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Now that the ECB has demonstrated how it can set term bank rates out to a year (and minimize the need for the interbank markets) the door is open to same for any maturity.

And it also paves the way for other CB’s to do the same as they inch closer to my long standing proposals.

Again, for CB’s it’s about price (interest rates), not quantity (size of operation, CB’s balance sheet, etc).

The effects on the economy are those of the resulting interest rates, and not the quantities involved in the CB’s operations.

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(email exchange)

>   On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 4:32 AM, wrote:
>   
>   ECB President Trichet has warned that governments have no more room
>   for taking on more debt, and should now look to start bringing down
>   budget deficits. “There is a moment where you can’t spend anymore and
>   you can’t accumulate any more debt. I think we are at that moment”.
>   

Similar to the Obama statement that the US has ‘run out of money.’

The difference is that under current institutional constraints Trichet is, unfortunately, probably right.

They are stuck waiting around for their own automatic stabilizers to function, and for exports to improve.

And hope the markets don’t test their banking system deposit guarantees and national government funding abilities.

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This should bring down the term structure of rates at least out to one year, especially if the program is ongoing at this fixed rate.

And, operationally, it’s a similarly simple matter to set ‘risk free’ rates out the entire curve.

So, for example, bringing down rates out to a year could steepen the entire curve, but a follow up program to do the same for longer term rates could then flatten the curve.

And ‘turning the program on and off’ can add volatility as well.

Asikainen : Long Term Repo Operation (LTRO)

Next Thursday, the ECB will offer the market a funding tender which will let members of the system borrow at 1.0% for up to a year. Yes - term funding, secured by the ECB, at bargain-low rates for a year. You can pledge anything that is BBB or higher, and the ECB will fill unlimited supply at 1.00%. If they get EUR100 billion pledged? Filled. If they get EUR 2 trillion pledged? Filled.

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The ECB remains way ahead of the fed regarding monetary operations.
It has been setting rates and letting quantity adjust and now addresses
unfounded concerns of ‘exit strategies’ head on.

(I take issue only to the extent of the potential inflationary implications and influence on growth and employment of interest rate policy in general, but that’s another story.)

The covered bond purchase could have utilized a rate target rather than a quantity target but their policy might not be to target a specific rate.

Also note they accept collateral down to a bbb rating from their member banks, which is includes bank paper and is functionally very close to unsecured lending- a policy that i have been suggesting would have served the fed well from the beginning of the crisis.

Trichet Sees Automatic Exit From ECB’s Non-Standard Measures

June 5 (Bloomberg) — European Central Bank President Jean- Claude Trichet said banks will seek less credit from the ECB when the economy improves, automatically reducing the amount of money in the system and ensuring a non-inflationary recovery.

By concentrating its non-standard policy measures on the supply of unlimited liquidity to banks, the ECB has ensured it has “an in-built exit strategy,” Trichet said in a speech in Warsaw today. “That is, when tensions in financial markets ease, banks will automatically seek less credit from the ECB.

This will be a decisive element in ensuring a non-inflationary recovery.”

The Frankfurt-based ECB, which has cut its benchmark interest rate to a record low of 1 percent, has said it will loan banks as much money as they need for up to 12 months and pledged to buy 60 billion euros ($85 billion) of covered bonds in an effort to revive lending. The ECB yesterday lowered its economic forecasts for this year and next. It now expects the economy of the 16 nations using the euro to shrink by about 4.6 percent this year before returning to positive quarterly growth rates by mid-2010.

“Once the macroeconomic environment improves, the Governing Council will ensure that the measures taken can be quickly unwound and the liquidity provided absorbed,” Trichet said. “Hence, any threat to price stability over the medium and longer term will be effectively countered in a timely fashion.”

Merkel’s Warning

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on June 2 scolded the Federal Reserve and Bank of England for pumping too much money into their economies and said that by deciding to buy covered bonds, the ECB had “bowed somewhat to international pressure.”

She urged a return to a “policy of reason.”

Trichet said the ECB’s “bold yet solidly-anchored response” to the worst economic crisis since World War II is “encouraging.” While long-term inflation expectations remain anchored around the ECB’s 2 percent limit, “our measures show some signs of revival in the functioning of money markets in Europe,” he said.

Trichet added that the crisis has not altered the ECB’s primary objective of maintaining price stability. “This objective will always provide the context and limits within which our course of action is framed and enacted.”

