Macro and Credit - A shot across the bows

"History is a vast early warning system." - Norman Cousins, American author

Looking at the markets wobbles on Friday, with the ructions taking place in various asset classes with continued pressure on bonds, there were nowhere to hide except maybe cash in US dollar, so we reminded ourselves for our title analogy of the phrase "A shot across the bows" given our fondness for maritime analogies. Admiral William Smyth, the author of the 1865 book "The sailor's word-book: an alphabetical digest of nautical terms, defines the bows as follows:

"The fore-end of a ship or boat; being the rounding part of a vessel forward, beginning on both sides where the planks arch inwards, and terminating where they close, at the rabbet of the stem or prow, being larboard or starboard from that division". 

"A shot across the bows" derives from the naval practice of firing a cannon shot across the bows of an opponent's ship to show them that you are prepared to do battle. But, the more general figurative use of the expression, just to mean warning. During the 18th century, a warning shot (in nautical terms, called "a shot across the bow") could be fired towards any ship whose "colours" (nationality) had to be ascertained. According to the law of the sea, a ship thus hailed had to fly her flag and confirm it with a gunshot. The latest nonfarm payroll number with U.S. Average Hourly Earnings rising 2.9% Y/Y, the most since 2009 against expectations could be perceived as the shot across the market bows we think as the markets are starting to feel the threat of inflation expectations building up which would mean a more aggressive hiking stance from the Fed. After all the last time stocks and bonds moved in the same direction to this extent was in August 2015 after Chinese policymakers devalued the yuan. On this very blog we warned in numerous conversations about the risk for "balanced funds" getting "unbalanced" due to rising positive correlations thanks to central banks meddling with volatility and interest rates. At the end of August 2016, we were reminded how stocks and treasuries could move together. We had the same pattern following the surprise Chinese Yuan devaluation in August 2015 as well. The correlation between stocks and bonds has been increasing as stocks have been driven more and more by the chase for yield, that simple. In this repeated scenario we saw on Friday, the diversification benefits of a traditional 60/40 (stocks/bonds) portfolio disappears, yet another shot across the bows, as in 2015 and 2016. 

In this week's conversation, we would like to look at the recent sell-off thanks to rising positive correlations rendering once again balanced funds unbalanced. Instability thanks to rising positive correlations have been brewing in recent years. We have discussed this problem in numerous conversations (as pointed out in our short August 2016 conversation "Positive correlations and large Standard Deviation moves").

Synopsis:

• Macro and Credit - Is the luck of "balanced fund managers" about to run out?
• Final charts - The "Wealth" defect

• Macro and Credit - Is the luck of "balanced fund managers" about to run out?

Back in February 2016 in our conversation "The disappearance of MS München" in which at the time we said we were writing for posterity and tackling in depth various aspects of risk including the inadequacy of VaR (Value at Risk) as a risk measurement tool, we argued the following:

"Rising positive correlations are rendering "balanced funds" unbalanced and as a consequence models such as VaR are becoming threatened by sudden rise in non-linearity as it assumes normal markets. The rise in correlations is a direct threat to diversification, particularly as we move towards a NIRP world:

"When it comes to a macro-driven market as "central banks' put" are losing their "magic", correlations unfortunately are still moving higher, which, we think is a sign of great instability brewing. The correlation between macro variables such as bund yields, FX and oil and equity market factors (Momentum, Value, Growth, Risk) is now higher than the correlation between macro variables and the market. There lies the crux of central banks interventions. There is now deeper inter-linkages in the macro economy as well as financial markets globally post crisis." - source Macronomics, January 2016

Once again, the correlation between macro variables in recent months have gone in concert significantly in recent months as highlighted by Deutsche Bank in their Asset Allocation note from the 31st of January entitled "Stretched Consensus Positioning":

"Has the fever broken?

Whatever the fundamental case for each of these trades, extended positioning argues at a minimum for a breather and more likely a pullback soon. Moreover, the tight correlation in the moves across the major asset classes (oil up, dollar down, equities and bond yields up) suggests a pullback in one for idiosyncratic reasons would likely spill over to the others. There are several potential fundamental catalysts for a positioning unwind although cases of extended positioning do not always require one:

■ Oil looks most vulnerable from the vantage point of positioning. While it has been supported by a series of positive factors, a turn in any, especially a lagged increase in supply as is typical after periods of rising oil prices, risks a sharp positioning unwind.

■ A rise in the dollar has potentially the widest fundamental impact across asset classes. Arguably its depreciation has been an important driver of the run up in oil prices to which breakeven inflation and bond yields have been well correlated. The decline in the dollar and higher oil prices have been a significant positive for equities but in our view not the most important as the drivers of the rebound in earnings have been very broad based (Very Strong Earnings Growth Before Tax Reform, Jan 2017).

■ Equities while vulnerable to a positioning unwind have seen very little in terms of inflows. Recent inflows look largely to be a catch up for prior outflows. In particular US equities have seen almost no inflows cumulatively since the start of the 15-month rally.

■ Short positioning in rates is at an extreme and vulnerable to a pullback but bond valuations remain in our view completely out of line with growth, reflecting weak inflation which we expect to turn up. If inflation fails to pick up, the large short positions are likely to be unwound and rates turn lower in turn, as happened last year. Our house view remains a gradual rise in inflation which supports the large short positions and would allow for a continued orderly rise in rates. This will have implications in our view mainly for the bond market which has enjoyed the bulk of inflows through the cycle and to which end investors remain massively over allocated. However the risk is that with all 4 fundamental drivers of inflation pointing up, a move in concert has the potential to create a sharp pickup in inflation which is likely to be interpreted as a sign of the economy overheating and the Fed embarking on hiking until it ends the cycle, resulting in broad based risk aversion." - source Deutsche Bank

Positive cross-asset correlation  and balanced funds getting "unbalanced" is a subject we discussed in our May 2015 conversation "Cushing's syndrome". We quoted  Louis Capital Markets Cross Asset Weekly report from the 20th of April entitled "No more safety net" at the time:

In a ZIRP world plagued by rising positive correlations, we would argue that the luck of "balanced fund managers" is about to run out. We quoted  Louis Capital Markets Cross Asset Weekly report from the 20th of April entitled "No more safety net" at the time: 

"Buying uncorrelated assets will lower the volatility of a portfolio without diluting it to the same extent as the expected return. In a context of price stability, the bond asset class was the perfect diversifying asset for equities as long as equities were driven by the economic cycle. The problem of this market cycle is that the necessary hypotheses for this negative bond-equity correlation have disappeared. Monetary authorities have not managed to restore price stability in the developed world and economic growth is lower than before. As a consequence, the stubborn actions of central banks have distorted the pricing of bonds and they have therefore lost their sensitivity to the business cycle." - Louis Capital Markets

Arguably rising positive correlations and repressed volatility are we think, recipe for large trouble ahead. In similar fashion to CPPI strategies, Vol Control funds (representing close to $200 billion) must decrease leverage to protect principal hence the dangerous feed-back loop for these strategies increasingly at risk from rising cross-asset correlations with reduced buffer from the bond allocations in some case such as the much vaunted stars of the last decade aka "balanced funds". Vol control products sell equities when volatility is rising and buy equities when volatility is falling, creating a market feedback loop.

In our "investing book", these strategies are indeed directly impacted by the rise of "positive correlations". On the subject of "Risk Parity Strategies" we would like to redirect you dear readers to the guest post from our Rcube friends which we published on the 14 August 2013 entitled "Is Risk Parity a Scam":

"Because risk parity strategies always overweigh fixed income assets due to their low volatility, we can ascertain that this source of outperformance against conventional 60/40 allocations has dried up, even without invoking a big rotation that would bring 10-year yields back to a theoretical long-term equilibrium value.

According to the risk parity playbook, an investor should therefore increase his exposure to Treasuries alongside the Fed. In exchange for a minuscule return, the investor would, thus, face a substantial jump risk if the Fed had to apply a hurried “exit strategy” due to a surge in inflation…
From a broader perspective, we consider risk parity to be the antithesis of Minsky’s “financial instability hypothesis”. According to this view, investors increase their leverage when they believe an asset to be stable, which reinforces their belief that the asset is, indeed, stable (this is a perfect description of how risk parity investors behave in a given asset class). The cycle goes on until we reach the dreadful “Minsky moment”, where investors are forced to deleverage as the real risk of the asset reveals itself."

