ECB

The consequences of anti-austerity politics

May 16, 2012 4:11 pm by Gavyn Davies

A few weeks ago, I wrote that the twists and turns in the eurozone crisis had, in the early months of 2012, lost the power to shock global asset prices. The reason given was that the prophylactic provided by the use of the ECB’s balance sheet essentially trumped the deteriorating economic fundamentals in several countries, notably in Spain. This view has since been severely challenged, but it has just about remained intact; after all, American and Asian equities are still 6-7 per cent up so far this year.

However, the crisis which surrounds political events in Greece threatens to change all that. This is the first major revolt by any electorate against the eurozone’s austerity policies, and it is those policies which have underpinned the willingness of the ECB to use its balance sheet to rescue the banking system. Furthermore, Greece is just the tip of the iceberg. The swing against austerity by voters in the eurozone is manifesting itself in many different places. I have been wondering whether this is good or bad news for the resolution of the crisis. Read more

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Posted in Macroeconomics |

The ECB should act before another crisis

May 3, 2012 4:30 pm by Gavyn Davies

Today’s governing council meeting at the ECB marked a return to “business as usual” after the dramatic injections of liquidity into the banking system in December and February. The ECB understandably wants to return to its regular duties, where it focuses on keeping inflation below its 2 per cent long term target, and is desperate to shift the burden for other aspects of managing the eurozone economy back to member governments.

Mario Draghi’s main message in recent weeks has been that “the ball is in the court of governments” in three different ways: the need for fiscal consolidation, bank recapitalisation and a “growth strategy” involving labour and product market reform. Assuming satisfactory progress on these three objectives, the ECB would retire to the relative obscurity of inflation control, a place where it is always happy to find itself. “Non standard” monetary measures, which involve the use of the ECB balance sheet to finance troubled banks and sovereigns, would no longer be needed.

Unfortunately, it is improbable that the ECB will be granted its wish to remain on the sidelines for very long. The key question is how, when and where it will be called back into action. Read more

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Posted in Eurozone, Macroeconomics |

The eurozone loses its power to shock

April 22, 2012 4:08 pm by Gavyn Davies

In the second half of 2011, the twists and turns in the eurozone crisis dominated global markets to such an extent that nothing else seemed to matter. This remained true in January and February of this year, when the strong rally in peripheral bond spreads in the eurozone coincided with an equally strong rally in global equities. But in recent weeks, the umbilical link between the eurozone crisis and global risk assets seems to have broken down. As the graph shows, peripheral bond spreads (proxied by the average of Spanish and Italian spreads over German bunds) have returned towards crisis mode, while global equities have fallen only slightly. Read more

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Posted in Macroeconomics |

Spain needs pre-emptive action

April 12, 2012 12:44 pm by Gavyn Davies

The wobble in risk assets in the past week has followed the Fed’s shift towards hawkishness, weaker US jobs data and the budget announcement in Spain. The fact that eurozone equities have once again underperformed US equities suggests that the Spanish budget was probably the dominant factor.

As the first graph shows, Spain’s sovereign bond yields and bank CDS spreads have recently widened to near their worst readings since the crisis started in 2010. What is even more worrying is the consistent upward trend which is apparent in the data. The eurozone rescue operation, mounted by the ECB and heads of government last December, reversed this deterioration only temporarily, and markets now seem to have resumed their earlier adverse trends. Everyone is asking whether this will trigger a new, and larger, eurozone crisis in 2012. Read more

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Posted in Macroeconomics |

ECB liquidity is not a free lunch

March 4, 2012 12:20 pm by Gavyn Davies

The initials LTRO, barely ever discussed prior to last December, now form the most revered acronym in the financial markets. Before the first of the ECB’s two Longer Term Refinancing Operations in December, global equity markets lived in fear of widespread bankruptcies in the eurozone financial sector. Since LTRO I was completed on December 21, equities have not only become far less volatile, but have also risen by 11 per cent.

With LTRO II completed last week, over €1tn of liquidity has been injected into the eurozone’s financial system. Private banks were permitted to bid for any amount of liquidity they wanted, the collateral required was defined in the most liberal possible way,  and the loans will not fall due for three years. Any bank that might need funds before 2015 should have participated to the hilt, thus eliminating bankruptcy risk fora long time time to come. Read more

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Posted in Banks, Central Banks, Eurozone, Macroeconomics |

How the Fed defeated President Truman to win its independence

January 20, 2012 2:36 pm by Gavyn Davies
Federal Reserve. Getty Images

Getty Images

In 1951, an epic struggle between a US president who stood on the verge of a nuclear war, and a central bank that was seeking to establish its right to set an independent monetary policy, resulted in an improbable victory for the central bank. President Harry Truman, at war in Korea, failed in a brutal attempt to force the Federal Reserve to maintain a 2.5 per cent limit on treasury yields, thus implicitly financing the war effort through monetisation. This victory over fiscal dominance is often seen as the moment when the modern, independent Fed came into existence.

