Iran Dumps The US Dollar: ‘The Dollar Has No Place In Our Transactions Today’

The nation of Iran has dumped the United States dollar in favor of the European euro amid tensions with Washington.  Tehran’s supreme leader has proclaimed that the “dollar has no place in our transactions today.”

According to RT, The governor of Iran’s central bank (CBI) Valiollah Seif said that Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had welcomed his suggestion of replacing the dollar with the euro in foreign trade, as the “dollar has no place in our transactions today.” The new policy could reportedly encourage government bodies and firms linked to the state to increase their use of the euro at the expense of the American currency.

The dollar’s downward spiral continues as financial analyst Peter Schiff predicted in 2008 and has been warning of ever since.  Schiff pulled no punches when saying that the long-term trend for the dollar is essentially a slow death.

They’re going to print money until they revive the economy. You can’t revive the economy by printing money. They’re going to suffocate it to death. It’s going to die by hyperinflation. –Peter Schiff

France will start offering euro-denominated credits to Iranian buyers of its goods later this year to keep its trade out of the reach of US sanctions, said the head of state-owned French investment bank Bpifrance. According to CBI’s Director of Foreign Exchange Rules and Policies Affairs Mehdi Kasraeipour, the share of the greenback in Iran’s trade activities is not high. As part of a trade embargo, US banks are banned from dealing with Iran.

Last month, Tehran announced that purchase orders by merchants that are based on US currency would no longer be allowed to go through import procedures. The step followed an official request by the CBI and was specifically meant to address fluctuations in market rates of the US dollar. –RT

Iran is also seeking to develop cryptocurrencies to beat the United States at their own sanctioning game.

Iran developing national cryptocurrency to bypass US sanctions https://t.co/5rLrfPqyhU pic.twitter.com/Pt0LRg9Ylh

— RT (@RT_com) February 26, 2018

Tehran, which has long sought to switch to a non-dollar-based trade, had already signed agreements with several countries. It is also currently in talks with Russia on using national currencies in settlements.

While meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in November, Khamenei said the best way to beat any US sanctions against the two countries was joint efforts to dump the American currency in bilateral trade. He told President Putin that, by using methods such as eliminating the US dollar and replacing it with national currencies in transactions between two or more parties, the sides could “isolate the Americans.”

But Peter Schiff says that it’s the Federal Reserve that will crash the dollar.  Iran’s decision to no longer use the dollar will only add a small scratch to the gaping wound that’s the problem. Schiff holds firm that the consequence of the Federal Reserve manipulating the economy will be the crash of the dollar.

They [the Fed] actually made the bubbles bigger than the ones that popped. So now, the dollar’s collapse is going to be that much bigger, because it’s now a bigger bubble with more air to come out of it. And I think they have no more tricks up their sleeves. When this happens – it’s over. –Peter Schiff

New Fed Chairman Will Trigger A Historic Stock Market Crash In 2018

This report was originally published by Brandon Smith at Alt-Market.com

Ever since the credit and equities crash of 2008, Americans have been bombarded relentlessly with the narrative that our economy is “in recovery”. For some people, simply hearing this ad nauseam is enough to stave off any concerns they may have for the economy. For some of us, however, it’s just not enough. We need concrete data that actually supports the notion, and for years, we have seen none.

In fact, we have heard from officials at the Federal Reserve that the exact opposite is true. They have admitted that the so-called recovery has been fiat driven, and that there is a danger that when the Fed finally stops artificially propping up the economy with constant stimulus and near zero interest rates, the whole farce might come tumbling down.

For example, Richard Fisher, former head of the Dallas Federal Reserve, admitted a few years ago that the U.S. central bank has made its business the manipulation of the stock market to the upside:

What the Fed did — and I was part of that group — is we front-loaded a tremendous market rally, starting in 2009.

It’s sort of what I call the “reverse Whimpy factor” — give me two hamburgers today for one tomorrow.

I’m not surprised that almost every index you can look at … was down significantly.

Fisher went on to hint at the impending danger (though his predicted drop is overly conservative in my view), saying, “I was warning my colleagues, don’t go wobbly if we have a 10-20% correction at some point…. Everybody you talk to … has been warning that these markets are heavily priced.”

One might claim that this is simply one Fed member’s point of view. But it was recently revealed that in 2012, Jerome Powell made the same point in a Fed meeting, the minutes of which have only just now been released (emphasis ours).

I have concerns about more purchases. As others have pointed out, the dealer community is now assuming close to a $4 trillion balance sheet and purchases through the first quarter of 2014. I admit that is a much stronger reaction than I anticipated, and I am uncomfortable with it for a couple of reasons.

First, the question, why stop at $4 trillion? The market in most cases will cheer us for doing more. It will never be enough for the market. Our models will always tell us that we are helping the economy, and I will probably always feel that those benefits are overestimated. And we will be able to tell ourselves that market function is not impaired and that inflation expectations are under control. What is to stop us, other than much faster economic growth, which it is probably not in our power to produce?

When it is time for us to sell, or even to stop buying, the response could be quite strong; there is every reason to expect a strong response. So there are a couple of ways to look at it. It is about $1.2 trillion in sales; you take 60 months, you get about $20 billion a month. That is a very doable thing, it sounds like, in a market where the norm by the middle of next year is $80 billion a month. Another way to look at it, though, is that it’s not so much the sale, the duration; it’s also unloading our short volatility position.

Keep in mind, that Jerome Powell is now the CHAIRMAN of the Federal Reserve. In 2012, he was well aware of the exact effects that the removal of stimulus (which includes low interest rates) would have on the false recovery in stock markets. He continues…

My third concern — and others have touched on it as well — is the problems of exiting from a near $4 trillion balance sheet. We’ve got a set of principles from June 2011 and have done some work since then, but it just seems to me that we seem to be way too confident that exit can be managed smoothly. Markets can be much more dynamic than we appear to think.