Conclusion

Due to the fall in government yields over the last 30 years, risk parity strategies have had an easy time compared to traditional asset allocations. We should therefore disregard all the performance based arguments that are often put forward by the proponents of risk parity.
From a conceptual standpoint, although it might seem unfair to make generalizations about a strategy that exists in many different variants and implementations, we believe that risk parity suffers from many structural flaws:
1) Risk parity requires to make choices between many different implementation options, asset selection, calculation parameters etc. These choices necessarily contain arbitrary components and will have a significant impact on the strategy's performance under different scenarios.
2) By placing diversification above any other consideration, risk parity portfolios can hold assets at (or even move assets toward) uneconomic prices. This problem is magnified as risk parity - or other approaches focused on diversification - become increasingly popular.
3) After all, risk parity’s quest for diversification might prove fruitless, as risk parity portfolios end up harvesting the same basic risk premia as traditional asset allocation (mostly the equity premium and the term premium), albeit at different dosages.
4) The leverage used by risk parity strategies makes them prone to deleveraging and, therefore, to crystallization of losses.
5) Risk parity’s false premise that risk can be quantified as a single number exposes it to highly asymmetric returns, which can happen to any asset class given the right set of circumstances.
If someone wants to run a passive asset allocation, we therefore believe that a market portfolio constitutes a better option from many perspectives: conceptual, foreseeable reward-to-risk and CYA.
For the same reasons, we strongly reject the idea that risk parity portfolios could represent an "all weather", quasi-absolute return strategy (we suspect marketing departments are the ones to blame for these outlandish claims).
There are certainly seasoned risk parity professionals out there who are able to mitigate risk parity's numerous flaws.

However, we have little doubt that when the next "black swan" terrorizes the financial world (as seems to be the case on an increasingly frequent basis), we will witness the implosion of many risk parity strategies (those that are based on high leverage, overly simplistic assumptions on asset risks, and/or an unfortunate choice of underlying assets). Trusting risk parity to manage one's life savings is therefore quite perilous, especially if it takes the form of a formula-based risk parity ETF - which should come out any day now.-"Is Risk Parity a Scam", August 2013

We still could not agree more with our friends. This risk is still valid today and it got even more "crowded" in recent years.  One should always pay great attention to rising positive correlations as they portend some pull-back eventually with no one truly spared. 

When it comes to market jitters and flows, the High Yield ETF crowd, mostly made up of retail players continue to be feeble when it comes to exiting the party when the heat is on. Bank of America Merrill Lynch in their High Yield Flow report from the 1st of February 2018 entitled "HY outflows accelerate" continues to point towards the nervousness of the retail crowd:

"US HY sees large outflow, EM debt and high grade gain

Outflows from US HY funds totaled $1.39bn (-0.6%) last week, accelerating from $838mn and $938mn during the previous two sessions, respectively. Most of the outflows continue to be concentrated in ETFs which experienced a $1.02bn (-2.1%) redemption last week, whereas open-ended funds recognized a $375mn (-0.2%) withdrawal. These most recent outflows completely wiped out the $3bn in gains during the first two weeks of the year, sending the YTD total to -$188mn. HY funds domiciled outside the US continued to see moderate outflows as well with a $1.3bn (-0.4%) redemption last week. Because the majority of these funds still invest in USD debt, these outflows amplify the selling pressure in the secondary USD HY market. January’s 34bps spread tightening and +0.64% total return is even more impressive when viewed in this context.

 - source Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Could the current trend in continuous outflows start in earnest biting credit spreads in the High Yield space? This is an important question from an allocation perspective for the yield hungry crowd. On that subject we read with interest Barclays take in their US High Yield note from the 2nd of February entitled "Stumble and a Trip over Treasuries":

"High yield spreads have continued to rally through their 2014 tights even in the face of a pickup in supply and persistent outflows, with the 24 bp spread tightening year-to-date through Wednesday almost offsetting the 31 bp increase in 5y rates in January. As discussed in Fuller Cushions In Lower Quality, the ability of spreads to absorb rates is diminished when spreads have been at similar levels. And while markets have largely shrugged off weakening technicals, we take a more cautious near-term and tactical view considering tight valuations and the potential for further outflows driven by large adverse rate moves.

As noted in Temporary Relief from Rate Fears, outflows alone are typically not a catalyst for prolonged spread widening and particular pressure on returns. The recent experience has followed that playbook, and cumulative outflows of $23 bn over the past 12 months have done little to derail cumulative total return of 6.6% over the same period of generally stable or improving macro trends. But looking further back, episodes such as the "taper tantrum" suggest that the opposite can occur. Over the one-month period following the 34bp flare-up in 5y rates in May 2013, high yield mutual funds endured outflows of more than $8.5 bn and the High Yield Index widened by more than 50bp. We do not anticipate a similar response, but believe that this could be indicative of the direction of fund flows, if not the magnitude.

To examine the relationship between rate moves and flows in and out of high yield mutual funds more closely, we rank monthly moves in 5y rates by decile in rate rising environments and look at the average mutual fund flow as a percent of total AUM the following month. When considering all spread environments. Figure 1 shows that outflows tend not to materialize even when rates increase by more than 30bp, as they have recently.

But restricting our analysis to months when the high yield market has started tighter than 450bp (approximately the long-term average, excluding the financial crisis), shows a clearer relationship: the sharper the rate move, the larger the outflow (Figure 2).

The last two deciles, in particular, seem relevant today given a similar-sized increase in Treasury yields over the past several weeks.

The recent divergence between flows and returns, particularly stark in 2017 (Figure 3), warrants further analysis of whether rate moves and associated outflows can be a drag on total returns.

We thus tweak the analysis above to examine how High Yield Index returns vary with changes in rate movements in both normal and tight spreads environments. Two things stand out:

• When considering the full history of spread environments, increases in Treasury yields typically do not weigh on returns. Figure 4 shows no clear relationship between changes in 5y Treasury yields and one-month-forward total returns, largely in keeping with the results of Figure 1, which shows the ensuing fund flows.

• But in tight spread environments, adverse rate movements can affect the near-term performance of the High Yield Index. The inflection point beyond which returns are dragged down by rate movements appears to be around 23bp. Past that threshold, rate moves have, on average tended to produce negative returns for high yield credit in the next month (Figure 5).

The findings in Figure 5, particularly the negative high yield total returns after month of large moves in Treasury yields in tight spread environments, are logical and intuitive. Carry in tighter spread environments is not able to offset the drag on total returns produced by large increases in base yields. But we think this is amplified by our findings that escalation in Treasury yields similar to those seen year-to-date have historically preceded larger-than-average outflows from high yield mutual funds the following month. Finally last week, in Vol Hunting Heading into Earnings, we noted that there is historical evidence to support a pause or outright reversal in spreads during earnings seasons in similar tight spread environments. All of these data suggest near-term caution toward the high yield asset class" - source Barclays.

As a reminder, the greater the volatility, the greater the disadvantage of owing negative convexity bonds like you find in the High Yield space. In the current low yield environment, both duration and convexity are higher, therefore the price movement lower can be larger. Pretty simple. Therefore we are not surprised by Barclays take on the feedback loop we can have between higher rates and outflows for US High Yields in a very tight spread environment. Things can indeed turn "South" rapidly, regardless of how feeble the retail investment crowd is in the ETF sector.

Given the change in the narrative of the Fed and it's continuing hiking path and the fear of rising inflation expectations, one could rightly ask given recent market gyrations if the shot across the bows mark the end of financial repression and indicate trouble ahead for the Risk Parity investing crowd. On this subject we read with interest Deutsche Bank FX Special report from the 4th of February entitled "Risk Parity, FX and the end of financial repression:

"The charts below show that consecutive weeks of higher US bond yields and lower equity prices, have become progressively less common since the 1980s/1990s, and especially since the 2008 financial crisis. Three weeks, of equities down,10y yields up, has not happened for more than a decade. The bad news, is the markets may be contending with a shift in two big macro factors that point to a change in the post-2008 world: i) reduced financial repression, and, ii) some inflation creep

A look through history does show that in an environment where US 10y yields go up and equities go down, the USD tends to go up sharply versus the AUD and the JPY. The JPY loses out more from higher US yields than it gains protection from the retreat in risk appetite. In a higher 10y yield, lower equities environ, the USD has historically traded near flat versus the EUR, but in aggregate this still leaves the USD up moderately on a TWI basis. With bond and equity prices tumbling in the last week,the FX markets price action did conform remarkably closely to how the USD has traded in tough risk parity environments of the past, going back over the last 30 years.