Trichet Says ECB Will Buy Covered Bonds Next Month

by Neil Unmack

June 4 (Bloomberg) — The European Central Bank will start buying 60 billion euros ($85 billion) of three- to 10-year covered bonds from July, President Jean-Claude Trichet said.

The central bank will buy bonds rated at least BBB- in the primary and secondary markets until June 2010, but doesn’t plan to purchase other assets, the ECB said after policy makers held interest rates at a record-low 1 percent. The ECB said on May 7 it will buy covered bonds in a bid to revive the market, which lenders use to finance mortgages and public-sector loans.

Covered bond issuance increased after the ECB announced the purchase program last month, with banks selling 26.8 billion euros of the debt, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The $2.8 trillion market had been roiled by the credit crisis, and sales had halved to 48.6 billion euros by May 7, compared with 99.4 billion euros in the same period a year earlier.

“It’s supportive for the primary and secondary covered bond market,” said Leef Dierks, a credit analyst at Barclays Capital in Frankfurt. “We expect the issuance window to remain open, and believe that the positive momentum in the secondary market will continue.”

To be included in the ECB’s purchase plan, covered bonds “must be eligible for use as collateral in the euro system’s credit operations,” Trichet said. The bonds must “have as a rule a volume of about 500 million euros or more and in any case not lower than 100 million euros,” he said.

Bond Eligibility

Bonds bought by the central bank must comply with the so- called UCITS directive, a European regulatory framework for mutual funds, or have “similar safeguards,” Trichet said, without being more specific.

“They want to get the most bang for their euro, and that means helping the bonds that will have the widest investor support in the market,” said Ted Lord, head of covered bonds at Barclays.

The ECB said it will buy bonds through “direct purchases” rather than following the Bank of England’s example of using auctions.

“We would like more clarity on how these direct purchases will work,” said Heiko Langer, a covered bond analyst at BNP Paribas SA in London. “Will we know how much they have bought, what they have bought, and at what price?”

Regarding the euro region’s economy, Trichet said confidence may improve more quickly than has been forecast.

“Risks to the economic outlook are balanced,” he said. “On the positive side” there are “stronger-than-anticipated effects from stimulus measures underway and other policy measures taken. Annual inflation rates are projected to decline further and become negative over the coming months.”

Covered bonds are backed by real-estate or public-sector debt and tend to have a higher rating than straight corporate bonds because they’re also supported by a borrower’s pledge to pay.

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The Euro is not trading far from levels that Trichet described as ‘brutal’ in the past.

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>   Karim writes:

>   Surprising comments show political difficulties of QE in Europe. With fiscal policy constrained
>   and the Euro strong, that means more pressure on ‘conventional’ monetary policy: ECB to
>   keep o/n rate low for long.

Yes, agreed. Shows no understanding of monetary operations whatsoever.

With the old German model they had tight fiscal to keep domestic demand and costs down to drive exports. And they also bought $US to keep the mark at ‘competitive’ levels.

With the euro they are also keeping fiscal relatively tight to keep a lid on domestic demand and costs to drive exports, but can’t buy $US for ideological reasons (that would look like the euro is backed by dollars, etc.) so instead of exports rising the currency appreciates to levels where exports remain stagnant.

Merkel attacks central banks

by Bertrand Benoit and Ralph Atkins

June 2(FT) —Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, criticised the world’s main central banks in surprisingly strong terms on Tuesday, suggesting that their unconventional monetary policies could fuel rather than defuse the economic crisis.

The attack on the US Federal Reserve, the Bank of England and the European Central Bank is remarkable coming from a leader who had so far scrupulously adhered to her country’s tradition on never commenting on monetary policy.

“What other central banks have been doing must stop now. I am very sceptical about the extent of the Fed’s actions and the way the Bank of England has carved its own little line in Europe,” she told a conference in Berlin.

“Even the European Central Bank has somewhat bowed to international pressure with its purchase of covered bonds,” she said. “We must return to independent and sensible monetary policies, otherwise we will be back to where we are now in 10 years’ time.”

Ms Merkel’s decision to ignore one of the cardinal rules of German politics – an unwritten ban on commenting monetary policy out of respect from central bank independence – suggests Berlin is far more concerned about the route taken by the ECB than had hitherto transpired.

Berlin is concerned that the central banks will struggle to re-absorb the vast amount of liquidity they are pouring into the markets and about the long-term inflationary potential of hyper-lose monetary policies.