When you turn and say to the market, “I’ve got $1.2 trillion of these things,” it’s not just $20 billion a month — it’s the sight of the whole thing coming. And I think there is a pretty good chance that you could have quite a dynamic response in the market.

I think we are actually at a point of encouraging risk-taking, and that should give us pause.

Investors really do understand now that we will be there to prevent serious losses. It is not that it is easy for them to make money but that they have every incentive to take more risk, and they are doing so. Meanwhile, we look like we are blowing a fixed-income duration bubble right across the credit spectrum that will result in big losses when rates come up down the road. You can almost say that that is our strategy.

If Powell was fully conscious in 2012 of what would happen in markets due to the Fed’s balance sheet reductions, the question is, will he be honest about it now? My suspicion is that he will not, given that his very first interaction with the American public after becoming head of the Fed was to regurgitate the same nonsensical talking points that we heard from Janet Yellen for years. The mainstream media is desperately attempting to suggest that Powell may “surprise investors” with a change in rate hike policies and the reduction of balance sheet, but so far the markets are not buying this.

Powell’s first day as Chairman was greeted with the sharpest drop in U.S. equities in years. Yellen’s parting gift to investors in January was an $18 billion reduction in the Fed balance sheet, $6 billion more than the Fed originally claimed would occur. It is clear to me that just as stocks climbed in direct correlation to the Fed balance sheet, so too will they fall in direct correlation to the Fed balance sheet. Only a week after the balance sheet was cut more than expected, stocks fell by nearly 10%.

So, the question now is, will Powell continue this trend of rate hikes and balance sheet reductions, being that he is recorded as knowing what the results will be? I believe that this is exactly what he will do. Why? Because the Fed’s goal is the deliberate controlled demolition not only of U.S. markets but also U.S. debt instruments and the dollar.

If I am wrong, then Powell, knowing the threat, will reverse rate hike policies and stop dumping the balance sheet in an effort to prop up the system. If I am right, then we will see Powell continue these policies over the course of 2018 and allow the system to implode.

How will this influence the price of gold? Well, in the near term we could see a measured decline or a stagnant metals market as we have seen so far this month. That said, when the real equities crisis kicks in, expect metals to skyrocket as investors rush to safety. The psychology of the markets will come into play far more than fundamentals for a time. One must account for willful ignorance and how long it can be maintained before facts take over.

There are a few major factors that come into play in terms of interest rate hikes and the balance sheet, including the fact that corporate debt is now at levels far beyond that held just before the crash of 2008. We are also witnessing the highest consumer debt levels in history, while personal savings have plunged.

Treasury yields are also spiking to 10 year highs, decoupling from stocks and suggesting that balance sheet reductions might be contributing to a flight from equities.

Stock buybacks, fueled by low interest rates, have helped pump up stocks for years. However, most companies are prohibited from buybacks right before they report their earnings. Without buybacks this past week, we have seen what happens – complete market mayhem. If this is what takes place in a month of reduced buybacks, what will happen when interest rates are raised high enough to make borrowing capital from the Fed prohibitive (ie, too expensive)?

What does all this translate into? The reality that there is NO MECHANISM within our economy that is buoyant enough to keep markets afloat when the Fed backs away. Nearly everyone is in massive debt, there is no one left to buy at the level needed except the Fed.

We are only standing at the beginning of this apparent new trend in equities, but it will be interesting to see what the reaction will be within the system as the Fed continues hiking rates and reducing the balance sheet. Will the beginning of every month in 2018 be met with a brand new storm of selling and panic? It’s hard to say. However, the math certainly does not support a bull market through the rest of this year.

In the meantime, it is likely that blind faith in positive returns will spark intermittent buying events in the short term, and unaware investors (and algorithms) will see this as vindication that buying will always be the answer. But, these buying events so far seem to be met with even more severe downturns. It will not take very many Fed meetings to discern whether or not the central bank will continue to back up stocks. To me, it appears that the decision to pull the plug has already been made.

***

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You can contact Brandon Smith at: brandon@alt-market.com

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Lynette Zang: ‘The CRIMINAL BANKS Know Something Is VERY WRONG’

Lynette Zang from ITM Trading recently joined the SGT Report to discuss the economy, precious metals, and the disastrous storm that’s brewing. According to Zang, the criminal banks have stopped lending to each other because they know something is very wrong with the economy.

The interview jumps straight to the point.  The big banks are not lending to each other.  What is Zang’s take on the drop in interbank lending?

“During the 2008 crisis, it absolutely plummeted but they’ve been trying to keep it a little supported at the levels back in the 80’s and…it’s plunged below where it was when they came out in ’73; and what I find interesting…is that banks don’t trust each other. They know they’re insolvent. They’re not gonna get the money back.”

Zang is then asked about Deutsche Bank.  Since it’s leveraged “to the gills” is it the first bank to go?

“I don’t know whether Deutsche Bank will be the first to go, but their leverage ratio remains at 3.8%, which means if the value of their assets falls 3.9%, they are insolvent. But that can really start anywhere. It doesn’t have to start at Deutsche Bank, but Deutsche touches every single financial product in every bank. I wouldn’t say this is ‘the canary in the coal mine,’ because I’ve really been talking about pattern shifts that I’ve been witnessing since October. The pattern shifts really started in 2017. People think nothing happens until it becomes visible, but you have to look a little below…to see what you’re not seeing…the banks know that they’re not loaning to each other. And the central banks know that they’re attempting to support the mortgage markets and keep everything floating.

We’re inside of a great experiment…this is an accident that’s in the process of unfolding.“

And then the big question comes up. What do rising interest rates mean for a country that is $20 trillion in debt?