Bond and equity prices falling sharply on the week may feel like an unusual environment, because in the last decade, it has become unusual. However, especially as we go back to the 1980s and 1990s it was a more frequent occurrence to see the following causal chain develop: Equities go up, supporting growth with a lag, pushing bond yields up, to the point where higher bond yields eventually pull equities down. In this way the equity - bond causality and correlation shifts, from a positive correlation where equities drive up yields, to a negative correlation as bond yields take the causal lead in pushing equities down.

From a macro perspective what is intriguing about this dynamic is two old school factors could be back in play: i) At least in the US there is a confluence of inflationary factors - lagged demand, tight labor markets, the tax reforms impact on wages/bonuses and growth, higher oil prices, latent protectionism, and the weak USD. All these factors are apt to have a cumulative effect, chipping away at global disinflation and inflation inertia. ii) the Fed and other Central Bank's balance sheet adjustments, may signal the end of financial repression, and this repression likely helped risk parity trades.  Risky assets are understandably worried because these are indeed important changes.

Now for the good news. Figure 1 below shows the number of weeks in each year where the S&P went up and the 10y yield went up. This was a common event in a high inflation era, but dwindled in the noughties, and especially after 2008 when the Central Banks went out of their way to support asset prices by supporting bonds. The good news that Figure 1 reveals, is it becomes very rare for the S&P and Bond yields to go up two and especially 3 or 4 consecutive weeks on the trot. Three weeks, of equities down 10y yields up has not happened for more than a decade.

Consecutive week after week of both bond and equity price declines is unusual. This is likely to prove true in current circumstances, where the US bond market is such a stand-out relative to other G10 bond markets. US 10y yields will likely not easily soar much above 3% without finding some real support, most obviously near the 3.03% January 2014 yield peak. In addition, were bond yields to keep on going higher, it would do enough damage to stocks to start hurting growth expectations, in turn supporting bonds. Bond bears would in this way create the source of their own demise, which is not an unusual self correcting mechanism.

In that sense we do not want to exaggerate the prospect of weeks like we have gone through that threaten risk parity trades consistently. At the same time, if inflation pressures and quantitative tightening are not about to change, then the weeks where both equities and bonds sell-off will become a good deal more frequent than we have seen since the Great Financial crisis.

So what does this all mean for currencies?

The Tables below shows how currencies have traded under different bond (10y yield) and equity (S&P) scenarios.

We first demarcate each week as falling into one of 4 scenarios: S&P up, 10y yield up; S&P up 10y yield down; S&P down and 10y yield down, and S&P down, 10y yields down. We then looked at how currencies traded, taking medians and averages of the weekly performances for ach scenario.

The table below shows the following:

i) The percent of time when S&P is down and 10y yields are up is roughly 1 in 6 trading weeks, so not all that unusual, but certainly less common than the other scenarios.

ii) In the environment where 10y yields go up and equities go down, the USD tends to go up sharply versus the AUD at least in the past decade. The USD also goes up substantially versus the JPY. The USD is mixed to near flat versus the EUR (or before the EUR the DEM). This leaves the USD up moderately on a Trade weighted basis. Since 1999, the USD also appreciates (somewhat less than we might expect) versus EM carry - using the Bloomberg EM-8 carry index of cumulative total returns. The USD's positive response versus EM looks much more substantial when using average weekly gains as distinct from median weekly gains. This suggests that every now and then there are some very large negative EM moves, when US bond prices and stock prices go down, which is not a huge surprise.

To summarize, past history does tend to support the thesis that when it feels like there is nowhere to hide between poor simultaneous trading conditions in the equity and fixed income markets, the USD and more recently the EUR have been the currencies to shelter in.

With bond and equity prices tumbling in the last week, the FX markets price action conformed remarkably closely to how the USD and other currencies have traded in tough risk parity environments of the past 30 years." - source Deutsche Bank

As a rule of thumb, positive correlation between growth assets is most notable when investors are most concerned about risk as we indicated in our May 2012 conversation "Risk-Off Correlations - When Opposites attract". Whereas opposite attracts during "Risk-Off" periods, it looks like the greenback is still working so far as a powerful magnet. As posited above rising positive correlation between macro variables in recent months should always be seen as instability brewing which increases the probability of a pull-back.

From a credit perspective, another shot across the bows is also coming from the Citi Economic Surprise Index (CESI) which could potentially indicate that economic fundamentals are trading ahead of themselves and could portend some credit spreads widening in the near future. On this subject we read Bank of America Merrill Lynch's take from their Securitization Products Strategy Weekly note from the 2nd of February:

"As nominal Treasury yields and breakeven inflation rates moved steadily higher over the past month (Chart 69), several market indicators we analyze suggest that the wind in the market’s sails may be fading.

As a result, the massive stock rally and price momentum experienced since the beginning of the year were thwarted this week as markets endured a spike in the VIX index and the worst weekly declines since 2016 (Chart 70).

Furthermore, the Citi Economic Surprise Index (CESI), which has previously been a decent indicator of the future direction credit spreads may take, continued to fall this week (Chart 71) while liquidity risk and financial stress, as measured by BofAML GFSI™ liquidity risk and financial stress indicators, rose (Chart 72).

Admittedly while the falling CESI could be somewhat seasonal in nature, the decline may also reflect the notion that expectations regarding economic fundamentals may have gotten ahead of actual fundamentals.

Historically, we’ve noticed a reasonably strong relationship between the inverse of Citigroup Economic Surprise Index and both the IG CDX (Chart 74) and HY CDX (Chart 75) indices: credit spreads tend to tighten as the CESI rises and vice versa.

With the CESI currently showing few, if any, indications that it may rebound over the near term, Treasury yields gapping higher and equity markets selling off, it is likely that credit spreads from other sectors will remain under pressure over the near term, which sets the stage for softer CMBS spreads as well." - source Bank of America Merrill Lynch

Is this time different when it comes to the relationship with rising yields, outflows and weakening CESI in recent weeks? We do not think so. 

At some point there is a potential strong risk reversal in US long bonds we think and that would put us back into the "deflationista" camp. For now the "inflationista" camp are having a field day but, as we pointed out be careful of what you wish for when it comes to inflation. Global rise in inflation expectations would indeed intensify the pressure on risky assets as we pointed out in our conversation "Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?". Remember what our friends say above according to the risk parity playbook, an investor should therefore increase his exposure to Treasuries alongside the Fed. In exchange for a minuscule return, the investor would, thus, face a substantial jump risk if the Fed had to apply a hurried “exit strategy” due to a surge in inflation…You have been warned, again...

Back in December in our conversation "Rician fading" we  reminded ourselves about the Laffer Curve which used to mean the following: "Too Much Tax Kills the Tax". With the upcoming Tax deals mostly benefiting the 1%, we mused that "Too Much Wealth Effects Kills the Wealth". In our final chart below we tackle again the "Wealth" defect.

• Final charts - The "Wealth" defect

The wealth effect is the premise that when the value of stock portfolios rises due to escalating stock prices, investors feel more comfortable and secure about their wealth, causing them to spend more. According to the Fed and other central bankers following the same policies, the wealth effect should have enabled a repair of the balance sheet of households deeply impacted by the Great Financial Crisis (GFC). On top of the Wealth Effect thanks to ZIRP, NIRP and various QE iterations, the US has just implemented at the late stage of the credit cycle some "Trickle-down economics", also referred to as trickle-down theory. This economic theory advocates reducing taxes on businesses and the wealthy in society as a means to stimulate business investment in the short term and benefit society at large in the long term. However has shown in our final charts below from Wells Fargo Economics Group note from the 2nd of February 2018 entitled "The Rich Get Richer - Ownership Drives Net Worth", only the wealthiest American families have fully recovered from the financial crisis:

"Diverging Trends in Median and Mean Net Worth

Key indicators associated with household wealth might give the impression that balance sheets should be in much better shape than they actually are. Home prices, for example, are at or near their pre-recession peak in many markets. Stock prices are more than 80 percent above their prerecession peak. Yet, in inflation-adjusted terms, median household net worth is still about 30 percent below where it was back in 2007 (Figure 1).

