Currently viewing the tag: "ECB"
View: Spain ‘worries’ totally predictable, PM Rajoy’s delaying tactics all part of the game
Watching the Eurozone crisis unfold is a bit like sitting down to watch a few Road Runner cartoons, we all know Wylie Coyote is going to run over a cliff at some point we just don’t know what sort of pain and suffering he’ll go through first and the particular shape he’ll form when he hits the bottom. In these terms one could well compare the market to a four year old, deriving endless surprise, dare we say enjoyment, from what is a tried and tested formula. And so we find ourselves with panicked headlines from Spain once again with the usual media tarts rolled out with a new damning indictment on why the project is doomed, a scenario as predictable as any of those classic cartoons.
Full report below…
View: Persist with selling EUR/USD rallies, current move looks stretched, timing the risk
We’ve seen a solid bounce in EUR/USD after a brief penetration of the 1.3000 level this morning, maintaining immediate bullish momentum. While there are doubts surrounding the execution of the ECB’s OMT plan as Spain looks to avoid a formal bailout and the oversight that would accompany this, which is a prerequisite for any central bank support, the onset of QE3 followed by BoJ easing has refocused attention on the influence of central banks on currencies. This is naturally bad for the dollar with the Fed clearly having the most robust/effective track record for keeping the Greenback weak in contrast to Europe where a strong currency is still seen as a sign of confidence in the project rather than a helpful adjustment mechanism. The less said about the Bank of Japan’s ability to guide the JPY weaker the better.
Full report below…
View: OMT helpful, but not unexpected. Should temper Fed doves demands for easing
While the crux of what the ECB was working on was well flagged in advance of Thursday’s policy meeting thanks to the usual ‘official’ leaks there seems to have been enough doubters to trigger a very positive market response to the official unveiling of its new bond purchasing plan. It is perhaps partly down to timing; we didn’t actually expect such explicit detail until the German Constitutional Court had dealt with the ESM issue and the fact that there was not any immediate pressure to finalise a strategy thanks to effective verbal support over the summer was another reason to pursue things in the usual Eurozone timeframe, i.e slowly. Furthermore the hostility of the Bundesbank to debt monetisation, as they see it, was (and still is) problematic. It appears Draghi just accepted that this wasn’t something that could be resolved with Weidmann clearly the sole dissenter when the board came round to voting. Another factor might be worth mentioning is the proximity to the FOMC meeting from which the market also expects support, admittedly aimed at addressing growth rather than solvency/survival of the Euro. We’d normally have expected some buck passing to the more proactive Fed, although in this instance the opposite might be true, more on that later.
Full report below…
View: EUR/USD to resume mid-term downtrend, add to shorts on any s/t blip higher
Thanks to some encouraging words from Draghi in early August the EUR found decent traction in financial markets, rallying nearly 1.9% in trade weighted terms over the past month. And as ever the improvement has led to a flurry of more bullish EUR calls from analysts, anticipating decisive action from Eurocrats, specifically the ECB where at tomorrow’s meeting the consensus seems to be there will be clarity on the touted bond purchase programme, which would naturally be good for the single currency. Furthermore the market has had the prospect of more QE from the Fed to lean on which in the past has been generally good for that other currency heavyweight (using the term very loosely), reinforcing all this intellectual front running.
Full report below…
View: EUR bounce has frail foundations, sell rallies leaning on EUR/USD1.2727
EUR price action has looked more constructive in recent weeks, having bounced to the 1.2407 resistance line at the start of the month finally punching through this on Tuesday amid on-going hopes that European officials were ready to be more interventionist in tackling the debt crisis. This speculation had culminated in a Der Spiegel article suggesting the ECB was looking at a plan to cap periphery yields at specified levels which has proven so exciting to participants that even ECB and Buba downplaying has been shrugged off. Indeed, the market is so optimistic that German 2-year yields brushed back into positive territory this morning as EUR/USD itself trades in the 1.2450/60’s, shrugging off a weaker equity market performance on the back of more worrying data out of Asia, specifically the Japanese trade numbers which showed an alarming 8.1% y/y drop in exports with sales to China falling at 11.9% and to the EU down an alarming 25.1% from a year earlier.