“Now, you’ve gotta understand, we’ve once you run really perpetual deficits, which we’ve been doing for a long time, what you’re doing, is you’re not touching any principle but you’re also likely not paying of all of the interest. With interest rising, all of that debt went real short term…you wanna know what it looks like? Look at Greece. Because if most of your income or all of your income goes to paying interest then you have no money for services. You have no money for teachers, you have no money for police, you have no money for retirement plans..what they’ve been doing since 2008, is transferring risk…so it didn’t look like we were in crisis mode.

Pension plans were severely underfunded in the most expensive stock market in history.”

When the crash comes, it’s going to wipe the whole thing out, says STG Report. “They are crime cartels fleecing the people.” What can president Donald Trump do to stop the banks from crashing the market?

“I don’t think there’s anything that anybody can do. They’re a lot more powerful…once we started to transition into thisdebt-based system, the transition is complete.  That’s why everything is so precarious…a reset is inevitable. It has to happen.”

The good news is that if we stand together, those in power, the global elitists won’t be able to get away with a world currency that they are desperately trying to force on us. Zang also suggests accumulating some gold and silver as a way to protect yourself financially during the upcoming crash.

Europe"s Runaway Train Towards Full Digitization Of Money & Labor

Authored by Peter Koenig via The Saker blog,

The other day I was in a shopping mall looking for an ATM to get some cash. There was no ATM. A week ago, there was still a branch office of a local bank – no more, gone. A Starbucks will replace the space left empty by the bank. I asked around – there will be no more cash automats in this mall – and this pattern is repeated over and over throughout Switzerland and throughout western Europe. Cash machines gradually but ever so faster disappear, not only from shopping malls, also from street corners. Will Switzerland become the first country fully running on digital money?

This new cashless money model is progressively but brutally introduced to the Swiss and Europeans at large – as they are not told what’s really happening behind the scene. If anything, the populace is being told that paying will become much easier. You just swipe your card – and bingo. No more signatures, no more looking for cash machines – your bank account is directly charged for whatever small or large amount you are spending. And naturally and gradually a ‘small fee’ will be introduced by the banks. And you are powerless, as a cash alternative will have been wiped out.

The upwards limit of how much you may charge onto your bank account is mainly set by yourself, as long as it doesn’t exceed the banks tolerance. But the banks’ tolerance is generous. If you exceed your credit, the balance on your account quietly slides into the red and at the end of the month you pay a hefty interest; or interest on unpaid interest – and so on. And that even though interbank interest rates are at a historic low. The Swiss Central Bank’s interest to banks, for example, is even negative; one of the few central banks in the world with negative interest, others include Japan and Denmark.

When I talked recently to the manager of a Geneva bank, he said, it’s getting much worse. ‘We are already closing all bank tellers, and so are most of the other banks’. Which means staff layoffs – which of course makes it only selectively to the news. Bank employees and managers must pass an exam with the Swiss banking commission, for which they have study hundreds of extra hours within a few months to pass a test – usually planned for weekends, so as not to infringe on the banks’ business hours. You got to chances to pass. If you fail you are out, joining the ranks of the unemployed. The trend is similar throughout Europe. The manager didn’t reveal the topic and reason behind the ‘retraining’ – but it became obvious from the ensuing conversation that it had to do with the ‘cashless overtake’ of people by the banks. These are my words, but he, an insider, was as concerned as I, if not more.

Surveillance is everywhere. Now, not only our phone calls and e-mails are spied on, but our bank accounts are too. And what’s worse, with a cashless economy, our accounts are vulnerable to be invaded by the state, by thieves, by the police, by the tax authority, by any kind of authority – and, of course, by the very banks that have had your trust for all your life. Remember the ‘bail-ins’ first tested in early 2013 in Cyprus? – Bail-ins will become common practice for any bank that has abused its greed for profit and would go belly-up, if there wouldn’t be all those deposits from customers. Even shareholders are not safe. This has been quietly decided on some two years ago, both in the US and also by the non-elected white-collar mafia, the European Commission – EC.

The point is, ‘banks über alles’. And which country would be better suited to introduce ‘cashless living’ than Switzerland, the epicenter – along with Wall Street – of international banking. Bank’s will call the shots in the future, on your personal economy and that of the state. They are globalized, following the same principles of deregulation worldwide. They are in collusion with globalized corporations. They will decide whether you eat or become enslaved. They are one of the tree major weapons of the 0.1 % to beat the 99.9% into submission. The other two at the service of the master hegemon’s Full Spectrum Dominance drive, are the war- and security industry and the ever more brazen propaganda lie-machine. Banking deregulation has become another little-propagated rule of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Countries who want to join WTO, must deregulate their banking sector, prying it open for the globalized money-sharks, the Zion-controlled banking conglomerates.

Retrenchment of personnel in the banking employment market is increasing. The news only selectively reports on it, when there are large amounts of jobs being eliminated. Statistics lie everywhere, in the EU as well as in Washington. – Why scare people? They will be scared enough, when they are offered jobs at salaries on which they can barely survive. That’s happening already. It used to be a tactic applied for developing countries: Keep them enslaved by debt and low pay, so they don’t have time and energy to take to the streets to protest – they have to look for food and work, whatever menial jobs they can get, to feed their families. It’s now hitting Europe, the West in general. Some countries way more than Switzerland.

Cashless trials are going on elsewhere, especially in Nordic countries, where selected department stores and supermarkets do no longer take cash. Another monstrous trial has been carried out in India a year ago, in the last quarter of 2016, where from one day to another 80% of the most popular money notes were eliminated, and could only be exchanged for new notes by banks and through bank accounts. And this in an almost pure cash country, where half the population has no bank account, and where remote rural areas have no banks. People were lied to so that the sudden introduction had maximum effect.