Only the wealthiest American families have fully recovered from the financial crisis (Figure 2).

 - source Federal Reserve Board and Wells Fargo Securities

The outsized wealth gains recorded in recent years by high-net-worth families are reflected in the disparity between median and mean net worth, which have de-coupled since 2007. This is because “mean” net worth is calculated by taking the average net worth of all families, and is pulled up by very high values at the top of the distribution. Meanwhile, “median” net worth is that of the middle family (50th percentile), and is therefore not lifted by extreme values at the top of the net worth distribution, or impacted by changes isolated at either end of the distribution.

What Figure 1 shows is that before the financial crisis, net worth for the median American family was growing on a similar trend as net worth across all families. However, after 2007, high-net-worth families experienced much larger gains (or smaller declines) in net worth than middle wealth families. As a result, the mean – pulled up by wealthy families - did not show the same precipitous decline as median net worth post-financial crisis so the data does not track net worth growth of individual families. Rather, data from the SCF reflects how the distribution debt and asset ownership changes across society over time.

Fewer and Smaller Mortgages Reduces Debt

Changes in net worth occur because of growth (or decline) in debt and asset values. In the years after the Great Recession, middle- and high-net-worth families have reduced the quantity of debt on their balance sheets, contributing positively to net worth (Figure 3).

  - source Federal Reserve Board and Wells Fargo Securities

The median family with debt owed $59,800 in 2016, which is $18,200 less than in 2007 in real dollars. Mean family debt has similarly declined, down $22,500 since 2007 to $123,400.

Residential debt is the most commonly-owned type of debt after credit card debt, and makes up the largest share of debt that families hold. Therefore, trends in mortgage debt have a large influence on trends in overall family debt. A main contributor to debt reduction since the Great Recession is fewer, smaller mortgages. For mortgage owners, median and mean mortgage debt have both declined by about $13,500 since 2007. In addition, fewer families have mortgages: 40 percent of families in 2016, compared to 46.3 percent in 2007.

Lower debt among families is not just as a result of paying down mortgage balances, but also because fewer families are participating in the real estate market. The homeownership rate has declined from 69 percent in 2007 to less than 64 percent today. Whether by choice (preference for renting) or circumstance (tighter regulatory standards), fewer Americans have a piece of the American Dream in this expansion.

It’s Not What You Owe, it’s What You Own

The source of the divergence in median and mean net worth is asset values more than quantity of debt. Whereas the median family which holds assets owned about $256,500 worth in 2007 (in 2016 dollars), this has since dropped to $189,900 (Figure 4).

  - source Federal Reserve Board and Wells Fargo Securities

In contrast, the mean family with assets now values these at about $792,000, up from $775,900 just before the financial crisis.

This story has to do with the mix of assets that families of different wealth levels own, and trends in ownership rates. When looking at homeownership by net worth percentile, we see that the decline in homeownership is concentrated at lower percentiles of wealth. From 2007-2016, the share of families in the second quartile of net worth (25th-49th percentile) owning homes declined 14.1 percentage points to 58.1 percent, compared to a 2.2 percentage point decline in homeownership to 94.6 percent for families in the top decile of wealth (Figure 5).

  - source Federal Reserve Board and Wells Fargo Securities

The share of middle-wealth families owning other types of assets has also fallen at a faster rate versus high-net-worth families. Fewer families in the second quartile of the net worth distribution are owning vehicles (-1.5 points), retirement accounts (-5.5 points) and stocks (-4.3 points). Meanwhile, families in the top decile of net worth own stocks at a slightly lower rate (-1.8 points), but more own retirement accounts (+3.8 points) and about the same percentage own vehicles.

Lower asset ownership subtracts from net worth, since the value of asset holdings declines. Even for middle-net-worth families who own assets, they have not added as much to their holdings since 2007. Families in the second quartile saw retirement account and stock median values decline 13.8 percent and 5.7 percent, respectively. For families in the top decile, retirement accounts gained 71.3 percent and stocks 38.1 percent over the same period. This has exaggerated the pre-existing disparity in the value of asset holdings between middle and high-net-worth families (Figure 6).

 - source Federal Reserve Board and Wells Fargo Securities

The CoreLogic home price index has gained about 45 percent since its trough in February 2012. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 is up about 250 percent since its 2009 recession-low. The combination of lower asset ownership rates and smaller holdings for middle-wealth families, therefore, is a major reason that explains why mean family net worth has recovered since the Great Recession while median family net worth has languished." - source Wells Fargo

Some would argue that "Capitalism" has been seeding the seeds of its own destruction. As we posited in the past, bear markets for US equities generally coincide with a significant tick up in core inflation as we indicated again in our recent conversation "Bracket creep" until recently the US economy  has been plagued by "fixed income" (lack of wage growth) and "floating expenses" (healthcare and rents):

"Bracket creep describes the process by which inflation pushes wages and salaries into higher tax brackets, leading to a fiscal drag situation. Given most progressive tax systems are not adjusted for inflation, as wages and salaries rise in nominal terms under the influence of inflation they become more highly taxed, even though in real terms the value of the wages and salaries has not increased at all. The net effect overall is that in real terms taxes rise unless the tax rates or brackets are adjusted to compensate. That simple" - Macronomics, January 2018

After all it seems that the "Wealth defect" could be leading in the end to trickle-down "inflation" but the wrong one, but, we digress again... 

"The best way to destroy the capitalist system is to debauch the currency." - Vladimir Lenin

Stay tuned ! 

Macro and Credit - An Extraordinary Dislocation

"The only true wisdom is in knowing you know nothing." -  Socrates

Watching with interest our barbell strategy (long gold/gold miners - long US long bonds) getting trounced, in conjunction with the infamous "flash crash" of the British pound, with terrible exports data coming from Asia as of late somewhat validating our fears expressed in our most recent post made us wander towards a cinematographic analogy for our chosen title this time around. "An Extraordinary Dislocation" is a short movie dating from 1901 by French illusionist and film director Georges Méliès famous for leading many technical and narrative developments in the earliest days of cinema. Georges Méliès was a prolific innovator in the use of special effects such our central bankers of today, popularizing such techniques as substitution splices, multiple exposures, time-lapse photography, dissolves, and hand-painted color. He was also the first filmmaker to use storyboards. Georges Méliès directed over 500 films between 1896 and 1913, ranging in length from one to forty minutes. In our case our title refers to a movie lasting a mere 2 minutes as per the linked provided above to the short movie "An Extraordinary Dislocation". In subject matter, these films are often similar to the magic theatre shows that Méliès had been doing, containing "tricks" and impossible events, such as objects disappearing or changing size such as the balance sheets of central banks. While most of his early special effects films were essentially devoid of plot, the special effects were used only to show what was possible (such as QE, TWIST, NIRP and other central banks tricks), rather than enhance the overall narrative or in the case of "The Cult of the Supreme Beings" aka central bankers, the overall situation of the global economy as a whole, slowly but surely falling when it comes to assessing the true global trade situation, particularly in Asia.

While one might wonder why we chose this particular short movie, we would like to provide some explanations before we move on to the nitty-gritty of our conversation. "An Extraordinary Dislocation" is probably the funniest of all mystical pictures yet produced by Georges Méliès. In this picture several body parts of a dancing clown float away from his body and come back again. In similar fashion as we have been warning in numerous conversations and in particular our February conversation "The disappearance of MS München" about the rising risk of large standard deviations moves thanks to rising cross-asset correlations due to central banks meddling with the most important allocation signal namely interest rates. The most recent "Extraordinary Dislocation" of the British pound is yet another reminder of the risk induced by repressed volatility. When it comes to dislocations and dancing clowns such as our central bankers of today, rest assured that many more extraordinary dislocations will continue to appear from nowhere such as "rogue waves" such as the recent sell-off in the British pound. While rogue waves have long been a fascination of ours as per our February musing, what "The Cult of the Supreme Beings" aka central bankers fail to grasp in their numerous "wealth effect" experiences is the Wicksellian Differential. 

