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If “everything’s fixed,” then why is the number of distressed debt issuers still the highest “since Lehman.”

 

h/t @mattmiller1973

And the answer is not – it’s just energy and it’s different this time.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/21aWKR7 Tyler Durden

One of the more stunning economic updates this week was China’s unprecedented surge in Chinese loan creation, when as reported earlier this week, China unveiled a whopping CNY3.42 trillion in Total Social Financing, its broadest debt aggregate, an amount greater than half a trillion dollars, of which CNY2.51 trillion was in new bank loans.

 

The reason for the surge was largely the result of frontloading loans, as well as lending to government projects in the first year of 13th Five Year Plan, which helped to boost loan growth. Many economists had expected loans to slow sharply in February as lending to government projects wound down.

However, it turns out this was just the start of China’s latest policy, which is really just a return to its old policy of flooding the economy with debt: as Market News reports expectations that “January’s surprisingly strong new loan growth would prove temporary may have been premature as bank officials in a number of Chinese cities say February new loans look to be just as strong, even with a week-long holiday in the middle of the month.”

According to MNI, new loans so far in February were similar to the levels during the same days of January. The total so far in February is seen at around CNY2 trillion already.

MarketNews adds that this was achieved despite fewer working days in February because of the lunar New Year holiday, suggesting even more loans were churned out every working day.

It also means that if the TSF components rose at a comparable rate as in January, then the total increase in aggregate Chinese debt is on pace to surpass CNY6.5 trillion, or $1 trillion in new debt created in 2 months! This is roughly how much outside money the Fed added to the US economy during one full year of QE3.

The surge was surprising. As MNI reports, the strong January numbers had been expected to moderate for a number of reasons.

• Firstly, Chinese banks typically try to get as much loan money out the door as possible early in the year to maximize interest income for the rest of the year.
• Secondly, Chinese companies have been paying down foreign debt on expectations that the yuan would continue to weaken and that process has been expected to slow.
• Thirdly, and perhaps the biggest surprise in the February loan growth thus far, loans for government infrastructure projects that helped boost the January data were expected to slow. That does not appear to be happening.

This means that just like Japan panicked on January 29 when it announced NIRP, so China too has taken on what may appear a step of desperation and is hoping to jumpstart the economy by flooding it with record mounts of debt. Mizuho said in a note to clients late Wednesday that a massive stimulus package is likely in the pipeline.

“We expect public infrastructure projects to receive another boost to stabilize the economic downtrend. This may include construction of intra-city railways, railways in the central and western provinces and making improvements in the agricultural sector. A new round of massive stimulus, in our view, will be announced around the National People’s Congress, which will likely convene in the second week of March,” said Shen Jianguang, chief Asia economist at Mizuho Securities Asia Ltd.

To be sure, the immediate impact from this credit surge will be favorable, if only in the near term as the following chart shows:

 

The downside to the surge in lending is that while it could support economic growth as the government undertakes much-needed structural reforms, it is also increasing the country’s already high debt burden. Credit is still growing much faster than even nominal GDP, which means China is getting far less economic bang for every yuan of lending.

Finally, recall that according to a Rabobank analyst, China’s debt/GDP is already at 350%. At this rate, it will surpass Japan’s 400% debt/GDP within the year, making China the most indebted nation in the world.

Most importantly, however, is that while the threat of NPLs coming to the fore has been a major concern for many China watchers, the indiscriminate surge in Chinese debt issuance means that the trillions in bad loans will be promptly masked by all the new loan issuance. It also means that China’s day of reckoning has likley been pushed back by at least 1 or 2 quarters.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1or0Ztc Tyler Durden

Originally posted Op-Ed via The Wall Street Journal,

These are strange monetary times, with negative interest rates and central bankers deemed to be masters of the universe. So maybe we shouldn’t be surprised that politicians and central bankers are now waging a war on cash. That’s right, policy makers in Europe and the U.S. want to make it harder for the hoi polloi to hold actual currency.

Mario Draghi fired the latest salvo on Monday when he said the European Central Bank would like to ban €500 notes. A day later Harvard economist and Democratic Party favorite Larry Summers declared that it’s time to kill the $100 bill, which would mean goodbye to Ben Franklin. Alexander Hamilton may soon—and shamefully—be replaced on the $10 bill, but at least the 10-spots would exist for a while longer. Ol’ Ben would be banished from the currency the way dead white males like him are banned from the history books.