It caused massive famine and thousands of people died, as they had suddenly no acceptable cash to buy food – all instigated by the USAID Project ‘Catalyst’, in connivance with the Indian rulers and central bank. It was a trial. It was a disaster. If it works in India with 1.3 billion people, two thirds of whom live in rural areas and most of them have no bank account, the scam could be applied in any developing country – see also India – Crime of the Century – Financial Genocide

What is going on in Switzerland is a trial with the high end of populations. How is the upper crust taking to such radical changes in our daily monetary routine? – So far not many protests have been noticed. There is a weak referendum being launched by a group of people who want the Swiss Central Bank be the only institution that can make money, like in the ‘olden days’. Though a very respectable idea, the referendum has no chance in today’s banking and debt-finance environment, where youth is being indoctrinated with the idea that swiping your card in front of an electronic eye is cool. Today, most money is made by private banks, like elsewhere in Europe and the US. Worldwide banking deregulation, initiated by the Clinton Administration in the 1990s – today a rule for any member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) – has made this all possible.

Digitalization and robotization is just beginning. Staffed check-out counters in supermarkets are dwindling; most of them are automatic – and that happened within the last year. – Where are the employees gone? – I asked an attendant who helped the customers through the self-checkout. ‘They joined the ranks of unemployed’, she said with a sad face, having lost several of her colleagues. ‘It will hit me too, as soon as they don’t need me anymore to show the customers on how to auto-pay.’

Bitcoins

Digitalization also includes the cryptocurrencies, the blockchain moneys floating around – of which the most famous one is Bitcoin. It brings digitalization of money to an apex. The system is complex and seems to lend itself only to ‘experts’. Cryptocurrencies are fiat money, based on nothing, not even on gold. Cryptos are electronic, invisible and highly, but highly speculative, an invitation for gangsters and fraudsters. With extreme speculative values, it looks as if cryptocurrencies were designed for crooks and speculators.

Bitcoin was allegedly invented by Satoshi Nakamoto which could be a pseudonym of a man or a group of people, suspected to live in the US. “Nakamoto’s” identity is believed to be commonwealth origin, due to the vocabulary used in his writings. One of his close associates is purportedly a Swiss coder, who is also an active member of the cryptocurrency community. He is said to have graphed the time stamp of each of Nakamoto’s more than 500 bitcoin forum posts. Such ‘forum posts’ exist in the thousands, worldwide. They form an elaborate network based on algorithms.

Bitcoin was formally created in January 2009 with a fix amount of 21 million ‘coins’, of which more than half are already in circulation, and 1 million, or about 4.75% (of the total) can be traced to Nakamoto – which according to the current market value corresponds to close to US$15 billion. Today’s overall Bitcoin market cap is more than US$ 315 billion. The market is highly volatile. Drastic daily fluctuations are common, especially within the last 12 months. If one of the major Bitcoin holders, like Nakamoto, would capitalize his profit by selling a big portion of his holdings, the Bitcoin price would be in free fall, functioning pretty similar to the regular stock exchange.

On 24 August 2010, when Bitcoin was first traded, its value was US$ 0.06. On 24 December 2017, the coin was worth US$ 13,800, an increase of 230,000%. In the last twelve months, its value increased from about US$ 800 in December 2016 to a peak of close to US$ 20,000 in December 2017, an increase of nearly 2,500 %. However, in the last 7 days, the price has dropped by US$ 5,160, i.e. by more than 27%, and the trend seems to be downward; perhaps a sign of quick profit-taking? However, this shows how instable this cryptocurrency is, apparently much more so than trading corporate shares on the stock market.

The number of cryptocurrencies available over the internet as of 27 November 2017 is above 1300 and growing. A new cryptocurrency can be created at any time and by anyone. By market capitalization, Bitcoin is presently the largest blockchain network (database network, storing data in different publicly verifiable places), followed by Ethereum, Bitcoin Cash, Ripple and Litecoin.

Bitcoin may be the next bubble, bringing down a parallel economy which has already its fingers clawing into our regular western economy. Cryptocurrencies are officially forbidden in Russia and China, though stopping cryptocurrency dealings by individuals is hardly possible. They do not touch the traditional banking system. That’s why major banks hate them. They circumvent the banking suckers, prevent them from making ever higher profits from horrendous commissions, against which the people at large are powerless.

Here is Bitcoin’s positive value. It escapes bank and state controls. If countries’ economies were run on Bitcoins or another cryptocurrency, they would escape US sanctions which function only because western currencies are foster-children of the US-dollar, hence, subject to the dollar hegemony; meaning all international transactions have to pass through a US bank. A typical case is ‘banking blockades’, when Washington decides to stop all international transactions of a country until it submits to the wishes of the empire. It is blackmail; totally illegal, but unless there is a monetary alternative, the (western) world is subject to this system.

A typical case was Argentina, when she was forced by a New York judge in June 2014 to pay a New York based Vulture Fund US$1.6 billion, an illegal ruling according to a UN resolution. Argentina refuse to pay, so the judge, interfering in a sovereign nation, blocked more than US$ 500 million in Argentina’s debt payment to creditors, bringing Argentina to the brink of a second bankruptcy in 13 years. Eventually, neoliberal Macri negotiated a deal with the Vultures of a payment in excess of US$ 400 million.

This US blackmail would not have been possible had Argentina been able to make its foreign transactions in Bitcoins or another cryptocurrency. Venezuela is currently using a national cryptocurrency for some of its foreign transactions, thereby escaping the sanctions stranglehold of Washington. Had Greek and Cyprus citizens had a cryptocurrency alternative to the euro, they would not have been subject to the cash control imposed by the European Central Bank.

