new jobs. But now we’re starting to see that continue, but not necessarily at the same magnitude. But again, if we see 2.5 million or more, that will be a delight, everyone.

 

BFM: So now, Tony, fluctuating crude prices and as well as bankruptcies like Chesapeake Energy make oil stocks seem like a bit of a risky proposition. Shouldn’t investors still be considering energy companies as part of their portfolio?

 

TN: Well, I think you have to do with caution. So we look at things like crude oil inventories in the US reached an all time high of something like 540 million barrels about a week and a half two weeks ago. So there’s plenty in storage. I think if you’re investing in energy companies, whether they’re the developers option companies or service providers or whatever, I think you just have to go in with your eyes open to know that the growth there and the draw down in inventories is not likely to be a quick one.

 

TN: So, again, it’s just you have to understand your own risk profile. You have to understand your own tolerance and then go in. I mean, when you look at something like Chesapeake, that was, it happened. And I don’t think it was a complete surprise. But you also look at BP. They sold off their chemical business to Eneos over the weekend. And so some of these companies are hiving off other businesses so they can focus on their core business.

 

BFM: So, now you know, the latest piece of news where US is going to revoke Hong Kong’s special status. So what do you make of this piece of news in the larger picture of the trade war, the Cold War between China and US?

 

TN: I think it puts Hong Kong… It’s another piece in the puzzle to put Hong Kong in a light that it doesn’t really want to be put in, which is one country, one system. Hong Kong has for the last 20, 30 years, been the special place where you can access China without all the baggage. But what we’ve seen with the security like coming in is if you’re in Hong Kong, you’re also accepting the China baggage, which means you have to self-censor your comments, which means you have to be really careful about everything you do and say. And if you’re an investor, that’s a pretty difficult place to be. And so I think, the announcements in the State Department of not selling this technically sensitive equipment there, it was inevitable.

 

I don’t necessarily think it’s a surprise. I think from the Chinese side, it may have been a surprise. But I think they were kind of deluding themselves if they didn’t expect it. So there is accountability for China’s actions and it’s been as they’ve moved into Hong Kong, there have to have been ramifications and were seeing those, and there will be more. And China will have to understand that if they want the benefits of open, say investment markets, they’re going to have to limit their desire to control a number of aspects around business.

 

BFM: Thank you very much for speaking with us this morning, Tony. That was Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence, giving us his insight into global markets.

Categories
Podcasts

Why Bank Stocks are Falling?

BFM 89.9 discusses with Tony Nash about why bank stocks are falling — the US markets were dragged down by financial stocks as big banks JP Morgan, Wells Fargo and Citigroup reported their first-quarter earnings.

 

Find this podcast originally published at the BFM: The Business Station.

 

 

Show Notes:

BFM: Right now, taking a look at the wider global markets, we speak to Tony Nash, CEO of Complete intelligence. Tony, thank you for taking the time to speak to us today. The Fed book was released showing that almost all economic data activity has stopped and the question is how difficult will it be to restart it? Do you expect even more contraction?

 

TN: Very difficult. I mean, as we’ve talked about before, this is a government-mandated shut down, so it’s going to take a lot of fiscal stimulus to get things restarted. That’s why you’ve seen governments come out with such large stimulus programs. We don’t believe it’s a situation where central banks can wave a magic wand and use monetary policy to get things started. It’s not that kind of problem. This is a problem that has to be addressed with fiscal stimulus and direct spending from governments.

 

BFM: Is there enough fiscal stimulus so far?

 

TN: No. We’re two weeks into the second quarter, and when we look at all of the country, where the orders to not work are in place, it’s going to be at least two to three to four, maybe six weeks before some countries are up and running. And because a this is government-mandated order, those governments have to find a way to compensate individuals and companies for those close-down orders. Otherwise, we’d have catastrophic economic contraction. Spending is a key component of the GDP calculation. So if you count “don’t spending” as a substitutional factor to consumption and investment, you can still grow your economy or have it not contract as much as it would. Governments are feverishly trying to find find where they can spend, but I think many governments don’t really have the money. They accumulated so much debt over the last 10 or 20 years, they don’t have the money to be able to stimulate the way they need to.

 

BFM: Tony, Mexico’s been downgraded by Fitch to just one or just one level of Junk. Do you think this portends a rash of similar downgrades by other agencies?

 

TN: Oh, sure, absolutely. I think emerging and middle income markets are going to have a tough year. And that’s the case because we have a strong US Dollar and are likely going to have a stronger US Dollar. And on a relative basis, emerging market currencies are going to have a real uphill battle. So those emerging markets that are export-dependent will have a tough time, as well as we see consumption collapse. So I don’t want to sound entirely pessimistic, and it’s actually quite hopeful once we hit, say, July or August. But, Q2 is a very, very difficult situation. And the quicker governments can get their countries moving from an economic perspective, the better off we are.