Before we start our usual Macro and Credit musing we would like as a reminder to discuss Wicksell Differential and the credit cycle (linked to the leverage cycle). Wicksell argued in his 1898 book Interest and Prices that the equilibrium of a credit economy could be ascertained by comparing the money rate of interest to the natural rate of interest.  This simply equates to comparing the cost of capital with the return on capital. In economies where the natural rate is higher than the money rate, credit growth will drive a positive disequilibrium in an economy. When the natural rate of interest is lower than the money rate which is the case today (rising Libor), the demand for credit dries up (our CCC credit canary are being shut out of credit markets) leading to a negative disequilibrium and capital destruction eventually. In a credit based global macro world like ours, the Wicksellian Differential provides a better alternative estimation of disequilibrium than the more standard Taylor Rule approach of our central bankers. At the Bank for International Settlements since 1987, Claudio Borio and his colleague Philip Lowe wrote in 2002 a very interesting paper entitled “Asset prices, Financial and Monetary Stability: Exploring the Nexus”, BIS Working Papers, n. 114. In this paper the authors made some very important points that are worth reminding ourselves today:

"Widespread financial distress typically arises from the unwinding of financial imbalances that build up disguised by benign economic conditions […] Booms and busts in asset prices […] are just one of a richer set of symptoms […] Other common signs include rapid credit expansion, and, often, above-average capital accumulation" - source BIS

So when we hear Janet Yellen at the Fed saying the following:

 "Asset values aren’t out of line with historical norms." -Janet Yellen, 21st of September 2016

We reminded ourselves that Wicksell used just the housing sector to illustrate his theory. Excess lending dear Mrs Yellen, always lead to "overinvestment". Just because the Taylor Rule used by the Fed doesn't include asset prices, it doesn't mean in our book that asset values are not out of line of historical norms.

Why is the Wicksellian Differential so important when it comes to asset allocation? Either profits increase due to an increase in the return of capital and/or a fall in the cost of capital (buybacks funded by a credit binge). This is clearly reminded by Credit Capital Advisors' note from July 2012 entitled "Navigating the business cycle: A new approach to asset allocation":

"The calculation of the Wicksellian Differential is however an ex-post measure, so is unhelpful for investors to use as an investment trigger, hence an ex-ante model needs to be constructed based on the underlying drivers of growth in the Wicksellian Differential, which is of course leverage. However, an ever-increasing amount of leverage is clearly unsustainable and will cause expectations to shift at some point, resulting in a period of deleveraging and falling profits. As a result, an investment trigger can be set up based on the dynamic relationship between leverage ratios and the rate of profit, which requires constant recalibration as new data is made available.

The relationship between each leverage ratio and the rate of profit is unique and dynamic through time. For example, the slowdown and fall in the consumer leverage ratio caused the Wicksellian Differential to reverse between 1990 and 1992. Furthermore, during the tech bubble between 1996 and 1999, corporate leverage fell followed by consumer leverage, causing the rate of profit to fall. This highlights that there was no real basis for rising equity returns during the tech bubble as the rate of profit growth was falling. Thus the dotcom bubble ought to be seen as akin to John Law’s South Sea bubble, which was purely based on a rather large misconception. The extent of the credit bubble leading up to the recent financial crisis is highlighted by the substantial rise in consumer leverage, the rate of which began falling at the end of 2006, highlighting the downturn in the rate of profit growth in 2007, and thus a shift to bonds. Finally consumer leverage rose again in 2009, signaling a recovery in profits, although the recovery was short-lived. In 2011 the trend fell again, and the 2012 signal highlights a continuing slowdown in the underlying trend of profit growth. 

There are of course other factors that impact profits, such as significant changes in the general price level and in output per worker, as well as other known variables such as the tax rate; however, the most important driver with respect to the turning points is the realisation that a period of credit expansion has become unsustainable, leading to changing expectations." - source Credit Capital Advisors, July 2012

And of course dear readers, we have long been warning that the credit cycle was slowly but surely turning thanks to credit "overmedication". End of our Wicksellian Differential parenthesis.

In this week's conversation, while credit markets are still strongly technically driven thanks to central bank competing with credit investors, we would like to look at Japan's latest bending the curve experiment as well as rising inflation expectations leading to some pundits asking themselves about the potential return of the much dreaded "stagflation" word.

Synopsis:

• Macro and Credit - Can the Bank of Japan bend the yield curve?
• Macro and Credit  - Is reflation around the corner and leading to stagflation?
• Final chart: Balance sheets are out of sync with the economy

• Macro and Credit - Can the Bank of Japan bend the yield curve?

While following the latest market gyrations and various "sucker punches" delivered to the investing crowd, the latest "The Cult of the Supreme Beings" experiment coming from the Bank of Japan picked up our interest given the changes in policy target from quantity to interest rates, in their latest "reflationary/inflationary" attempt. On this subject we read with interest Bank of America Merrill Lynch Liquid Insight latest note from the 14th of October 2016 entitled "Will yield curve control work in Japan?":

"BoJ switches policy target from quantity to interest rates; what about prices?

At its September Monetary Policy Meeting (MPM), the BoJ carried out its comprehensive assessment and introduced QQE with yield curve control. The new policy consists of: (1) yield curve control, by which the BoJ will manipulate short- and long-term yields; and (2) an overshoot commitment, whereby the BoJ pledges to keep expanding the monetary base until CPI inflation exceeds and stays stably above 2% YoY. The sustainability of huge JGB purchase operations totaling ¥80tn annually caused some concern, and the risk that yields would decline without limit prompted the BoJ to switch its target from quantity to interest rates and thereby make purchase operations more flexible. On the price side, we see some evidence that inflation is trending downward again, such as the core CPI’s dip into year-on-year negative territory (Chart of the day).

The BoJ’s strengthened commitment to 2% inflation runs the risk of postponing the exit from monetary easing until even further in the future. In this note, we consider the BoJ’s new monetary policy, including the extent to which it can contribute to raising prices.

Yield curve control – the balancing act

The BoJ’s “yield curve control” means that a rate of -0.1% will be applied as the short-term rate to policy-rate balances in current accounts held at the BoJ. For the long-term rate, the BoJ will conduct long-term JGB purchase operations in such a way that the 10yr yield stays at about 0%. At the same time, the BoJ aims to maintain the pace of annual JGB purchase operations at the current ¥80tn while guiding interest rates, so doubts remain about the simultaneous use of yield curve control and quantity. The BoJ maintains that yield curve control is at the center of its new framework.

Indeed, as the 10yr yield approached -0.1%, the BoJ reduced purchase operations on 30 September. This reminded market participants that -0.1% was the yield’s lower limit. The purchasing cutback was small, but in light of the possibility that operations could be reduced again, the 10yr JGB will probably be seen as difficult to buy the next time its yield approaches -0.1%. Given the small size of the purchasing cutback, it might appear that tight supply-demand is likely to push the yield below -0.1% again, but the BoJ first indicated that the target yield level was 0% and then showed its intention by reducing purchase operations. If the 10yr yield approaches -0.1% again, market participants will likely start to expect another purchasing cutback. The BoJ has declared that it will control short- and long-term rates, so with the short-term rate set at -0.1%, it is difficult to envision the BoJ doing nothing if the 10yr yield sinks below that level. Therefore, the BoJ might be able to keep the 10yr yield at about 0% without reducing purchase operations very much.

The BoJ’s Summary of Opinions at the Monetary Policy Meeting (20-21 September), released on 30 September, says: “It is uncertain whether the pace of JGB purchases will slow down as intended and the sustainability of monetary easing consequently improve under yield curve control.” The goal of slowing JGB purchases is clearly mentioned, and the BoJ’s stance on “quantity” and “policy sustainability” does not appear to be settled. The BoJ is probably wary of reducing quantity only to see the yen strengthen or stocks weaken. Nevertheless, we believe it will gradually move in the direction of reducing quantity.