On the other hand, funding of terror organizations, like ISIS, cannot be disrupted, if the terror group deals in cryptocurrencies. – This shows, for good or for bad, Bitcoins, or cryptocurrencies are for now unique in resisiting censure and blackmail, or any kind of authoritarian outside interference in electronic money transactions.

Cashless Living

If Switzerland accepts the change to digital money, a country where until relatively recently most people went to pay their monthly bills in cash to the nearest post office – then we, in the western world, are on a fast track to total enslavement by the financial institutions. It goes, of course, hand-in-hand with the rest of systematic and ever faster advancing oppression and robotization of the 99.9% by the 0.1%.

We are currently at cross-roads, where we still can either decide to follow the discourse of a new electronic monetary era, with ever less to say about the product of our work, our money; or whether, We the People, will resist a banking / finance system that has full control over our financial resources, and which can literally starve us into submission or death, if we don’t behave. In order to resist we need an alternative monetary system or monetary network, away from the dollar-euro hegemony.

All the more important is the ascent of another economy, another payment and transfer scheme which already exists in the East, the Chinese International Paymen, totally System (CIPS), effectively a replacement of SWIFT, totally privately run and linked to the US-dollar and US banks. The world needs a multipolar economy, based on the real output of a country or society, as is the case in China and Russia, not one based on fiat money as is the current western economy.

Will Switzerland, the stronghold of world finance, along with New York, London and Hongkong, resist the temptation of increased profit, power and control, offered by digital money? – We, the People, have still the chance to decide either for continuing rotting in a fraud economy, based on wars and greed – for which digital money, exacerbated by cryptocurrencies, is a new tool for a new maximizing profit bonanza on the back of the common people; or do we opt for an honest future and for a life that leaves us free to take sovereign political and monetary decisions in a full cash society. For the latter we must wake up to see the propaganda fraud going on before our eyes, and to resist the robot and electronic money onslaught being unleashed on us.

Will QE Be the Needle That Bursts the Bond Bubble in 2018?

If you wanted more evidence that Central Banks will stop at nothing to induce inflation, consider that yesterday Bank of Japan stated that it will continue with its QE program and with negative rates for as long as it takes to achieve 2% inflation.

Mind you, Japan’s economy has just posted its SEVENTH straight quarter of growth, having exited its last recession at the beginning of 2016.

Put another way, the Bank of Japan is running CRISIS-type monetary policies (NIRP and ~$750 billion in QE per year) at a time when the economy has been growing for nearly TWO YEARS.

Throw in the ECB which will continue €30 billion in QE per month in 2018 and you’ve got a combined $1.1 TRILLION in Central Bank liquidity hitting the system next year…. when inflation data is already spiking up around the globe.

Why does this matter?

As I explain in my bestselling book The Everything Bubble: the Endgame For Central Bank Policy, sovereign bonds trade based on inflation expectations.

Put simply, when inflation spikes higher, so do bond yields.

When bond yields rise, bond prices fall.

When bond prices fall, the Bond Bubble bursts.

When the Bond Bubble bursts, the EVERYTHING bubble follows.

Well, guess what? The yield on numerous sovereign bonds are already spiking, and this is BEFORE inflation has even really hit!

Put simply, the bond yields for countries representing over 60% of global GDP are already warning that the bond bubble is in major trouble.

What"s coming will take time for this to unfold, but as I recently told clients, we"re currently in "late 2007" for the coming crisis. The time to prepare for this is NOW before the carnage hits.

On that note, we are putting together an Executive Summary outlining all of these issues as well as what’s to come when The Everything Bubble bursts.

It will be available exclusively to our clients. If you’d like to have a copy delivered to your inbox when it’s completed, you can join the wait-list here:

https://phoenixcapitalmarketing.com/TEB.html

Best Regards

Graham Summers

Chief Market Strategist

Phoenix Capital Research

The Latest Crazy Idea From Economic Experts: Abolish Cash (But Don"t Tell The People)

Via GEFIRA,

In a recent paper - The Macroeconomics of De-Cashing, Alexei Kireyev of the International Monetary Fund advises abolishing cash without having the citizens aware of the process.

First, large banknotes are to be withdrawn from circulation, next limits on cash transactions are to be imposed, then computerization of the world’s financial system and control of international cash transactions are to be enforced and, finally, private companies are to be encouraged to avoid cash transactions.

Kireyev draws on the ideas of former IMF chief Kenneth Rogoff.

In his 2016 book “The Curse of Money”, he advocated the abolition of cash. In his opinion, it would contribute to the fight against crime, tax evasion and the reduction of the grey area.

The ECB obliged him and promised not to print the 500 euro note after 2018.

The government of India did the same thing: on November 9,2016, it unexpectedly devaluated all 500 and 1000 rupee banknotes over the night – a severe blow against the black economy and corruption. The next day, chaos reigned on India’s streets – crowds of people in front of banks, empty ATMs – everyone wanted to withdraw his money, exchange the old rupees for new, valid ones, and there were even casualties.

The other governments eagerly followed this ideas of great economic gurus, not worrying about what was happening in the Indian streets:

Australia wants to withdraw its 100 notes from circulation,and Venezuela has already abolished the 100 bolivar note.

France, Italy, Spain and Greece already have ceilings for cash withdrawals, and a ceiling of EUR €5000 is currently being discussed in Germany.

In some countries, the renunciation of cash is becoming a means of political struggle.

In Poland, Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki introduced cashless payments to the state postal service. Soon it will also be possible to pay his tickets directly on the patrol car. Not all Polish politicians probably like the idea that officials will not come into contact with cash – for example, the head of the Polish National Bank Adam Glapi?ski, who introduced the new 500 zloty note at the same time.

The abolition of cash is only one step on the road to even greater insanity: Kenneth Rogoff has other crazy ideas behind him.