Limits on cash transactions have been spreading in Europe since the 2008 financial panic, ostensibly to crack down on crime and tax avoidance. Italy has made it illegal to pay cash for anything worth more than €1,000 ($1,116), while France cut its limit to €1,000 from €3,000 last year. British merchants accepting more than €15,000 in cash per transaction must first register with the tax authorities. Fines for violators can run into the thousands of euros. Germany’s Deputy Finance Minister Michael Meister recently proposed a €5,000 cap on cash transactions. Deutsche Bank CEO John Cryan predicted last month that cash won’t survive another decade.

The enemies of cash claim that only crooks and cranks need large-denomination bills. They want large transactions to be made electronically so government can follow them. Yet these are some of the same European politicians who blew a gasket when they learned that U.S. counterterrorist officials were monitoring money through the Swift global system. Criminals will find a way, large bills or not.

The real reason the war on cash is gearing up now is political: Politicians and central bankers fear that holders of currency could undermine their brave new monetary world of negative interest rates. Japan and Europe are already deep into negative territory, and U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said last week the U.S. should be prepared for the possibility. Translation: That’s where the Fed is going in the next recession.

Negative rates are a tax on deposits with banks, with the goal of prodding depositors to remove their cash and spend it to increase economic demand. But that goal will be undermined if citizens hoard cash. And hoarding cash is easier if you can take your deposits out in large-denomination bills you can stick in a safe. It’s harder to keep cash if you can only hold small bills.

So, presto, ban cash. This theme has been pushed by the likes of Bank of England chief economist Andrew Haldane and Harvard’s Kenneth Rogoff, who wrote in the Financial Times that eliminating paper currency would be “by far the simplest” way to “get around” the zero interest-rate bound “that has handcuffed central banks since the financial crisis.” If the benighted peasants won’t spend on their own, well, make it that much harder for them to save money even in their own mattresses.

All of which ignores the virtues of cash for law-abiding citizens. Cash allows legitimate transactions to be executed quickly, without either party paying fees to a bank or credit-card processor. Cash also lets millions of low-income people participate in the economy without maintaining a bank account, the costs of which are mounting as post-2008 regulations drop the ax on fee-free retail banking. While there’s always a risk of being mugged on the way to the store, digital transactions are subject to hacking and computer theft.

Cash is also the currency of gray markets—amounting to 20% or more of gross domestic product in some European countries—that governments would love to tax. But the reason gray markets exist is because high taxes and regulatory costs drive otherwise honest businesses off the books. Politicians may want to think twice about cracking down on the cash economy in a way that might destroy businesses and add millions to the jobless rolls. The Italian economy might shut down without cash.

By all means people should be able to go cashless if they like. But it’s hard to avoid the conclusion that the politicians want to bar cash as one more infringement on economic liberty. They may go after the big bills now, but does anyone think they’d stop there? Why wouldn’t they eventually ban all cash transactions much as they banned gold and silver as mediums of exchange?

Beware politicians trying to limit the ways you can conduct private economic business. It never turns out well.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1OhUs9s Tyler Durden

While jobless claims look rosy, Philly Fed's employment index plunged by the most since May 2013 as the headline survey extended its period of sub-50 contraction to six straight months – the longest streak outside of a recesssion in history. Across the board the underlying components were weak with current all tumbling led a collapse in average workweek, employment, and new orders. Worse still, the "hope" index plunged to its lowest since Nov 2012.

6 straight months of contraction flash red for recession…

 

The underlying components were a disaster…

 

As hope plunged…

The diffusion index for future general activity fell from a reading of 19.1 in January to 17.3 this month. The index has trended down since last summer and is now at its lowest reading since November 2012 (see Chart 1). The largest share of firms expects an increase in activity over the next six months (42 percent), but 25 percent expect declines. The future indexes for new orders and shipments also edged down slightly this month. Firms’ forecasts for future employment have been moderating the past few months. The future employment index fell from 5.5 to 2.3 this month, the third consecutive decline. The future workweek index also declined into negative territory for the first time in six months.

Charts: Bloomberg

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1OhUs9j Tyler Durden

After a dismal start to the year, pushing initial jobless claims to six-month highs, it appears 'everything is awesome' again as despite surging layoffs (Challenger, Grey and headline after headline in the press), initial claims tumbled to 262k this week – just above the 43 year lows of last fall. It's not all ponnies and unicorns of course as continuing claims rise once again to 2.273mm – just shy of the highest levels in 7 months.

Initial claims tumble sback towards 43 years lows…

 

But Continuinmg Claims surges to 7 month highs…

 

We are sure as long as The Dow keeps falling that The Fed wil lstay on hold but this "good" data is clearly not helping the dives case.

 

Charts: Bloomberg

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1OhUspQ Tyler Durden

For all the euphoria about the proposed OPEC oil production freeze deal, the reality is that nothing has been actually decided. As readers will recall, the only “decisions” agreed to between the Saudi and Russian oil ministers were to cap production at already record high levels of output, however contingent on everyone else voluntarily joining said production cap.