In any case, it would be difficult to hold the 10yr JGB yield down to 0% without purchase operations, but the BoJ itself will have to continue searching for the right amount of purchases to do the job. Even if the BoJ shifts entirely to an interest rate target, there is no guarantee that it can control the yield curve, so uncertainty would be high. The important point is how fast the BoJ can shift to an interest rate target. The BoJ for now seems to be targeting the shape of the yield curve at the time of the September MPM, so yield targets are 0% for the 10yr yield, 0.4% for the 20yr yield and 0.5% for the 30yr yield (Rates forecast: Attention on BoJ operations when yields decline).

Reflation credibility of the new framework

History shows that when prices and the economy overheat, rate hikes can be deployed to exert some control. But is it possible at normal times, in the absence of a financial or liquidity crisis, to boost prices by making monetary policy more accommodative? At this point in Japan, the effort is not going very well. In general, QE by purchasing T-Bills with 0% interest rates is not thought to be effective. Because highly liquid T-Bills with 0% interest rates have about the same value as cash, and exchanging one for the other has almost no economic effect. On the other hand, expanding the monetary base by purchasing long-term JGBs has a strong experimental aspect. Although long-term JGBs have low yields and high liquidity, they are not equivalent to cash. The BoJ introduced QQE in April 2013, and the yen’s sharp depreciation and rise of prices made the policy look effective. After three and a half years, however, inflation is heading downward again, while there was some impact from the decline in oil prices.
Since the beginning of the Abe administration at end-2012, it is true that the yen has weakened owing to a certain sense of inflation expectation. Another factor behind the yen’s depreciation is that the then Federal Reserve Board (FRB) Chairman Ben Bernanke mentioned tapering in May 2013, and tapering began in December of that year. From then until rate hikes actually began in December 2015, the US appeared to approve of some USD appreciation. In 2008 and later, amid the financial crisis that stemmed from the US subprime loan crisis and the Greek debt crisis, the FRB and the European Central Bank (ECB) implemented a variety of operations, including asset purchases. Their contribution to reducing risk premiums, raising asset prices and stabilizing the financial system helped to raise expectations of the BoJ’s QQE.

Immediately after QQE was deployed, prices steadily rose, owing in part to the weak yen effect, but the inflation trend turned downward with the decline of oil prices beginning in summer 2014. This was unfortunate for the BoJ, but even though the year-on-year decline in oil prices has shrunk considerably, inflation remains low (Chart 1).

Even the CPI inflation excluding energy prices is trending lower, suggesting that this may be the effect of the yen’s recent strength. Although the yen’s depreciation from 2013 did help to boost prices, that effect has peaked out because of the yen’s appreciation this year. The forex rate affects prices with a lag of six months to one year, so forex will be a price-lowering factor for the time being (Chart 2).

Based on the results of the September MPM, the possibility of JGB purchasing cutbacks gave rise to concern that the yen would strengthen further. Ironically, or perhaps fortunately, expectations of US rate hikes rose and this may have weakened the yen instead.

In the end, the major determinant of inflation will be the extent to which tighter labor market conditions push up wages. In 2014, when the weak yen and a consumption tax rate hike raised prices, wages did not see a commensurate rise, and as a result, consumption was sluggish. According to the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare’s Monthly Labor Survey, total cash earnings (nominal wages) climbed 1.2% YoY in July. However, scheduled cash earnings (basic wages, etc.) rose only 0.3%, while bonuses and other special payments boosted the overall figure. In August, total cash earnings declined 0.1%, their first downturn in three months, but scheduled cash earnings were up 0.5%. If the BoJ is aiming for 2% inflation, wage hikes are still insufficient, but the unemployment rate has declined to about 3% and companies facing labor shortages have started hiring more full-time workers, including permanent employees. Favorable changes like these are starting to be seen in the labor market (Chart 3).

The corporate sector’s retained earnings have hit a record high, while the labor share is declining, so there is plenty of room for improvement (Chart 4).

Price-lowering pressure from the strong yen will continue for a time, but we expect to see modest price rises over the medium to long term. However, is it possible for monetary easing to cause sustained inflation? We cannot give a definite answer, but let us consider this matter by looking back on the BoJ’s monetary policy and its ripple effect.

Effect of quantitative expansion

Under the BoJ’s QQE, asset prices rose strongly starting in 2013. Normally stock and JGB prices have a negative correlation with one another, but at that time they had a positive correlation and rose together (Chart 5).

That relation seems to have broken down since the start of this year, but for at least three years asset prices rose in a way not normally seen. The problem is that rising asset prices were not reflected in general prices. This was likely resulting from the fact that the BoJ expanded the monetary base at a rapid rate, but the expansion of money stock was limited (Chart 6).

To put it another way, even though the monetary base expanded, bank lending increased only slightly. Since 2000, Japan’s monetary environment has been accommodative, and bank deposits have continually increased, but bank lending has not. To cover the deposit-loan gap, domestic banks increased investment in JGBs (Chart 7). 

Therefore, even when the banks’ JGB holdings were exchanged for cash under QQE, the lending situation of banks did not greatly change. The asset composition of domestic banks shows that in the three years after QQE started, the share of bank assets in JGBs declined, while the share in cash increased by a similar percentage. Other asset classes did not change much (Chart 8).

Although the absolute amount of lending did increase, it mainly went into real estate-related projects. Lending growth to manufacturers for capital goods was limited. Even though the monetary base expanded, the amount of funds circulating in the real economy (money stock) did not change much, so the kinds of price increases seen in assets were not seen in general prices.

Effect of negative interest rates

At the January 2016 MPM, the BoJ applied a negative interest rate of -0.1% to a portion of current accounts held at the BoJ. It introduced a three-tiered structure for current accounts and other measures to avoid negative impact on banks, which until then had cooperated with QQE. In the JGB market, however, about three years of JGB purchase operations had tightened the supply-demand relationship, causing yields to decline sharply, the yield curve to flatten, and arousing concern about pressure on the earnings of financial institutions (Super long JGB supply-demand balance). In Europe, which introduced negative interest rates before Japan, the side effect of reduced bank margins was conspicuous, but it did not lead to much of an increase in lending to corporations, the intended benefit. With interest rates on deposits remaining positive, loan rates could only be lowered to a certain extent without eating up the margins. In particular, Japan has already experienced a long period of low interest rate policy, and interest rates on loans are already low, so further downside room is limited (Chart 9).

In Japan, with its high ratio of indirect financing, the effect on the real economy is only slight. Moreover Danish banks responded to the decline of bank margins by raising service charges on mortgages and other products. According to a 7 October Nikkei Shimbun article, Japanese banks are also considering higher service charges on mortgages. This will have a de facto monetary tightening effect. However, a low-interest rate environment is generally positive for corporate funding. Amid the limited decline of interest rates on loans, corporate bond issuance is picking up in Europe. In Japan, the corporate bond market did not expand, partly because Japanese companies have large reserves, but issuance did swell this summer (Japan Credit Monthly, September 2016). As the yield curve flattened, issuance increased at maturities over 10yr (Chart 10).

The wider variety of corporate funding alternatives can be described as a benefit, but the BoJ’s monetary policy change might also bring about a change in this trend. As the BoJ points out, the costs and benefits of policies must be watched.

Conclusion

With the April 2013 introduction of QQE, called a monetary “bazooka” at the time, the BoJ tried to work on people’s expectations and raise CPI inflation to 2% within two years, but the attempt failed (Looking back at three years of QQE). In the absence of any clear reason why expansion of the monetary base should lead to a higher inflation rate, the BoJ’s action was even called a social experiment. Monetary policy is a crucial means of stabilizing prices and the financial system. When the economy overheats, for example, it can be treated with a rate hike, and when liquidity dries up in a financial crisis, the central bank can supply liquidity. Although there were a number of different factors that make it difficult to blame the failure solely on the BoJ, it has proven very difficult to raise prices by monetary policy alone in normal times.