The idea that the central bank should place a cap on the level of bond yields is firmly back on the agenda, at least in the eurozone. This week, Italian prime minister Mario Monti said that he was increasingly optimistic that his country’s bond yields might soon be capped. Although he stopped short of saying that this would be done by the European Central Bank, there really are no other viable candidates to achieve this. Furthermore, many economists are arguing that this is the right policy, since Italy is now following a sustainable budgetary policy which deserves to be rewarded by ECB action in the bond market. Read more

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Posted in Central Banks, Eurozone, Macroeconomics, Monetary policy |

ECB balance sheet sucked further into the crisis

December 21, 2011 7:43 pm by Gavyn Davies

The explosion in central bank balance sheets continues. As explained in this earlier blog, the ECB, the Fed and others have become the holders of last resort for much of the private sector risk which no-one else is willing to touch. Today’s announcement of a record liquidity injection by the ECB, along with a further rise in the Fed’s balance sheet as part of the dollar swap programme, looks particularly dramatic, but it really just represents a continuation of a process which has been underway for many months now.

Whatever they may claim to the contrary, the ECB is finding that it has no choice but to use the central bank balance sheet to stabilise the euro crisis. I am not complaining about that. The alternative would have been far, far worse. But we should call a spade a spade. This is quantitative easing on a significant scale, and the lines between this form of QE, and the direct monetisation of budget deficits, which is forbidden by the spirit of the eurozone treaties, are becoming increasingly blurred. Read more

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Posted in Eurozone, Macroeconomics |

Eurozone crisis might move from acute to chronic phase

December 9, 2011 1:12 pm by Gavyn Davies

Amid all the focus on the UK’s decision to use its veto, it is important not to miss the main economic outcome of the summit, which is that the agreement heralds a new era in European policymaking. The German approach to fiscal policy will now be writ large across the eurozone. This raises three key questions:

  1. How different will this prove to be in practice from the old status quo?
  2. Is it a good idea from an economic point of view?
  3. Does it allow the European Central Bank in future to play the same role in the eurozone as the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England have been playing in the US and the UK?

My initial take on the deal is that it will be sufficient to dampen the acute phase of the crisis, but that the absence of a clear long-term strategy for growth means that there could still be a long period of chronic problems ahead. Read more

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Posted in Eurozone, Germany, Macroeconomics, Monetary policy, UK |

When should the ECB buy sovereign debt?

November 20, 2011 8:40 pm by Gavyn Davies

The debate about whether the ECB should engage in open-ended purchases of eurozone sovereign debt rages on, and the financial markets continue to follow every twist and turn with rapt attention. This debate has legal, economic and political aspects, none of which have been confronted before in exactly this form. The custom and practice of central banking, and of the relationships between central banks and fiscal policy, is being rewritten under the glare of a global spotlight, and in the harshest of circumstances. Read more

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Posted in Eurozone, Macroeconomics |

The Bundesbank joins the awkward squad

November 16, 2011 4:54 pm by Gavyn Davies
Jens Weidmann, President of Bundesbank

Jens Weidmann, Bundesbank president. (c) Tim Wegner

There was a time, before the existence of the euro, when the financial markets hung on every syllable uttered by the president of the Bundesbank. Not only was the German central bank the most respected institution in global finance, it was a founder member of the awkward squad, and was frequently willing to stare down politicians, no matter what the temporary costs in market turbulence. Macro traders, who were routinely dismissive of public officials throughout the world, never found that it paid to be dismissive of the Bundesbank.

Since monetary union, the Bundesbank has lost some of its lustre, which is inevitable given that its president now has only a single vote on the ECB’s 23-member governing council, the same as the head of the central bank of Cyprus. However, this week it has been just like old times, with Jens Weidmann, president of the Bundesbank, setting the entire agenda for the financial markets with his FT interview on November 13, in which he appeared to torpedo hopes that ECB bond buying would soon become open ended in order to support the new government in Italy. Mr Weidmann not only argued that such buying would be inadvisable, he went as far as to claim that an unlimited extension of the SMP to hold down bond yields would be illegal, which is another matter entirely. Read more

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Posted in Eurozone, Macroeconomics |
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