The ECB’s efforts have been focused on pumping unlimited liquidity into the eurozone banking system for increasingly long periods. But last month (May), it followed the US Federal Reserve and Bank of England in announcing an asset purchase programme to help a return to more normal market conditions.

The ECB announced it had agreed in principle to buy €60bn in “covered bonds”, which are issued by banks and backed by public sector loans or mortgages.

The covered bond purchases, however, were only agreed after extensive discussions within the 22-strong ECB governing council. According to one version of May’s meeting, the council had discussed a €125bn asset purchase programme that would also have included other private sector assets, but only the purchase of covered bonds was agreed.

Axel Weber, ECB council member and president of Germany’s Bundesbank, has been among those who expressed scepticism about direct intervention in financial markets. In a Financial Times interview in April he expressed “a clear preference for continuing to focus our attention on the bank financing channel”.

Mr Weber has also been among the most proactive council members in warning that the monetary stimulus injected into the economy will have to be reduced or even reverse quickly once the economic situation improves.

Details of the covered bond purchase scheme will be unveiled by the ECB after its meeting on Thursday. One likely solution is that the package will be split according to eurozone countries’ capital shares in the ECB, which would result in Germany accounting for about 25 per cent of the €60bn programme. Meanwhile, the ECB is widely expected to leave its main interest rate unchanged at 1 per cent, its lowest ever.

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They wouldn’t dare give the rising budget deficits any credit.

Weber Says ECB Monetary Policy Increasingly Effective

by Christian Vits

May 18 (Bloomberg) — European Central Bank Governing
Council member Axel Weber said the bank’s monetary policy is
increasingly stabilizing the economy.

“Monetary policy is contributing significantly to the
stabilization of the economy and its effectiveness is
increasing,” Weber, who heads Germany’s Bundesbank, said in a
speech in Dusseldorf today. After a “massive” reduction of the
ECB’s benchmark interest rate, the present level of 1 percent
“is appropriate in the current environment,” he said.

In additional to cutting its key rate by 3.25 percentage
points since early October, the ECB has announced it will buy 60
billion euros ($81 billion) of covered bonds and extend the
maturities in its unlimited refinancing operations to 12 months.

Weber said providing banks with as much money as the need
is “of particular importance” and extending the maturities of
the loans “certainly will push the yield curve even lower.”
The plan to buy covered bonds is in line with the ECB’s strategy
of supporting the banking channel, he said.

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The eurozone has decided to keep its banks running via government insured liabilities without regard to capital levels. The new ‘tests’ are most likely for show only.

All governments with non convertible currency and floating FX policy have this option, which allows banks to continue indefinitely with or without capital, however defined.

The only reason to shut a bank down due to capital concerns is to protect ‘taxpayer money.’

Moral hazard is less of an issue as all bank assets are regulated and supervised in any case.

Japan’s recovery was not dampened by its banking system which was there to make loans and service deposits with our without bank capital.

It was dampened by a lack of aggregate demand due to insufficient deficit spending- taxes too high or spending too low.

Every time the economy started recovering they slapped on a consumption tax, in the name of fiscal responsibility.

Taken at its word, the Obama administration seems intent on doing much the same.

EU To stress test banking system

by Jan Strupczewski

May 12 (Reuters) — The European Union will stress test its banking system to determine its resilience to the economic downturn and find out if it is adequately capitalised by September, EU sources said on Tuesday.

The stress tests will be conducted by national supervisors according to common guidelines and methodology issued by the Committee of European Banking Supervisors (CEBS), the sources
said.

“The decision was taken by the EU finance ministers. They decided to ask the Committee of European Banking Supervisors to organise a stress test,” one source familiar with the ministers’ deliberations said.

“But it is not a stress test of individual institutions like the Americans are doing. It is more a highly aggregated stress test, which should show the degree of resilience of the overall EU banking sector,” the source said.

“It would show if there are additional capital requirements or if banks are adequately capitalised for the present situation,” the source said.

A second source close to the EU finance ministers’ deliberations confirmed the stress test of the EU banking system was to be ready by September.

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Looks like the EU leaders don’t know much about how monetary systems work, either.

EU Presidency: Obama Plans ‘a Way to Hell’

by Raf Casert

Mar 25 (AP) — A top European Union politician on Wednesday slammed U.S. plans to spend its way out of recession as “a way to hell.”

Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek, whose country currently holds the EU presidency, told the European Parliament that President Barack Obama’s massive stimulus package and banking bailout “will undermine the stability of the global financial market.”