Liquidity is already adequate owing to Japan’s extended monetary easing. It is so adequate, in fact, that banks have trouble finding worthwhile investments for their funds. With the supply of even more funds beyond this point, the costs of this policy are starting to become more pronounced than the benefits. In early July, the 20yr JGB yield dipped into negative territory, a sign of low yields overall and a very flat curve. As the cost of funding foreign currency rose, the possibility arose that domestic investors would have nowhere to invest. “The lower the better” is not a phrase that applies to interest rates. Excessive monetary easing by the central bank can inadvertently rob the market of low-risk assets and heighten financial system risk. The G20 finance ministers and central bank governors have also expressed concern about the side effects of prolonged monetary easing and extremely low interest rates environment.

The increasingly easy monetary policy favored by nearly everyone until recently might now gradually change direction on a global basis. In future, a monetary policy that more closely matches the pace of real economy’s growth might be sought, as well as a policy that is more sustainable. On that point, we believe the BoJ’s switch from quantity to an interest rate target is effective, but it will raise new questions, what the appropriate shape of the yield curve is and whether that will lead to inflation." - source Bank of America Merrill Lynch

The same pattern in Europe and Japan is happening, namely that the new money flows downhill where the fun is: to the bond market. Bond speculators are having a field day and now credit speculators are joining the party with both hands even in Japan.

From our perspective, there are a couple of points we would like to make relative to Bank of America Merrill Lynch's comments. First of all we believe that the bending of the curve will be ineffective in triggering the much desired inflation the Bank of Japan is seeking given as we indicated before when commenting on the "Japanification of Europe, both Europe and Japan's deflationary headwinds are stemming from poor demographics. In terms of Wicksellian Differential and real estate and Japan, we note with interest that the prognosis for Japanese real estate is some more pain ahead as NIRP is translating into banks trying to recoup some profitability through higher mortgage rates as indicated by Bloomberg in their article from the 13th of October entitled "Tokyo Condo Prices May Fall 20%, Deutsche says":

"The Bank of Japan’s shift to controlling bond yields is driving up mortgage rates, prompting Deutsche Bank AG to predict Tokyo apartment prices may fall 20 percent or more by 2018.
The BOJ’s negative-rate policy was already hurting buyer sentiment, and its move to boost longer-term yields is a double-blow to the industry, according to Yoji Otani, a real estate analyst at Deutsche Bank in Tokyo. The 35-year fixed mortgage rate has climbed for two straight months after touching a record low of 0.9 percent in August, and sales of new condominiums in Tokyo this year have fallen to the lowest since the nation’s property bubble collapse in the early 1990s." - source Bloomberg

Second point, the impact on real estate prices and rising mortgages thanks to very aggressive monetary policies can be as well ascertained in Switzerland. Of course when it comes to "capital destruction" and Wicksellian Differential, you can rest assured that once prices go down in "bubbly" real estate markets, it leaves people in negative equity territory for an extended period of time. The most interesting comment from the Bloomberg article relative to Bank of America Merrill Lynch's conclusion where they think the Bank of Japan will be successful in "bending the yield curve" (which we don't think they will!) is as follows from Yoji Otani, a real estate analyst at Deutsche Bank in Tokyo:

"The one positive thing about negative rates was that it lowered borrowing costs, and now that is going to end," said Otani, who expects prices to fall 20 percent to 30 percent by the end of 2018. "The collapse of this silent bubble has begun."
"The BOJ is operating a negative-rate policy but it is trying to push up long-term yields, which totally lacks sense,” he said. “There’s a contradiction." - source Bloomberg

You can rest assured that this new NIRP trick is going to blow in the face of "The Cult of the Supreme Beings" aka central bankers members from the Bank of Japan and lead to some additional "Extraordinary Dislocation". As a reminder from our previous conversation where we quoted our April article "Shrugging Atlas" in which we discussed Japan and the kite string theory:

"That is the very difficult situation that lies with "easy policy", there is an easy way in, but no easy way out. So as goes the kite string theory, you can control a kite by pulling its string, but not pushing it. Once you reach the ZLB and implement NIRP on top of QE, it seems to us monetary policies become ineffective." - source Macronomics, April 2016

If indeed real estate turns "South" in Japan then banks will have to increase credit provisions which de facto will reduce credit availability and therefore credit impulse and economic growth. On top of that if indeed Japanese households fall into negative equity thanks to their real estate exposure then again, as a textbook Richard Koo explanation, these households will have no other choice but to reduce their spending and borrowing as they try to repair their balance sheet. Yet another potential for Richard Koo's Balance Sheet Recession theory playing out again in Japan we think.

As well as having a contradictory approach, the Bank of Japan has played the NIRP game given it's mostly has we have explained before a currency play, but then again, anchoring the 10 year Japanese Government Bond around the 0% threshold is conditional of USD/JPY evolution. Furthermore, the Bank of Japan is playing a very difficult balancing act. This is clearly indicated by Nomura in their Japan Navigator note number 691 from the 10th of October entitled "Diminishing room for JGB rates to fall further":

"Conditions for 10yr rates to become positive

We believe 10yr yields are unlikely to reach positive levels unless, as mentioned above, the BOJ allows the pace of its JGB purchases to fall further below its target of “about JPY80trn” in annual absorption, in which case the market would determine that the Bank is unlikely to ease further.
Once expectations of further BOJ easing fade, we believe negative 10yr JGB yields would no longer attract short-term long traders, but only purchases from investors looking to buy for holding until maturity. In this case, we believe 10yr rates would trade above levels that are determined by bank deposit rates and deposit insurance premiums. This is not included in our base case for FY16, but we believe this scenario may materialize in H1 FY17, as the BOJ’s JGB purchases would fall more substantially below its target.
If the BOJ continues buying JGBs at the current pace, it would absorb a net JPY75trn in FY16. However, if the current pace continues beyond end-FY16, it would absorb only a net JPY72trn in FY17, in which case the BOJ would have to either abandon its quantitative target or allow greater flexibility (adopting a proviso) from next spring, in our view.

At that point, if the Fed is discussing another hike (following a hike in December), we would expect the risk of a strong JPY to have declined, but otherwise the BOJ could cut rates further to alleviate investor concerns over QQE tapering." - source Nomura

It appears therefore that further reaction from the Bank of Japan is conditional on the Fed's action in December. What is a cause for concern in the footsteps of our previous conversation relating to our US dollar strengthening fears is that if indeed USD funding tightens further, then USD/JPY basis widens even more which means in effect that strong buyers such as lifers will continue their purchase of US bonds without any FX hedging due to the rising cost. This particular point is worth noting and was highlighted by UBS in their recent Global Credit Comment from the 12th of October entitled "What is the consensus view? And where could it be wrong?":

"UK/Europe:

Hedging FX exposure was brought up in a majority of client meetings, as widening basis swaps reduce the relative yield advantage of US credit. We found that clients are largely hedging FX exposure via short-dated swaps (3 months). But interestingly, a rising fraction noted they are no longer hedging as the costs become less economical. In continental Europe, where negative rate pressures are particularly severe, the rotation into anything with yield is driven largely by institutional pressures (rather than fundamental credit assessments). There are simply few other investment alternatives in a market structure where managers must invest incoming flows and coupon/maturity proceeds. A number of investors reported more recent interest in longer-dated US IG – and a majority of investors continue to report holding a long position in EU financials.

Among the bigger themes, UK and European clients were focused on the outlook for central bank policy, political fragmentation in Europe, the foreign demand for global credit, the state of the US credit cycle3 and US election outcomes. On risks ahead clients were quick to cite many of the known unknowns ahead: Brexit, the Italian Referendum, the December FOMC meeting and other core European elections next year. Based on our discussions, we believe the larger and more underpriced risk scenarios for European credit investors would include: 1) timing and pace of ECB tapering of CSPP, 2) rising systemic risks stemming from idiosyncratic stress among European banks, and 3) significant spread widening in US credit spreads. Note that none of these outcomes are our base case." - source UBS

Whereas there is indeed some clear sign of global US dollar shortage increasingly indicated by widening basis swaps, the yield differential still favor having US credit exposure, even long dated to Investment Grade as we feel more and more incline to look for quality rather than chasing yield in US High Yield given the late stage of the current credit cycle and significant build up in leverage with week CAPEX, poor EBITDA and rising defaults. The next US Senior Loan Office Surveys (SLOs) will be paramount for the technical bid in credit and in particular US High Yield to continue we think.