The craziest: he demanded negative interest from European politicians, on the grounds that they are necessary anyway when the next crisis comes. We remind the reader that negative interest rate is limited by cash. If interest becomes too negative, people will hoard cash.

What consequences would his idea have if it were implemented? What if the negative interest rates were introduced? The money from accounts would flow into tangible assets, especially jewellery, gold bars and other precious metals. Their prices would rise to unprecedented levels, as would inflation driven by speculation. This would be boosted by rising real estate prices, as people would invest in houses rather than in worthless plastic money. The barter trade and black market would flourish as it did in times of war – the opposite of what is desired would be achieved. And the criminals and corrupt politicians would certainly find another means of exchange to conduct their business – it is well known that arms dealers and terrorist groups pay with diamonds. The abolition of cash and introduction of negative interest rate would dispossess ordinary citizens, making them transparent to the authorities at any time – after all, it would be easier to control and influence the transparent people whose lives can be traced by account statements.

The renowned economists, bankers and governments forget that cash cannot be abolished, only money printed by central banks can be abolished. They do the calculation in their ivory towers without considering the host, without ordinary citizens. The citizens will be outraged by this and take to the streets, as they did after the devaluation of banknotes in India. In the end they will find alternative currencies to do their business without the government’s interference.

The economic gurus don’t care – the experiment on the living organism is important, even if it kills them.

Albert Edwards: "Here"s Why The Current Situation Is Even Worse Than The 2008 Crisis"

Back in May, we first reported that Goldman became the first bank to dare to ask if the Fed has lost control of the market, if in slightly more polite terms of course. This is how Jan Hatzius phrased it: "Despite two rate hikes and indications of impending balance sheet runoff, financial conditions have continued to loosen in recent months. Our financial conditions index is now about 50bp below its November 2016 average and near the easiest levels of the past two years." Several months later, after the third rate hike, Goldman found that once again, paradoxically, financial conditions eased further, and the market rose even more in direct opposition of what Fed rate hikes are supposed to do!

Fast forward to this weekend, when we reported that that lovely word which describes the new normal so well - "paradox" - made a repeat appearance, this time in the last quarterly report by the Bank of International Settlement, which for the n^th time issued an alert on the state of the stock market, an alert which will be summarily ignored by everyone until after the crash, and reminded everyone what happened the last time financial conditions eased instead of tightening when the Fed hiked rates (spoiler alert: biggest crash in modern history). This is what the BIS" chief economist Claudio Borio said (among other things)"

Hence a paradox. Even as the Fed has proceeded with its tightening, overall financial conditions have eased. For instance, a standard indicator of such conditions, which combines information from various asset classes, points to an overall easing regardless of the precise date at which the tightening is assumed to have started. Indeed, that indicator touched a 24-year low. If financial conditions are the main transmission channel for tighter policy, has policy in effect been tightened at all?  (We can see from the BIS chart below how, unlike the last 12-month period, the Chicago Fed Financial Conditions Index did actually tighten in the May 2004-May 2005 period, and especially in the January 1994-January 1995 period.)

“In fact, this paradoxical outcome is not entirely new… it is reminiscent of the Fed policy tightening in the 2000s - the phase that spawned the now famous "Greenspan conundrum". Then, overall financial conditions hardly budged, and in some respects eased, as the Federal Reserve progressively raised rates. The experience contrasted sharply with previous tightenings, not least the one in 1994. At that time, long-term rates soared, the yield curve steepened, asset prices fell, corporate spreads widened, and EMs came under pressure. 

 

Today"s experience is reminiscent of the repeated reassurance of the 2000s" "measured pace", except that the adjustment has been, if anything, even more telegraphed. If gradualism comforts market participants that tighter policy will not derail the economy or upset asset markets, its predictability compresses risk premia. This can foster higher leverage  and risk-taking. By the same token, any sense that central banks will not remain on the sidelines should market tensions arise simply reinforces those incentives. Against this backdrop, easier financial conditions look less surprising.

Today, it was SocGen"s grumpy "permarealist" Albert Edwards" turn to focus on this peculiar "paradox" in which the more the Fed tightens, the higher markets rise in the process "poisoning the market."

Picking up on what Bank of America showed yesterday, namely that central banks broke both volatility and the market itself some time in 2013/2014...

... in his latest "weekly" note (published about 3 weeks after the last one), Edwards writes that "so scared (or is that scarred) were central bankers after the summer 2013 taper tantrum, they have now gone out of their way to reassure financial markets. Thus recent tightenings of monetary policy, whether by the Fed, ECB or Bank of England, were all perceived by markets as "dovish" tightening - and hence led to even more buoyant financial markets. Policymakers are so scared the financial bubbles they created might burst that today what might be good for the economy is subservient to the needs of Wall Street."

He then brings up our favorite new normal word - "paradox" of course - and lays out the problem on the chart below, stating that "the current situation is even worse than in the run-up to the 2008 crisis. At least back then rate hikes did not lead to easing financial conditions the way they do now! The Fed"?s desire to soothe the nerves of the financial markets has made a mockery of their tightening cycle."

Naturally, Edwards was just getting started, and the furious rant continues:

You don?t have to be a genius to reach the conclusion that central banks? dovish tightening really means there has been no tightening of monetary policy at all for Wall Street. But for Main Street, interest rate hikes do have an economic impact that will ultimately end in recession, and like an increasingly stretched elastic band this tension will eventually snap with disastrous financial market consequences. Many clients we meet have similarly apocalyptic views to our own but remain fully invested. They cannot see an immediate trigger for the financial Armageddon that they accept is heading slowly our way.

And yet, despite central bankers" best intentions to kill the free and efficient market, this time something may be changing, and may soon unleash that "shock" event that is so critical for the market to determine just what the new strike price of the Fed put is as BofA explained: that something is China.