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Yes!

Europe Snubs US Calls for More Stimulus Before G-20

by Jennifer Ryan and Agnes Lovasz

Mar 10 (Bloomberg) — European finance ministers rejected calls from the U.S. to do more to battle the economic crisis, saying stimulus plans already in place need time to work.

“Recent American appeals insisting that the Europeans make an additional budgetary effort to combat the effects of the crisis were not to our liking,” Luxembourg Finance Minister Jean-Claude Juncker said yesterday after leading a meeting of euro-area finance chiefs in Brussels. “We want to see what the effect of the recovery package is going to be.”

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These types of articles have gotten respectable and are getting more strident by the hour.

I do think a banking crisis where the national government can’t or won’t write the check freezes the entire payments system, as no one will want to keep any funds in a eurozone bank, nor will they have anywhere to go other than actual cash.

Gold had been benefiting by all this, but looks to me like a major bubble that breaks when the eurozone resolves itself one way or another.

>   
>   On Mon, Feb 16, 2009 at 5:27 PM, wrote:
>   
>   Even the euro enthusiasts are now starting to contemplate the break-up
>   of the European Monetary Union, which basically would finish the euro.
>   This problem is becoming evident to more people in the euro zone, but
>   not reflected yet in policy:
>   

Narrow-minded leadership hurts Europe

by Wolfgang Münchau

Feb 15 (Financial Times) — “It is justifiable if a factory of Renault is built in India so that Renault cars may be sold to the Indians. But it is not justifiable if a factory … is built in the Czech Republic and its cars are sold in France” – Nicolas Sarkozy, president of France.

This is a troubling statement indeed. But instead of launching a tirade against Mr Sarkozy, I would like to make an observation that is perhaps not immediately evident: his statement is entirely consistent with the way the European Union has reacted to the financial crisis.

To see the link between crisis management and the rise in protectionism, look at the initial policy response to last September’s financial shockwaves. European leaders have woefully underestimated the crisis and possibly still do. The European economy is now heading towards a depression, with German gross domestic product falling at an annualised rate of almost 9 per cent. The early misjudgment of the crisis resulted in stimulus packages with two defects. They were initially too small but, more importantly, they were not co-ordinated. One important aspect of the economic meltdown is the presence of strong cross-country spillovers, both globally and inside the EU. The policy response failed to take account of these spillovers.

For the bank bail-out programmes, the EU managed to set a minimum level of competition rules, but these programmes, too, were national and not co-ordinated. So how does the combined effect of these two unco-ordinated responses lead to protectionism?

If stimulus money is dispersed at national level, governments naturally try to make sure that the money stays inside their countries. The prospect that consumers might spend the money on imported goods was one of the reasons why eurozone governments were reluctant to cut taxes. Because of EU competition rules, the same logic also applies to government purchases. Under those rules, governments had to open public projects to EU-wide tenders. If you play by the rules, keeping the cash in your country is not easy.

Governments have since relaxed those rules. In other words, if you want to make sure that these programmes function in their warped way, you have to dismantle the single market. The same logic applies to the bank rescue packages. If the European Commission tried to block each uncompetitive bank rescue, it would be blamed for causing a financial collapse. Governments have found a way to circumvent the EU, by breaking so many rules at once, that the Commission cannot even begin to react effectively.

Expect to see three effects with progressively destructive force. The first is that the stimulus is much less effective than it could otherwise have been. When everybody tries to gain a competitive advantage over each other, the effects usually cancel out.

Second, the stimulus and bank rescue packages harm the single European market directly. The French subsidies are more blatant, as is the protectionist rhetoric of its president. But everybody in Europe plays the same game. It is not as though the single market is the default position for European commerce. Much of the service sector is exempted. Europe lacks an effective pan-European retail infrastructure and retail banking system. Reversing this programme long before it is completed would be a mistake.

Third, and most destructive, the combined decision on stimulus and financial rescue packages poses an existential threat to monetary union. A blanket loan guarantee to every bank, as most governments have granted, in combination with indiscriminate capital injections and a reluctance to restructure, will mean the transformation of private into sovereign default risk – aggravated further by the economic downturn. Some insolvent banks are now owned by the state, while the bulk of damaged, not-yet-insolvent banks are lingering on, hoarding cash. This programme is a drain of resources with no resolution in sight.