For our second point, we would like to steer towards reflationary expectations and the much commented fears of a return of "stagflation".

• Macro and Credit  - Is reflation around the corner and leading to stagflation?

Back in March 2016 in our conversation "Unobtainium" we pointed out that the time that US TIPS were more compelling than UK linkers thanks to their deflation floor, but given the very significant performance of UK linkers thanks to Brexit and the British pound de facto devaluation, we should have noted what the UK linkers market was telling us at the time, namely that further depreciation of the British pound was coming hence the rise of inflationary expectations and the significant performance of this asset class in particular during the month of August.

Our renewed interest in rising expectations can be tracked down from our comments from our March 2016 conversation:

"A very interesting 2015 paper by the Bank of Israel ( (Sussman, N and O Zohar 2015, “Oil prices, inflation expectations, and monetary policy”, Bank of Israel DP092015.) indicates that since the Great Financial Crisis (GFC) of 2008, a 10% change in oil prices moves 5Y5Y expected inflation by nearly 0.1% in the US and 0.05% in the Euro area. Therefore, given the recent significant surge in oil prices towards the $40 mark, we do not think it is such a surprise to see a rise in inflation expectations in that context. This latest rise in inflation expectations could after all be transitory as well as the sudden rise in oil prices, particularly in the light of the tight relationship between the US dollar and oil prices. We think that the latest dovish stance of the Fed all has to do with their concerns relating to the "velocity" of the US dollar and the "unintended consequences" a too rapid rise of the "Greenback" could have on Emerging Markets (EM)." - source Macronomics, March 2016

Many pundits have noticed the current reflationary trend particularly in the 10 year breakeven rate in the US over the past couple of weeks. This trend is as well highlighted in Bank of America Merrill Lynch's Securitization Weekly Overview entitled "Reflation takes flight" from the 7th of October:

"This week, we take note of the steady rise in the 10yr breakeven rate over the past few weeks, moving from 1.50% on September 20 to 1.66% as of Friday (October 6) morning, post-September payrolls. Using our breakeven inflation rate valuation framework, we consider what a 2% breakeven rate might mean for securitized products and competing sectors. We choose 2% since we think it is a reasonable target level to assume: in other words, although the Fed downplays the importance of market-based inflation expectations, we think it is likely an implicit target anyway.

Chart 1 and Chart 2 show two different longer term views of the 10yr breakeven inflation rate. We think they both tell us that the recent rise in the breakeven rate is very important and that the chances of continuing to move higher, possibly reaching 2% over the next 3-6 months, are good. At long last, central bank reflationary policies might actually be working.

Chart 1 shows that the recent rise in the breakeven rate has pushed the level through the upper end of the downward trend channel that has persisted since taper talk in 2013. Chart 2, which looks at 30-, 40-, and 50-week moving averages along with the weekly level, suggests that, in recent weeks, the trend may finally have shifted from downward to upward. The weekly reading has crossed through all the moving averages to the upside, and for now, the 30-week moving average is moving higher.

We’re as skeptical about the inflation risk as most, but the view in these charts tells us that, finally, the tide may have shifted in recent weeks towards higher inflation expectations. We’ll consider our breakeven valuation framework in a moment but first we consider what rising inflation expectations means for Fed rate hike potential.

Chart 3 compares the 10yr breakeven rate with the probability that there is at least one rate hike by December 2016; the probability currently stands at 64%.

In recent months, they have moved in similar directions, although not always at the exact same time. Over the past month, since September 2, the 10yr breakeven rate has risen by roughly 16 basis points, from 1.48% to 1.64%. If the same increase applies over the next two  months, bringing the breakeven inflation rate to 1.96%, we are confident the Fed would have hiked at least once by the December meeting (as BofAML economists expect); moreover, based on Chart 3, it also seems possible that the market probability of such a hike would be approaching 100%. In other words, the Fed would have reached a perfect position to hike: the market is fully expecting it, and would not react adversely to the hike.

It should be recognized that there is a chicken-and-egg situation here: if the rate hike probability jumped quickly to 100%, say over a day, the breakeven inflation rate would likely quickly reverse the recent rising trend; but if both gradually move higher, in line with the Fed’s gradualist approach, reaching the end state on both the rate hike and the inflation expectation becomes more achievable. The recent breakeven trend reversal to the upside, seen in Chart 1 and Chart 2, makes us believe the latter scenario is the higher probability scenario." - source Bank of America Merrill Lynch

The trajectory for inflation expectations and rising 10 year US breakevens in our book is clearly being driven by the change in oil prices, that simple. We have yet to meaningful wage inflation which would entice us to validate the recovery mantra of some sell-side pundits. Nonetheless wages are a backward looking indicator of inflation pressure.

Whereas the rise in US inflation has put indeed some pressure relative to the US yield curve, in effect pushing the US 10 year towards 1.80 % yield level, we do not have such a sanguine approach for the long end looking at the recent downward revision by the Atlanta Fed from their GDPNow latest forecast for 1.9 % on October 14th for the Third Quarter. We therefore believe we are once again approaching compelling levels for US long dated treasury and we will be monitoring the situation closely. As a reminder, when it comes to our contrarian stance in relation to our "long duration" fondness it is fairly simple to explain:

"Government bonds are always correlated to nominal GDP growth, regardless if you look at it using "old GDP data" or "new GDP data." So, if indeed GDP growth will continue to lag, then you should not expect yields to rise anytime soon making our US long bonds exposure still compelling regardless of what some sell-side pundits are telling you."

We hope, at some point, this will become "Common knowledge" and that some sell-side pundits will stop defying this simple yet compelling "Wicksellian" logic which in terms of allocation can prevent  "Extraordinary Dislocation" when eventually equities will correct.

When it comes to the stagflationary fears out there, they seem to us relatively premature given the impact rising oil prices have had on inflation expectations. What seems to us much more worrying from a potential bear market perspective is the velocity in the surge in oil prices which in the past have always preceded significant corrections in stock markets. As past history has shown, what matters is the velocity of the increase in the oil prices, given that a price appreciation greater than 100% to the "Real Price of Oil" has been a leading indicator for every US recession over the past 40 years. This, dear friends is based on facts, not conjecture.

Finally, for our final chart, and given we highlighted the importance of leverage when looking at Wicksellian Differential, we think it is important to note the growing divergence between corporate balance sheets with the economy as the credit cycle moves towards the last inning.

• Final chart: Balance sheets are out of sync with the economy

While much of the performance of US equities has been driven to a large extent by multiple expansion thanks to buybacks funded by cheap credit, it is worth noting that eventually, what matters in a credit cycle at a late stage is the level of leverage in the system from a Wicksellian perspective. In relation to this statement we would like to point towards Bank of America Merrill Lynch's chart from their Credit Market Strategist note from the 14th of October entitled "3Q=stabilizing, 4Q=improving fundamentals" where they show that corporate balance sheets are at much later stage in the cycle:

"Balance sheets are out of sync with the economy

As we have argued (see: Monthly HG Market Review: June ’16: Brexit and the decline in yields 01 July 2016 ). due to unprecedented monetary policy easing globally, in response to the challenges emerging from and financial crisis and sovereign crises, corporate balance sheets are at a much later stage in the cycle (Figure 17). 

This disconnect between the economic cycle and corporate balance sheets is highly unusual and perhaps never seen before. But these times are indeed highly unusual. As the economy moves through the last half of its cycle we thus expect that corporate balance sheets improve a bit over the coming years - although companies are not going to undergo a traditional deleveraging cycle. Then when the economy eventually goes into recession we should see the traditional spike in corporate leverage ratios driven by declining earnings." - source Bank of America Merrill Lynch

So dear Janet Yellen, if you think that asset values aren’t out of line with historical norms, balance sheets are and you can expect down the line "Extraordinary Dislocation" and very low recovery rates in the next downturn thanks to Wicksellian Differential rest assured.

"I believe in social dislocation and creative trouble." - Bayard Rustin, American leader in social movements for civil rights, socialism

Stay tuned !