 

BFM: So Tony, let’s move back to the US for a bit. The banks, the big banks, have started releasing the Q1 results with JP Morgan, Wells Fargo, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America and Citi or reporting significantly lower profits and more particularly huge provisions there, some as five times more than usual. What does this tell you about the broader economy? What are they expecting at least?

 

TN: Well, we’ve been trying to tackle all the bad news now. That’s for Q2. They can say, we accounted for that before and they can report better numbers in Q3. And this is all relative. A lot of companies are going to report horrific numbers for Q2. But, you know, the government is coming in and encourage loan repayment to be delayed and backed up the number of loans as well.

 

So should these provisions be larger than they are or as large as they are? Maybe that’s a prudent thing to do. But it looks really like there, you know, these provisions should have been in Q2, not necessarily in Q1. So I think they’re being conservative and I think that’s fine. But I think to some extent it’s really you just tacking all the bad news or what they expect to be the bad news into Q1 so that they can look better later in the year.

 

BFM: Yeah, that’s always what this was about to ask you, actually, Tony. Do you think they’re trying to pack as much bad news in this quarter as possible? Yes. But I think on on the call yesterday with Bank of America’s chief financial officer, he also seemed a bit, well, at sea in terms of really putting a finger on exactly what kind of quantums provisions might lead to the next quarter. Do you think they really know what’s happening around the corner, do you think?

 

TN: I don’t think they know. And I know that, the US banks are really, say take serious problems with like with PPP, these are small business loans. They’re just overwhelmed with the number of applications for these small business loans. That loan processing is truly inefficient and it’s not all the banks’ fault because it was, the US department pretty pretty quickly. So they’re kind of doing the best they can, but those are not their most efficient operations and we’re having to just adjust to where the attention is.

So I think they don’t know how bad it is. Until we know when some of these stay at home orders will be lifted, nobody really knows. And it’s the same thing in Asia as it is here. You’d see all these kids schooled, and it’s a problem, and so until it’s lifted, we really don’t know the full extent of the economic damage.

 

BFM: Well, speaking about Asia, even after better than expected March trade figures, People’s Bank of China cut medium term lending rates by 20 basis points. What do you read from what they just did?

 

TN: Honestly, guys, a 20 basis points isn’t going to do anything. I mean, nobody is going to take a loan out because it’s 20 basis points cheaper. What China needs is a very large fiscal stimulus package to make sure that their factory workers and other certain workers are given, maybe not a full wage, but enough of a wage to continue to get by. Our major worry for China this year is a very sharp contraction of industrial production, meaning manufacturing. We’re looking for contraction in exports starting in February, going through March and April, May, simply because the consumption markets are not there.

 

There is a global demand problem. So there is a demand problem domestically in China, but there’s also a demand problem in the rest of the world. So how can China, which is an assembly point and a maker of finished goods, how can China have kind of relatively normal export data when the rest of the world isn’t buying. It’s just not possible. So, you know, what we’re worried about is the industrial production contraction in China and we’re worried about deflation in China.

 

We think deflation will be worse in China than in any other parts of the world because of the dependence on manufacturing. So it’s manufacturing insures on making stuff, their workers aren’t working, and so they don’t have the money to buy stuff. And so that creates a huge gap in demand, which is likely deflationary, which is a big, big worry for us.

 

BFM: I’m wondering, though, I mean, if it’s not likely to move the needle by too much, why would it cut interest rates?

 

TN: I think a lot of central banks right now are going through the motions, hoping to kind of ride on the coattails of the big moves at the ECB, BOJ and Fed are doing, right? PBOC is is taking some big moves. So I’m not saying that they’re not doing their part. They’re definitely playing a part. But little moves like this, I think with what we’ve seen is generally a big action is taken. We saw this with the first Fed action and so does in the central bank with the OPEC move over the weekend, right? A big action is taking, and the markets really just going on, they don’t care that a big action has been taken. But what happens is a series of smaller actions are then taken, and markets take notice. So if anything, I think there’s 20 basis point cut is in one action among many that the PBOC is planning so that they can gradually feed that market expectation.

 

But again, the markets are really bored and not satisfied by a single big move. They’re looking for a series of moves, can be satisfied and to gradually kind of re-course positive expectations into markets. But 20 basis points is not going to do it, especially when you’re looking at a fall in manufacturing or fall in wages, a fall in consumption, and potential deflation. Nobody is going to take out a market rate loan when they have all these other worries to tick down the list.

 

BFM: All right. Thank you so much for spending some time with us this morning. That was Tony Nash, CEO of Complete Intelligence.

Categories
Podcasts

On rate cuts: follow the leader

8 August 2019

We speak to Tony Nash, Chief Economist and CEO of Complete Intelligence, on the decisions of central banks of New Zealand, India and Thailand to cut interest rates, the PBOC’s motivation to set its reference rate for the yuan, and whether investors will be holding on to the greenback as a safe haven currency.