I would now expect several eurozone countries with weak banking sectors to get into serious difficulties as the crisis continues. There is a risk of cascading sovereign defaults. If this was limited to countries of the size of Ireland or Greece, one could solve this problem through a bail-out. But solvency risk is not a problem confined to small countries. The banking sectors in Italy, Spain and Germany are increasingly vulnerable.

When European leaders meet for their anti-protectionism summit on March 1, they will produce warm words to reaffirm their commitment to the single market. I suspect they will continue to misdiagnose the crisis. Protectionism is not the root of the problem. The protectionism we are experiencing now is caused by co-ordination failure. It is neither sudden, nor surprising.

The right course would be to solve the underlying problem – to shift at least some of the stimulus spending to EU or eurozone level and, ideally, drop those toxic national schemes altogether and to adopt a joint strategy for the financial sector, at least for the 45 cross-border European banks. But this is not going to happen. It did not happen in October, and it is not going to happen now. As a result of the extraordinary narrow-mindedness of Europe’s political leadership, expect serious damage to the single market in general and the single market for financial services in particular. As for the eurozone, I always argued in the past that a break-up is in effect impossible. I am no longer so sure.

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This has been making the rounds and is not impossible:

But European banks may be in far worse shape. Bruno Waterfield of the London Daily Telegraph reports to have seen an eyes-only document prepared by the European Commission for the finance ministers of the various EU member countries. The problem revealed in the report is an estimated write-down by European banks in the range of 16 trillion pounds, or about $25 trillion dollars! The concern is that bailing out the various national banks for such an unbelievable amount would push the cost of government borrowing to much higher levels than we see today.

As my kids would say, “Really, Dad, you think so?” Europe is somewhat larger than the US, so think what my gold-bug friends would say if the US decided to borrow $25 trillion to bail out US banks. The dollar would be crucified! The euro is going to get a lot weaker if bank problems are even half of what the report says they are. The British pound sterling is already off almost 30% and, depending on what the real damage is to their banking system, it could get worse.

Waterfield reports, “National leaders and EU officials share fears that a second bank bail-out in Europe will raise government borrowing at a time when investors — particularly those who lend money to European governments — have growing doubts over the ability of countries such as Spain, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, Italy and Britain to pay it back.

I’m not too worried about the UK. but the eurozone banks and national governments are at risk.

In fact, they may have failed last fall when the Fed stepped in with unlimited USD swap lines (could turn out to be fiscal transfers?) to the ECB to buy them some time.

Unfortunately it all gets a lot worse as the eurozone GDPs melt down.

“The Commission figure is significant because of the role EU officials will play in devising rules to evaluate ‘toxic’ bank assets later this month. New moves to bail out banks will be discussed at an emergency EU summit at the end of February. The EU is deeply worried at widening spreads on bonds sold by different European countries.”

Part of the problem is that European banks were far more highly leveraged than US banks. Some banks were reportedly leveraged 50:1. And they lent money to Eastern European projects and businesses which are now facing severe financial strain and plummeting local currencies.

Let that number rattle around in your head for a moment: $25 trillion. Even $5 trillion would be daunting. But the problem is that Europe does not have a central bank that can step in and selectively save banks from one country without taking on all euro zone member-country banks. Yet, as noted above, some countries may not have the wherewithal to save their own banks. It is reported that some Austrian banks are hoping that Germany will step in and help them. Given Germany’s problems, they may have a long wait.

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No mention of the $300 billion they’ve borrowed from the Fed to stay afloat…

ECB’s Stark Says Euro Prevented Worse Crisis Fall-Out, RBB Says

Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) — The euro has shielded the nations using the single currency from greater fall-out from the financial crisis, European Central Bank Executive Board member Juergen Stark said in an interview with German radio station RBB.

“The euro has saved us in the euro area from worse economic consequences,” Stark said in the interview broadcast on Jan. 3 and posted on RBB’s Web site.

Before the introduction of the euro 10 years ago, turbulence similar to that experienced last year also led to “considerable tensions” between the European currencies and governments, Stark told the broadcaster. The euro prevented that, he said.

Stark said in the interview that the single currency has been a “large success” and that the ECB has handled its challenges well.

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• Euro Area Sector Analysis (Released n/a EST)
• US Sector Analysis (Released n/a EST)
• Japan Fiscal Balance as % of GDP (Released n/a EST)

Euro Area Sector Analysis (Dec 17)

 
Karim writes:
Euro-middle of historical range. But with government deficits nearing Maastricht limits (though those limits will be bent, it will be grudging), not much chance for large enough fiscal stimulus to make a difference to private demand.