Full report below…
View: Draghi’s comments should draw EUR/USD back to selling levels, m/t trend bearish
Reading some amusing comments reacting to Draghi yesterday, the best so far being ‘there won’t be a Euro short left once the ECB has finished’ (to paraphrase) which we’ll have to put down to heatstroke. Fundamentally the best adjustment mechanism to help peripheral realignment is a weaker currency. The other ideas such as the confidence the economies will receive from effective fiscal consolidation and the structural reforms that sit alongside this prescription sound nice but are rather ineffective in the shorter-term and overlook the recessionary pressures that are resulting from them, most evident in the Greek death spiral. ECB medicine is likely to be equally ineffective as we know that the central bank itself is one of the key proponents of the austerity model and German opposition to bond buying will continue to obstruct. We don’t think another LTRO would be a game changer or for that matter another rate cut, already justified by the inflation outlook. Perhaps the aim is just to buy time over the summer. Furthermore the kind of firepower needed to really rebuild confidence will continue to lag what is needed, evident in the sums the EFSF has and ESM has to work with.
Full report below…
View: Negative Schatz yields to become the norm, equity correction a selling opportunity
There seem to be two scenarios currently; the first being that European ‘can kicking’ will continue, and despite things looking like they might totally implode at any moment, they will somehow manage not to for the visible future. Quite what this can kicking achieves of course is beyond us, it’s a bit like that drunk who knows that tomorrow is going to be a write off, so might as well plough on with those Jaeger bombs regardless. If we had to nail down the date of tomorrow in this context we’d say between the start of September and end of October 2013, the probable dates of the next German election and Octoberfest. The alternate is that can kicking is actually no such thing, it merely reflects policy paralysis and that the core/periphery divide is unbridgeable. The steps that appear after EU summits are vague and tied to such extended timelines directly due to this. The hard line taken by both Finland and the Dutch is telling, neither seem willing to compromise on the austerity driven solution despite the fact that we’re way past the point where this is really a valid crisis response. Signs of German compromise seem to have hardened their stance if anything. The ECB meanwhile refuses to act, believing that it is the responsibility of politicians, oblivious to the fact that consensus politics can’t achieve much with such disparate agendas. Some might say there is a third scenario where a workable strategy that allows the Eurozone to rebalance and grow slowly emerges, we’d just say good luck with that.
Full report below…
View: Banking/Fiscal union something for a smaller Eurozone, we dislike French debt
Global markets response to the Spanish bank bailout is interesting, it appears that investors have become a little more confident they can compartmentalise the situation while at the same time seeing the package as insufficient, which is most clearly visible in the diverging paths of equity markets and Spanish bonds. The poor performance of this market is clearly understandable given the structure of the package will be detrimental to existing SPGB holders, effectively creating a €100bn tier of debt that sits above them on the creditors list (assuming it is channelled through the ESM), something we know from Greece is never good. Furthermore the actual sums involved look unlikely to be sufficient, even the Spanish government acknowledges that there are still significant downside risks in the property market. New guestimates from JP Morgan have suggested the sector might need €350bn in total, ouch. It doesn’t look particularly good for some of the other creditors, Italy for example will have to fund its contribution in the markets at 6% while lending to Spain at 3%.
Full report below…
View: Investors will reward measures for growth, see any Fed easing as DXY positive
Often the market makes demands on policy makers and often they are unwarranted, triggered by swings in short-term sentiment rather than changes in trend. However the monetary policy decisions we’ve seen over the past week or so seem to be somewhat different, highlighting a number of key issues that run deeper and are likely to have prolonged implications for markets and possibly mark the trigger point for the breakdown of some of the relationships that have driven markets since the onset of the financial crisis. More specifically we think we could be at that point where growth steps into the driving seat as investors focus more directly on debt sustainability. Central bank stimulus, or lack of it, should also be seen in this light. The impact of resultant interventions are also likely to differ to the inflationary effect we saw previously, be it equity prices or commodity moves.
Full report below…