Making the "China" case, Edwards refers to a post we published recently, and cautions that "investors are convinced that China?"s policymakers remain firmly in control of economic events." Here"s why that is no longer the case.

But Gordon Johnson of Axiom Capital notes it may be that the China credit multiplier, after years of diminishing returns, is finally exhausted. He writes, “given what we’ve seen this year – ie 101.7% new credit issuance growth YTD through Oct. 2017 (see chart below) – it seems the level of credit necessary to stimulate growth in China could prove elusive at this point. We don’t recall any economist’s forecasts exiting 2016 pointing to China’s new credit issuance more than doubling Y/Y in 2017, yet that’s exactly what’s happened. Had this been our base case, we would have expected all economic indicators in China to be moving substantially higher at this point in the cycle.”

Edwards then goes full circle to reach the same conclusion we have referenced so many times: the next crash will come out of China, and it will be at Beijing"s doing:

On this view if China?s policymakers are now pressing hard on the policy brakes after their politically expedient puffing up of the economy, a soft landing might prove more elusive than almost any investor currently assumes. Could this yet be the trigger that blindsides investors?

It could, especially since it was -ironically enough - China which in early 2016 halted what then appeared to be a global risk crash:

... it was this February?s Shanghai G20 deal that marked the point when global investors totally removed China from their watch list of things to be concerned about. That G20 meeting saw an agreement not to engage in further competitive devaluation and helped reverse the period of sustained dollar strength that had been exacerbating the renmnibi""s problems (weaker US economic data in the face of huge dollar bullishness also helped reverse the dollar?s prior relentless rise). Hence investors are very relaxed about China at exactly the point they should not be.

Which is why it would be so delightfully ironic once the next global crash originates out of China, the same country that saved the world with its gargantuan credit creation first in 2008/2009 and the second time in 2016/2017. Ironic, or perhaps the right word is paradox...

Worhsipping At The Altar Of FOMO

Authored by Sven Henrich via NorthmanTrader.com,

Retail investors are worshipping at the altar of FOMO (fear of missing out). It may prove to be a painful experience.

Never before has retail gotten this aggressively exposed to stocks.

Just in time when central banks and buybacks are pulling back. I talked a bit about this in the recent The Carrot Top, but I want to expand a bit on this to issue a general warning for retail: The boat is fully loaded in one direction. Be aware.

Wall Street will not warn retail, they’ll keep pushing the envelope until the very bitter end. It’s actually quite easy to be a bull. Keep raising targets, always be optimistic, and when something breaks shrug your shoulders and say: Hey what are you gonna do? Stuff happens. The Fed will come to the rescue.

And the cycle begins anew.

You know the drill:

Just remember, Wall Street will never tell you to sell.#2008forecasts pic.twitter.com/c664pSO1No

— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) July 14, 2017

Remember the primary job of Wall Street is to get retail to invest, and to be fair, they are doing a fabulous job.

And so every December we see the same annual ritual. Here’s the message sent to retail, we can only go higher. $SPX targets for 2018:

Here’s a visual from BAML:

The primary argument: Wall Street is not yet euphoric:

Really? What’s this:

$DJIA futures weekly RSI 86.78.
Pedal to the metal till it melts. pic.twitter.com/NYLFODHht7

— Sven Henrich (@NorthmanTrader) December 4, 2017

Not euphoric? Let’s dig in a bit deeper into the data.

 

You may have seen my Rydex chart indicating record bullish allocations in The Carrot Top:

Last night Jesse Felder sent me some more data points confirming the same:

More data:

The American Association of Individual Investors’ asset-allocation poll shows members’ exposure to stocks are as heavy as it was near the 2000 peak. Cash allocations fell 1.2 percentage points to 13.9%. Cash allocations were last lower in December 1999 (12.0%).

Also:

TD Ameritrade’s Investor Movement Index of retail activity “saw its largest single-month increase ever in November, increasing over 15% to hit an all-time high of 8.53. TD Ameritrade clients were net buyers for the tenth consecutive month.”

Combine it with sentiment:

Via Reuters:

“52 percent said they believed the stock market could sustain continued growth for five years without a downturn of 10 percent or more.”

Confident much?

It’s actually the perfectly logical conclusion of what central bank interventions have wrought:

The BOJ balance sheet is now at 121% of GDP the ECB’s at 41% of GDP.

The result of course is we haven’t corrected at all. We are now in the longest market period without even a 5% correction. Ever:

We haven’t had a single down month in 2017 which historically has never happened either:

And the rush into long equity funds has been unprecedented:

Get us into stocks. We can’t go down, we can only go up. FOMO.

So when I say central banks have created a monster I really mean it.

And so it’s no surprise that central bank policy is viewed by some as the greatest risk to asset prices in 2018:

Mohammed El-Erian:

“The biggest risk to asset prices and the global economy would be if the biggest institutions reduce their monetary stimulus at the same time. Rather than reflecting the prospects of individual institutions, the greatest monetary policy uncertainty facing the global economy is what would happen if all these central banks, along with the People’s Bank of China, were to decide to reduce their monetary stimulus at the same time. When it comes to central banks, this is the biggest source of risk to asset prices and the global economy, and it would call for high-frequency policy monitoring and close international consultations.”

Asset prices are a central bank planned construct that has resulted in retail being completely long and fully exposed to equities.

And I have not even addressed the trillions of dollars exposure all being long short $VIX products:

BAML has a phrase for this: “Yield starvation forces selling volatility for yield”. “Forces” being the operative word:

Note the center piece: “Unprecedented central bank policy & low growth recovery”.

By the way I’m not picking on BAML here, not at all.

But I’m highlighting that 2017 has seen an unprecedented rush by retail into the most highly valued stock market since 1900 according to Goldman, a market that remains entirely uncorrected.