Yes, deficits seem too small to support higher levels of output and employment.

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US Sector Analysis (Dec 17)

 
Karim writes:
U.S.-still far below peak of early 90s. Nearing levels of earlier this decade, but much private demand growth in recent years fueled by credit (unlikely to be repeated, certainly not to same extent).

Yes, we are still paying the price for allowing the budget to go into surplus. The deficit needs to be substantially higher to restore output and employment, to ‘make up’ for the surplus years that drained the financial equity needed to support the credit structure.

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Japan Fiscal Balance as % of GDP (Dec 17)

 
Karim writes:
Japan-well off recent peaks, in some part due to some fiscal tightening in recent years. Fiscal policy starting to be loosened, but private savings still have ways to go to get back to levels that were associated with the moderate period of domestic demand growth from 2003-2006.

Yes, and with their higher propensity to not spend income they require a higher deficit to sustain output and employment.

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Several months back, the eurozone national governments fell into ‘Ponzi’ as growth prospects went negative.

They now seem to be in that downward spiral of falling revenues, rising transfer payments, and rising credit default premiums.

Without a fiscal response to restore growth this will only get worse, and the National governements are, by treaty and by market dependence, in no position to enact a meaningful fiscal expansion.

Highlights

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(email exchange)

>   
>   On Tue, Dec 23, 2008 at 2:43 PM, Russell
>   wrote:
>   
>   Warren:
>   
>   You have known I have been negative on this
>   market collapse for a long time.
>   

Yes!

I was more hopeful for the right political response after it went bad in July. :(

>   
>   And what happens on a day to day basis only
>   stirs the pot. The reason for trucks not being
>   able to lift anything at the ports is that trade
>   finance has disappeared and the reason why
>   the Baltic Dry Index declined 98% in 90 days.
>   The banks are technically bankrupt. I said that
>   about Citi way back when.
>   

Yes, they weren’t bankrupt back then, and they were open for business. Now that the government has let it go bad after an OK Q2, previously sort of OK/money good assets have further deteriorated and are no longer money good if this is left to its own ways.

A $1 Trillion of the right fiscal response turns it all around.

Idle Cranes From Long Beach To Singapore

Idle shipping cranes at Frozen Ports From Long Beach to Singapore portend a bleak 2009-2010.

Chris Lytle, chief operating officer of the port of Long Beach, California, took in a panorama of the slumping world economy from his rooftop observation deck one day this month. Shipping cranes stood still, truck traffic trickled and a cargo vessel sat idle, moored to a pier.

“You never see that,” Lytle said. “It’s quiet. Too quiet.”

Port traffic has slowed from North America to Europe and Asia as a recession erodes consumer demand and the credit crisis chokes off loans to export-dependent companies. International trade is set to fall by more than 2 percent next year, the most since the World Bank began measuring it in 1971. Idle ports around the globe are showing how quickly a collapse in trade can spread, undermining growth in each country it reaches.

“Everybody expects 2009 to be a bleak year,” said Jim McKenna, chief executive officer of the Pacific Maritime Association, a San Francisco-based group representing dock employers at U.S. West Coast ports. “Now, it looks like 2010 is going to be just as bleak.”

Coal is piling up at the Mozambique port of Maputo. Brazil’s exports of cars, household appliances, machinery and furniture fell in November from a year earlier. The port in Singapore, the world’s busiest for containers, posted its first month-over-month decline in seven years in November, at 1.5 percent.

“You take it for granted until it blows up,” said Bernard Hoekman, trade economist at the World Bank, in an interview. “Now it’s blowing up.”

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(email exchange)

>   
>   On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 9:25 AM, Scott wrote:
>   
>   ECB says to discontinue US dollar swap OPS from end Jan.
>   
>   I guess they don’t want euro to strengthen!
>   

Exactly!

This is the new century version of ‘competitive devaluations.’

Paulson moved first by talking foreign CB’s out of buying USD reserves.

Bernanke thought he was helping with rate cuts.

China said ‘no mas’ a while back started ‘letting’ the yuan depreciate, probably via USD purchases.

Japan recently announced ‘no mas’ and that they were prepared to resume USD buying to abort yen appreciation.

If the ECB in fact cuts off its banks ‘cold turkey’ from the Fed’s $ the shock can be enormous.

Ramifications:

Upward pressure on USD LIBOR.