Listen to the podcast at BFM 89.9: The Business Station
Categories
News Articles

China’s growth hits quarter-century low, raising hopes of more stimulus

This article is originally published at https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-markets/chinas-growth-hits-quarter-century-low-raising-hopes-of-more-stimulus-idUSKCN0UX043

 

SHANGHAI (Reuters) – China’s economy grew at its weakest pace in a quarter of a century last year, raising hopes Beijing would cushion the slowdown with more stimulus policies, which in turn prompted a rally on the country’s rollercoaster share markets.

 

Growth for 2015 as a whole hit 6.9 percent after the fourth quarter slowed to 6.8 percent, capping a tumultuous year that witnessed a huge outflow of capital, a slide in the currency and a summer stocks crash.

 

Concerns about Beijing’s grip on economic policy have shot to the top of global investors’ risk list for 2016 after a renewed plunge in its stock markets and the yuan stoked worries that the economy may be rapidly deteriorating.

 

China’s slowdown, along with the slump in commodity prices, prompted the International Monetary Fund to cut its global growth forecasts again on Tuesday, and it said it expected the world’s second-largest economy to see growth of only 6.3 percent in 2016.

 

Data from China’s statistics bureau showed that industrial output for December missed expectations with a rise of just 5.9 percent, while electric power and steel output fell for the first time in decades last year, and coal production dropped for a second year in row, illustrating how a slowing economy and shift to consumer-led growth is hurting industry.

 

December retail sales growth was also weaker than expected at 11.1 percent last month, disappointing those counting on the consumer to be the new engine of growth.

 

“While headline growth looks fine, the breakdown of the figures points to overall weakness in the economy,” said Zhou Hao, senior emerging markets economist for Asia at Commerzbank Singapore.

 

“All in all, we believe that China will experience a ‘bumpy landing’ in the coming year,” he said.

 

There was relief in the markets, however, that growth at least matched forecasts, and a growing expectation that more monetary easing measures were imminent, possibly before Lunar New Year holidays in early February.

 

Angus Nicholson, market analyst at IG in Melbourne, said in a note that further cuts in interest rates and the reserves that banks have to set aside were already looking “a foregone conclusion” before the data release, and now it was a question of timing.

 

“That gives investors an excuse to buy stocks, after sharp falls recently,” said Linus Yip, strategist at First Shanghai Securities Ltd.

 

Investors took their cue, pushing the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index up 3.25 percent by the close of trading, while the CSI300 index of the largest listed companies in Shanghai and Shenzhen gained 2.95 percent.

 

The indexes remain about 14-15 percent down so far in 2016 after a series of sell-offs in the new year.

 

“We see this as a technical rebound,” said Yip. “It’s too early to say the market has seen its bottom, as we haven’t yet seen a turnaround in the economy.”

 

 

CURRENCY RISK

 

The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) did its bit to calm nerves by keeping the yuan largely steady, setting the currency’s daily midpoint fix at 6.5596 per dollar.

 

That followed news of plans requiring overseas banks to hold a certain level of yuan in reserves, a move that could raise the cost of wagering on further falls in the currency, which has lost about 5 percent since August.

 

Tommy Xie, economist at OCBC Bank in Singapore, said he expected more stimulus to the economy from the PBOC, but the stability of the yuan, also known as the renminbi, was critical to maintaining growth.

 

“This is a new risk for China. If the renminbi continues to weaken, the volatility and capital outflows get worse, then that is likely to pose a challenge to growth.”

 

The spot yuan was at 6.5789, barely changed from Monday’s close, but offshore it weakened to 6.5935 to stand 0.2 percent adrift from the onshore rate.

 

Confusion over China’s currency policy and its commitment to reforms has sparked mayhem in financial markets in recent weeks, as the PBOC allowed the yuan to fall sharply in early January then switched to aggressive intervention to steady it.

 

Likewise, concerns have mounted that the economy’s troubles might be beyond Beijing’s ability to fix.

 

Markets have long harbored doubts about the veracity of China’s growth data, given their habit of closely matching official forecasts year after year despite wildly changing circumstances at home and globally.

 

Investors used to comfort themselves with the assumption that the authorities, while often inscrutable, were competent managers who could be trusted to ultimately guide the economy to a more consumer-driven model.

 

That trust has been challenged by perceived policy missteps over the yuan and stock markets, giving weight to a voluble clique of China bears who claim high debt levels and massive overcapacity are bound to end in tears.

 

Even relative optimists are worried.

 

“A recent trip back to China suggests the economy remains in a rather bad shape. Public confidence and expectations are very low,” says Wei Li, China and Asia economist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

 

“Faced with rising non-performing loans, banks are cutting credit lines despite policymakers calling for more support. New credits are mainly used to repay existing debts, rather than flowing into new investment projects.”