Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis

Michael Pettis on the China Liquidity Crunch; China Bulls Beware
22% Think Obamacare Will Make Their Situation Better, 42% Say Worse
Destruction of French Manufacturing Placed Squarely on Euro

Michael Pettis on the China Liquidity Crunch; China Bulls Beware

Posted: 27 Jun 2013 12:46 PM PDT

Michael Pettis at China Financial Markets commented on the liquidity crunch and spike in SHIBOR a few days ago via email.

His comments came in before China intervened to quite the markets as noted in China Acts to Calm Markets; Stock Market Rebounds From 6% Plunge After Central Bank Pledges More Liquidity; Wet Nurse Action.

Nonetheless his comments are still relevant and much worth a review. What follows is a guest post from Micahel Pettis.

Pettis Guest Post

Special Points

Short-term rates in the interbank lending market rose steadily over the past two weeks and then suddenly soared Thursday amid rumors of the market's having frozen up and one or more large banks having missed payments.
For the past ten years China's soaring credit has been accommodated by rapid money expansion as the PBoC was forced to monetize large net inflows on the current and capital account. This year, however, while credit continued to expand at historically unprecedented rates, net foreign exchange inflows seem to have dried up, especially after the authorities clamped down some time in May on the over-invoicing of exports that had been used to bring "carry trade" money illegally into the country.
The tension created by accelerating credit expansion (much of it supporting activities that were not generating sufficient cashflow to repay the associated debt) and decelerating money creation has created liquidity strains for much of the past year. Last weeks' events were likely to have been simply an exacerbation of those strains.
I believe talk in the market of China's experiencing its own "Lehman moment" are very much exaggerated. There is liquidity in the system and the PBoC still has the tools needed to alleviate a short-term liquidity crunch before it leads to a banking crisis. Government credibility is high, and given the wide-spread assumption that the government stands behind the banks, I do not expect anything approaching a bank run.
There are however two important lessons to be drawn. First, we are likely to see similar stress in the banks many times again (and have seen it before) as a financial sector wholly addicted to cheap and plentiful credit struggles to accommodate Beijing's determination to control credit growth.
Second, the way the crisis was handled should make it clear that volatility in the financial sector is suppressed by administrative measures. This, however, may increase the risk of a future gapping in confidence and volatility.
During the coming week I believe that a significant amount of Wealth Management Prodiucts (WMP) will mature, and because of asset/liability mismatched this WMP must be rolled over. Beijing, correctly in my opinion, continues to be eager to clamp down on risks within the shadow-banking sector. This is likely to create further stress in WMP placement, which, if mismanaged, could create a run on WMP.
If there is indeed a reduction in the amount of funding available for WMP, the money will have to flow into some other sector. Given the large size of the WMP market, these flows might be significant, although it is not yet clear to me where they will go.

Probably the main lesson of last week is that systems in which volatility is suppressed often seem less volatile, but this is only true when shocks are small. Large shocks tend to result in increases in volatility that far exceed expectations.

I have always argued that China's lack of transparency wouldn't matter too much during the bull phase of the market. It is when market sentiment turns negative that we see the real cost of a lack of transparency. When investors and businesses are nervous, they are likely to over-interpret bad news and to fill in knowledge gaps with the most alarming of the various plausible scenarios.

Lack of transparency, in other words, is a kind of positive feedback mechanism that exacerbates volatility. It can increase buying appetite on the upside (limited information gives us greater scope to assume best-case scenarios) and it hurts prices on the way down (uncertainty rises dramatically and worst-case scenarios become plausible).

This means not only that non-transparent markets are likely to be more volatile, but also that this volatility can be suppressed when adverse shocks are small and exacerbated when adverse shocks are large. Markets lacking transparency, in other words, are more likely to experience lower volatility during normal times and more likely to "gap" when conditions change. Market participants may not have access to negative information until the negative information has accumulated and there is no longer any way to prevent it from becoming widely known, in which case the decline in the market can be sudden and even out of proportion to the value of the negative information.