Then yesterday, as part of its own meeting, Iran made it clear that while it supports efforts to push the price of oil higher, it would certainly not limit its output at current levels, and instead requires an explicit loophole granting it a production limit from the pre-sanctions period. This put OPEC in a bind: if it grants Iran special treatment, then who else will have a similar request.

The answer was revealed just hours later when Iraq earlier today stopped short of saying it would curb production of oil to prop up sagging prices, saying negotiations are still ongoing between members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.

According to the WSJ, Iraq oil minister Adel Abdul Mahdi said his country supports any decision that will serve producers, prop up prices and achieve balance in the crude markets. However, just like Iran he didn’t explicitly say whether Iraq would curb its own output but said any rapprochement between all sides to restrict crude output is a step in the right direction.

As the WSJ summarizes, his comments “came a day after Iran’s oil minister didn’t commit to limiting production, throwing into question the future of a plan brokered by Saudi Arabia and Russia this week for major oil producing countries to limit their output to last month’s levels.”

“The deterioration of the oil prices has directly impacted the global economy and the historical responsibly of the producers requires great speed in finding positive solutions that will help prices return to the normal [levels],” Mr. Abdul Mahdi said in a statement.

In other words, more of the same, or as we summarized it with a brief tweet one week ago:

Everyone wants higher oil prices; nobody wants to cut production

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) February 11, 2016

Only it’s even worse, because while OPEC may have the luxury of cutting, even if its members do the unthinkable and decide to trust each other to comply (which they won’t), they still have to contend with the distressed US shale sector, which courtesy of several hundred billion in debt, has no such luxury, and must keep pumping just to repay the interest and maturities on its debt or face a wave of mass defaults, one which according to Deloitte could bankrupt as much as a third of the oil space.

And then, what’s worst for OPEC, is that even in bankruptcy (and after) US producers will still keep pumping especially with a debt-free balance sheet where the all-in production costs tumble; the same is true in the case of distressed M&A because any acquiror will i) have a far stronger balance sheet and ii) a motive to keep generating cash even if it means a modest loss; because shutting down production completely means foregoing on billions in revenue (regardless of margin) while mothballing costs are so prohibitive that most would rather just keep producing in hopes that “someone else” will cut production first.

The only problem is that no one else will be the first to cut.

For now, the market has ignored the nuances and is hoping that just the tentative indications of an OPEC deal are enough, pushing oil to the highest level in weeks. We don’t expect these prices to hold.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1oMtXnP Tyler Durden

If we learned anything last September it’s that Janet Yellen’s reaction function now includes domestic and global financial markets.

Well that, and we learned that Hungarian PM Viktor Orban isn’t playing around when it comes to Europe’s worsening refugee crisis. While everyone else in Europe was busy trying to figure out how to accommodate the millions of asylum seekers fleeing the war-torn Mid-East, Orban simply built a razor wire border fence.

And then he built another one.

And then, when migrants tried to breach his barriers, he met them with water cannons and tear gas. This was the scene:

“Problem” solved. 

So clearly, Hungary isn’t playing around when it comes to security, but as it turns out, migrant-be-gone fences and tear gas aren’t sufficient in today’s dangerous security environment and so, the Hungarian central bank is stockpiling guns and ammo.

No, really.

“Hungary’s central bank, already facing criticism for a spending spree ranging from real estate to fine art, is now beefing up its security force, citing Europe’s migrant crisis and potential bomb threats among the reasons,” Bloomberg writes. “The National Bank of Hungary bought 200,000 rounds of live ammunition and 112 handguns for its security company, according to documents posted on a website for public procurements.”

Why, you might fairly ask, does the central bank need 200,000 bullets and hundreds of guns? Because of “international security risks,” central bank Governor Gyorgy Matolcsy says.

As Bloomberg goes on to note, “the security measures added to public scrutiny of the running of the bank, which under Matolcsy – an Orban ally – earmarked 200 billion forint ($718 million) to set up foundations to teach alternatives to what he called ‘outdated neoliberal’ economics.”

Well, the central bank could be championing worse things. They could be teaching Keynes and stockpiling fiat money. Instead, they’re doing away with neoliberalism and hoarding guns and ammo. 

We close with a quote from PM Orban who met with Vladimir Putin on Thursday: “Europe’s largest nations now believe that the flow of migrants is mostly positive. Our view is that it’s bad.”

And there’s nothing like 200,000 bullets to combat “bad” things.

via Zero Hedge http://ift.tt/1QnX8DN Tyler Durden