Downward pressure on the euro.

Upward pressure on eurozone credit default premiums.

Falling US equities.

Etc.

ECB to Discontinue Dollar Swap Tenders From the End of January

By Jana Randow

Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) — The European Central Bank said it will discontinue its euro-dollar foreign exchange swap tenders at the end of January due to “limited demand.”

Right! Only $300 billion outstanding.

The ECB will continue to loan banks in Europe as many dollars as they need for terms of 7, 28 and 84 days in exchange for eligible collateral, the Frankfurt-based central bank said in a statement today. Dollar swaps “could be started again in the future, if needed in view of prevailing market circumstances,” the ECB added.

Those circumstances being the strong euro?

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Very interesting.

Seems the ECB can use this facility to ‘replace’ lost deposits of any bank, which would seem to remove the ‘bank run’ risk.

However, it is supposed to be only for very short term liquidity needs.

>   
>   On Wed, Dec 3, 2008 at 2:54 AM, Dave wrote:
>   
>   Not sure if any of the following is new info but was an interesting read
>   
>   DV
>   

Emergency Liquidity Assistance in the euro area

A Belgian newspaper (La Libre Belgique) is currently running a fascinating series of articles on the collapse of Fortis and Dexia.

In one article (lalibre.be/economie/actualite/article/464148/chapitre-7-la-trahison-des-hollandais.html) it mentions that Fortis benefited from an Emergency Liquidity Assistance from the NBB at the end of September for an amount of about €50bn. This confirms our own findings that showed such a loan on the balance sheet of the NBB (most of it was in $, see NBB loans to Fortis: About €50bn at the end of September 2008, 16 October 2008).

What is interesting is that it sheds a bit more light on a mechanism that is available on a euro area basis, and that up until now had been referenced only infrequently by the ECB. For example, the December 2006 edition of the Financial Stability Review (p.171) has the following description:

“One of the specific tools available to central banks in a crisis situation is the provision of emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) to individual banks. Generally, this tool consists of the support given by central banks in exceptional circumstances and on a case-by-case basis to temporarily illiquid institutions and markets. This support may be warranted to ease an institution’s liquidity strains, as well as to prevent any potential systemic effects, or specific implications such as disruption of the smooth functioning of payment and settlement systems. However, the importance of ELA should not be over-emphasised. Central bank support should not be seen as a primary means of ensuring financial stability, since it bears the risk of moral hazard. Furthermore, ELA rarely needs to be provided, and is thus less significant than other elements of the financial safety net, which have increased in importance in the management of crises.”

Apparently, these credit lines can be given by the various national banks, against collateral (including all the buildings of the retail banks network, in the case of Fortis!) and a ‘high’ rate of interest. But these credit lines need to be approved first by the ECB Governing Council and all 15 governors of the individual central banks. According to press reports, in a few days at the end of September, there were no less than 15 ECB teleconference calls to approve such ELAs to Belgian banks (Fortis and Dexia) but also German and Irish banks (probably Hypo Re since the bailout was at about the same time).

Looking at the balance sheets of the individual central banks it is quite difficult to have a complete picture of how much of these ELAs have been extended: while it was relatively clearly identified on the NBB balance sheet, it does not look like it was the case on the Bundesbank balance sheet, and to our knowledge the ECB as such has not given any figure on such credit lines. It is interesting, though, that such a mechanism existed. It is still available if needed in case of emergency, even if to a certain extent the existence of the guarantee schemes (introduced after this) may make its use slightly less necessary.

In addition it seems that Trichet was quite involved in the discussions, warning that Fortis did not have enough liquidity even after the capital injection that occurred over the weekend of 27-28 September (the ELA was probably extended from the Monday onwards, and it was after the next weekend that the Fortis share price really took a dive to below 1).

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ECB to Cut Rates as Slump Calls for `Radical Action’

by Christian Vits

Nov. 6 (Bloomberg) — The European Central Bank will cut interest rates for the second time in less than a month today as the region’s economy suffers its worst slump in 15 years, economists said.

“It’s time for radical action,” said Ken Wattret, an economist at BNP Paribas SA in London. “This is a very severe economic downturn, interest rates should come down a long way.”

Obviously they still haven’t figured out lower rates will make matters worse, as lower rates cut government interest payments (it’s a spending cut) which removes income paid to the private sectors.

The only aspect that might help is the hope that the lower rates drive the currency lower. This is one of those ‘be careful what you wish for’ conditions.