This is why I think we need to watch carefully what happens this week. It is not clear to me how widely Chinese depositors knew about or understood the events of last week. Although they were discussed in the specialized financial press, the accounts tended to be very "factual".

By this I mean that the articles provided the raw data – money market interest rates surged during the week and peaked on Thursday – but there was little attempt to explain why this happened, or to discuss the seemingly credible rumors of bank defaults, or to analyze the terrific stress in the payments system. To the extent that the press covered the events, they were more likely to focus on the fall in the stock market than on the liquidity squeeze among the banks.

If the foreign and Hong Kong press makes a big deal about trying to understand what happened last week, concerns may filter back into the mainland and may affect behavior. The impact on the behavior of market participants might be very limited, as it usually is when transparency is limited, but the risk is that when it does affect behavior we are more likely to see significant "gapping" in market behavior.

The most important effect is likely to be on demand for wealth management products. I believe that there is RMB 1-2 trillion of WMP coming due before the end of June, and most if not all of this will have to be rolled over. Already it seems that WMP rates are rising. Several friends received SMS offers on their mobiles (this happens a lot in China) for short-term WMP deposits at 6%, which is 100-200 bps higher than we have seen in the past and higher than the 5% cited in the People's Daily article. Until recently, the average rate on WMP seems to have been around 4.3%.

So what can we conclude from the events of last week? The good news is that the new administration seems far more determined than the previous to rein in credit growth and restructure the economy. Clearly the PBoC's refusal to provide liquidity to bail out the interbank market reflects Beijing's tougher stance on speculative excesses. The bad news is that the credit system is so distorted and over-leveraged that any attempt to rein in credit growth creates enormous stress in the system.

By the way I seriously discount much the overexcited talk in the market about how the PBoC engineered the freeze the markets in order to punish the banks and to force discipline onto the financial system. Clearly there is some truth to this argument, and the PBoC certainly did refrain from bailing out the liquidity needs of the banks for the past two weeks as rates rose, but we shouldn't let lack of information lead us into conspiracy theories.

I suspect the PBoC never expected this to happen the way it did and they were caught as flatfooted and confused as everyone else. Remember that the PBoC has almost no experience of any kind of financial market condition except that of soaring money creation and credit expansion. Until last year they have never had to deal with a stable or even contracting money supply, and consequently they have had little experience in dealing with these kinds of conditions. This was new for everyone.

In fact there is an important lesson here for the PBoC, and investors more generally. Chinese financial markets often seem less volatile than one would expect for a poor, developing country, largely because of administrative measures that intentionally or unintentionally suppress normal volatility. These kinds of systems, however, are not less volatile. They seem less volatile because small shocks have minimal impact. Larger shocks, however, tend to cause a much greater than expected surge in volatility. Perhaps last week was a case in point.

Going forward we will probably see more of this in China. Volatility will be suppressed for periods of times only to erupt in greater than expected volatility from time to time. This is not only a China problem, of course. One can easily argue that the Fed's actions under Alan Greenspan seemed to induce a "great moderation", but only temporarily, and when the great moderation became less moderate, the economy was always likely to be more disorderly than expected. The euro, similarly, sharply reduced volatility in peripheral Europe for many years until it suddenly exacerbated it. Of course no student of Hyman Minsky would be surprised by any of this.

Beyond the lesson of unexpected surges in volatility, this coming week is likely to be important. One of my colleagues tells me that according to Fitch there is RMB 1.5 trillion of WMP coming due in the next ten days. I want to confirm this number but haven't yet had the time to do so, although this information is from a credible source, so I assume it is correct. This matters because there may be real trouble rolling over some of these WMP and we know that there is likely to be a huge maturity mismatch in the funding of WMP. The demand for short-term funding might be quite high this coming week and it will be interesting to see how the PBoC reacts.