First, with falling aggregate demand around the world, export growth will be problematic even with the lower real wages that come from a lower currency.

Second, a falling currency raises import prices and reduces real terms of trade, particularly for a large energy importer like the eurozone.

Third, anything that weakens the economy and lowers standards of living is socially dangerous.

Fourth, the problems of USD debt including USD losses growing as a % of euro based capital and income that have been driving the euro down remain and the risk of an acceleration of this process increases as the eurozone economies weaken.

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(email exchange)

Thanks!

>   
>   On Fri, Oct 31, 2008 at 7:25 AM, Bob wrote:
>   

`Panic’ Strikes East Europe Borrowers as Banks Cut Franc Loans

By Ben Holland, Laura Cochrane and Balazs Penz

Oct. 31 (Bloomberg)- Imre Apostagi says the hospital upgrade he’s overseeing has stalled because his employer in Budapest can’t get a foreign-currency loan.

The company borrows in foreign currencies to avoid domestic interest rates as much as double those linked to dollars, euros and Swiss francs. Now banks are curtailing the loans as investors pull money out of eastern Europe’s developing markets and local currencies plunge.

Foreign-denominated loans helped fuel eastern European economies including Poland, Romania and Ukraine, funding home purchases and entrepreneurship after the region emerged from communism. The elimination of such lending is magnifying the global credit crunch and threatening to stall the expansion of some of Europe’s fastest-growing economies.

Plunging Currencies

Since the end of August, the forint has fallen 16 percent against the Swiss franc, the currency of choice for Hungarian homebuyers, and more than 8 percent versus the euro. Foreign- currency loans make up 62 percent of all household debt in the country, up from 33 percent three years ago.

That’s even after a boost this week from an International Monetary Fund emergency loan program for emerging markets and the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision to pump as much as $120 billion into Brazil, Mexico, South Korea and Singapore. The Fed said yesterday that it aims to “mitigate the spread of difficulties in obtaining U.S. dollar funding.”

Plunging domestic currencies mean higher monthly payments for businesses and households repaying foreign-denominated loans, forcing them to scale back spending.

No More Dreaming

The bulk of eastern Europe’s credit boom was denominated in foreign currencies because they provided for cheaper financing.

Before the current financial turmoil, Romanian banks typically charged 7 percent interest on a euro loan, compared with about 9.5 percent for those in leu. Romanians had about $36 billion of foreign-currency loans at the end of September, almost triple the figure two years earlier.

In Hungary, rates on Swiss franc loans were about half the forint rates. Consumers borrowed five times as much in foreign currencies as in forint in the three months through June.

‘Serious Problems’

Now banks including Munich-based Bayerische Landesbank and Austria’s Raiffeisen International Bank Holding AG are curbing foreign-currency loans in Hungary. In Poland, where 80 percent of mortgages are denominated in Swiss francs, Bank Millennium SA, Getin Bank SA and PKO Bank Polski SA have either boosted fees or stopped lending in the currency.

The east has been the fastest-growing part of Europe, with Romania’s economy expanding 9.3 percent in the year through June, Ukraine 6.5 percent and Poland 5.8 percent. The combined economy of the countries sharing the euro grew 1.4 percent in the period.

IMF Help

Ukraine, facing financial meltdown as the hryvnia drops and prices for exports such as steel tumble, on Oct. 26 agreed to a $16.5 billion loan from the IMF.

Hungary on Oct. 28 secured $26 billion in loans from the IMF, the EU and the World Bank. The government forecast a 1 percent economic contraction next year, the first since 1993.

These come with ‘conditions’ which means contractionary fiscal adjustments.

Panicked Customers


Romanian central bank Governor Mugur Isarescu sounded the alarm in June, saying the growth of foreign-currency loans was “excessively high and risky,” especially because Romanians with their communist past aren’t used to the discipline of debt.


`Cheaper, Riskier’

Turkish savings in foreign currencies exceeded loans by about 30 percent as of the end of 2007, according to a January Fitch report. In Poland foreign exchange loans were double deposits, and in Hungary they were triple.

“We’ve been observing a return to a good old banking rule to lend in a currency in which people earn,” said Jan Krzysztof Bielecki, chief executive officer of Poland’s biggest lender, Bank Pekao SA. It stopped non-zloty lending in 2003. “Earlier, banks competed on the Swiss franc market watching only sales levels and not looking at keeping an acceptable risk level.”

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