Stay tuned. This is not a "Lehman moment" and we are not likely to see a sudden crisis, but it certainly indicates just how strained the money markets have become. Some questions:

1. If there is indeed enough money in the system, as the PBoC says there is, and the problem was just that the big banks were hoarding money, where did that hoarded money show up? Was it in higher excess reserves at the PBoC, or higher central bank bill purchases, or somewhere else? We will need to wait for the next PBoC data release in July to see whether excess reserves went up in June, although we will only get month end numbers, which won't tell us much about what happened last week.

2. Why hasn't this received more attention in the mainland press? Are they trying to prevent Chinese depositors from knowing how risky things are? If the foreign press makes this into a big deal, eventually ordinary Chinese are going to find out. How will they react? Will they close out WMP positions?

3. If demand for WMP drops, where will the money that until now went into WMP show up? I can only think of the following: more outflows from China, higher deposits in the banks, stock markets, real estate markets, cash hoarding.

This coming week is quarter end, and we are likely to continue seeing tough liquidity conditions in the markets. I will be watching interbank interest rates closely, of course, as well as trying to get a sense of what the perceptions might be among ordinary households. I will also be watching WMP closely. I think we can safely discount warnings that China's financial system is about to collapse. For many years it was impossibly difficult to convince many people that China's growth model was leading inevitably to a serious debt problem, and it is sort of ironic that it has become equally hard to convince people nowadays that we are not going to see a financial collapse.

Because of limited investment alternatives, a more-or-less closed capital account (unless you are rich or powerful), and resilient government credibility, we are unlikely to see bank runs among the large banks or a financial collapse (which is ultimately just a kind of bank run). The huge maturity mismatches in the banking system are effectively "hedged" by the inability of bank depositors to leave the system. But one way or another we do have to write down the huge hidden losses in the country's balance sheet, and this will mean not a collapse but rather many years of Japanese-style slow growth as the system grinds its way though its excesses.

Pettis Guest Post End

China Bulls Beware

The last sentence above is worth repeating "One way or another we do have to write down the huge hidden losses in the country's balance sheet, and this will mean not a collapse but rather many years of Japanese-style slow growth as the system grinds its way though its excesses."

Those still bullish on base commodities because of demand for China, and those who think China will pass the US in GDP this decade are about to find out how wrong they are.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

22% Think Obamacare Will Make Their Situation Better, 42% Say Worse

Posted: 27 Jun 2013 11:09 AM PDT

A new Gallup poll shows Americans Wary of Health Law's Impact.

Americans are more negative than positive about the healthcare law's future impact on their family and on the U.S. in general. Forty-two percent say that in the long run, the law will make their family's healthcare situation worse; 22% say it will make it better. And almost half believe the law will make the healthcare situation in the U.S. worse; 34% say it will make it better.

Question: In the long run, how do you think the healthcare law will affect your family's healthcare situation and the healthcare situation in the US? Will it make things better, not make much difference, or will it make things worse?

These data are from a June 20-24 Gallup poll, conducted as the Obama administration and its supporters are trying to raise awareness of the Affordable Care Act. A new nonprofit group, Enroll America, just launched a campaign, "Get Covered America," to help the uninsured in particular learn about the new law and how to sign up for health coverage, which everyone is required to carry starting in 2014.

It is possible that once Americans start to learn more about the law -- and see it in action, with the uninsured able to start shopping for coverage Oct. 1 -- they will change their perspective on its potential impact.

The uninsured are slightly more likely than the insured to think the law will make the healthcare situation for their family and for the U.S. better. But even the uninsured are divided as to whether the law will make their healthcare situation and the country's better or worse.

Majority Disapproves of the Affordable Care Act

Fifty-two percent of Americans say they disapprove of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, while 44% approve. Last fall, 48% said they approved of the law and 45% disapproved. Americans have generally been divided in their views of the law since it was passed in 2010, in response to slightly different question wordings.

The healthcare law itself elicits highly partisan responses, with Republicans nearly unanimously disapproving (89%) and a smaller but still large majority of Democrats (76%) approving. Democrats' and Republicans' views are essentially unchanged from November 2012. It is independents whose views have changed -- they have become more likely to disapprove now. The majority of independents (52%) approved of the law last fall, while now a majority disapprove (53%).

Those without health insurance -- a group that most benefits from the new law -- are slightly more likely to see it as having a positive effect, but even they are not ardent supporters.

If people were more aware of the impact Obamacare had on part-time hours I suspect the poll showing would be much worse. Still, it's significant that independents have changed their minds.

And if premiums soar as expected, even Democrats may wake up.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Destruction of French Manufacturing Placed Squarely on Euro

Posted: 27 Jun 2013 12:17 AM PDT

Inquiring minds are digging into a 23 page report by Dr Eric Dor, Directeur IESEG School of Management, Université Catholique de Lille, regarding the consequences of monetary union on the destruction of French manufacturing industry.

Eric Dor writes "The launch of the euro brought about an impressive decrease of manufacturing production in France and huge losses of market shares."

Abstract

Since the launch of the euro, French and German industrial productions have extremely diverged. French manufacturing production decreased while German manufacturing industry very strongly increased. The decrease or stagnation of exports of French products contrasts with the strong increase of German exports. France lost market shares on the foreign markets. This evolution is a direct consequence of the flaws of the monetary union as it has been organized. Also, due to sharp differences in the average degree of sophistication of French products, sharing a common currency with Germany inevitably had to lead to a loss of competitiveness of France on foreign markets.

Manufacturing industry production in France

The detailed data computed in this paper shed light on the magnitude of French disindustrialisation since the launch of the euro. Before EMU, the rates of growth of French and German industrial production were close to each other. For example, from January 1995 to December 1998, the cumulated rate of growth was 5.5% in France and 6.4% in Germany. However, since the launch of the euro, from January 1999 to April 2013, French industrial production decreased by 11.4% while German industrial production increased by 32.8%!

Even before the financial crisis, from January 1999 to December 2008, the divergence was obvious. French manufacturing production only increased by 3.4% while German manufacturing industry increased by 32.4%. The crisis was destructive for France, where manufacturing production decreased by 15.2% from January 2009 to April 2013, while Germany resisted with a decrease limited to 1.5%. The data on manufacturing industrial production also show that since the start of EMU, the UK has performed better than France, which is clearly close to the distressed economies of the periphery, like Spain and Italy.

Disaggregated data of Cumulated growth of industrial production in % show that the divergence between France and Germany occurred in nearly all sectors of industrial activity.

The shortcomings of the monetary union were known from the start

The responsibility of those who pushed ahead with the EMU project is enormous, because many of them were aware of the flaws of its design. This awareness is very well documented by Geert De Clercq (2011).

It must be pointed out that it was known by experts that the mechanics of the common currency would lead to a likely implicit funding of the southern countries by northern countries. Before joining the ECB in 1998, Otmar Issing himself had published a paper where he warned that a single currency would require transfers of cash between the member countries and that it would cause political tensions. While the enormous TARGET related claim of the Bundesbank on the rest of the Eurosystem has recently raised major concerns in Germany, such a likely phenomenon had been very early identified, even before the launch of the Euro, for example by Garber.

The consequences for France

While France did not experience a real estate bubble and an excessive private sector indebtedness that could compare with those of other European southern countries, the competitiveness of the country and the profitability of its industry have dramatically deteriorated since the launch of the euro. As a result the trade deficit has continuously increased and the losses of productive capacity in the industry have been huge.

The PDF paper is 23 pages long and is loaded with charts like these.

Cumulated Industrial Production

click on any chart for sharper image

Trade Balances

Exports

Euro Exacerbated Existing Imbalances

To be completely fair, problems in France (Spain, Greece, Italy, etc) cannot be pinned entirely on the euro. However, it is 100% certain the euro exacerbated existing problems, and in a major way.

Instead of being a savior, the Euro has been more like an anchor to most of the economies in the eurozone.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

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