But nobody is issuing any risk warnings here. Keep going long my friends we can only go higher and if there’s a dip buy it. And no doubt this strategy has worked.

My perspective remains a variant one: This singularly oriented market construct is at extreme high risk that some trigger will pop all of this.

In a world where nothing has mattered and corrections have disappeared altogether it may be a fair question to ask what such a trigger may be. I’ll leave that for a future post, but I will say this: Triggers are often the excuse to assign cause after the fact. But it is the construct itself that seeds the depth of the ultimate unwind.

Worshippers at the altar of FOMO have come accustomed to no dip ever lasting. Will they find themselves slow to react when one does?

Russia Warns Washington: Confiscating Gold Reserves Would Be “Declaration Of Financial War”

This article was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

In a surprising, and unexpected warning – which seemingly came out of nowhere – Russia’s Finance Minister Anton Siluanov cautioned Washington yesterday that “If our gold and currency reserves can be arrested, even if such a thought exists, it would be financial terrorism.”

The comment appears to have been prompted by consideration of escalating US/EU sanctions which could ultimately impact Russia’s offshore held gold and reserves. If sanctions include the freezing of foreign accounts of the central bank, it would be equal to declaring financial war on Russia, Siluanov said, although he added that he considers such a scenario unlikely (for now).

After making the point that Russia’s budget is prepared for the possibility of tougher US/EU sanctions, RT reports that Siluanov warned if the west include the seizure of Russia’s foreign exchange reserves, it would be regarded as a “declaration of a financial war.”

According to Siluanov, the budget takes into account the risk of income shortfalls. The budget is based on oil prices at $40 per barrel, which is almost a third lower than the current price.

The budget “has a margin of safety in case of restrictions and sanctions.” It also includes losses incurred by a probable ban on investment in Russian government bonds for foreign funds. The US Treasury is currently considering such penalties.

“If we did not have a margin of safety, then it would be easy to weaken us. And then, our so-called friends would say – if you want to get help from the International Monetary Fund, you must do this and that,” said Siluanov.

If sanctions include the freezing of foreign accounts of the central bank, it would be equal to declaring financial war on Russia, Siluanov said. He added that he considers such a scenario unlikely.

As a reminder, in June, Reuters reported that soon after the Crimea reunification with Russia, the Central Bank of Russia allegedly withdrew about $115 billion from the New York Fed. After about two weeks, Russian officials reportedly returned most of the money to its Fed account.

DB"s "2018 Credit Outlook" - Killer Charts Point To Bearish Not Benign Conclusion

DB’s Jim Reid has released his “2018 Credit Outlook”. In our first pass on this 60-pager earlier, we noted that Reid characterised 2017 as the most “boring year ever”, since it will go down as one of, if not the least, volatile year for the majority of asset classes.

Heading into 2018, Reid characterises risk assets as a tightrope walker who’s successfully negotiated a hire wire since the 2008 crisis. However, the confidence of our risk asset funambulist was always fortified by the knowledge that there was a huge safety net direct beneath him in the shape of the central bank put. In Reid’s own words.

The best analogy for our view on 2018 is that risk assets are like a highly skilled but still relatively inexperienced tightrope walker. Our tightrope walker started his career immediately after the GFC and earned his apprenticeship in very difficult conditions with lots of crosswinds but with the knowledge that a huge safety net existed beneath him. This allowed him to walk across the narrow line with slow but ever-increasing confidence, skill and aplomb. In our analogy the safety net is the central bank put that has continued to help financial markets’ confidence over the last several years in spite of very challenging conditions.

As the tightrope walker steps from December 2017 into January 2018, he’s going to notice a disconcerting change in his safety net.

However in 2018 our tightrope walker will have to move onto the next phase of his career where the structural support of the safety net will likely be slowly weakened. Every time he looks down he’ll figuratively see a central banker loosen or take away a supporting rope. As such his skills and confidence are likely to be tested more than in recent years.

Reid is specifically referring to the growth in the size of the big four DM central bank balance sheets, i.e. the Federal Reserve, ECB, Bank of Japan and the Bank of England. At the end of 2017, the combined size of the big four’s balance sheets is estimated to reach about $14.9 trillion, an increase of about $1.8 trillion on the end of 2016. That’s about to change radically, as he notes.

Assuming fairly neutral and consensus assumptions, central bank balance sheet growth will fall sharply over the next 12-24 months from the near peak levels currently seen.

The chart below shows that on a rolling twelve-month basis, growth will fall sharply, beginning in 2Q 2018. By the end of 2018, DM estimates that the rolling twelve-month growth will have declined about 75% from its 2017 level to about $450 billion. By August 2019, growth will have declined to zero according to DB’s estimate.

As the report notes, this “represents a changing of the guard for ultra-easy policy”. The problem for Reid’s tightrope walker is that he’s come so far, there’s no turning back, even if he knows the risk of a catastrophe is only going to increase for the best part of the next two years. From Reid’s perspective, the threshold in terms of higher risk will be crossed as we move from Q2 2018 in the second half of next year.

So barring an external shock the ECB will be relatively dormant until late in Q2 when speculation will start to mount about what comes next after the current QE extension to the end of September 2018. DB’s expectation is for a quick and full taper in Q4 and the first policy rate hike in June 2019. As such, as we approach the June meeting - which will probably be the earliest that any announcement will occur - more hawkish speculation will likely start to mount about the future of the program. Indeed by the time we get to H2 2018 we’ll potentially be seeing a very different global QE picture to that we’ve been used to in the recent past. By then the Fed will be well into its gradual, but slowly increasing run down of its balance sheet.

As the report notes, the slowdown in QE purchases in 2017 will likely coincide with significantly different conditions to the most recent example in 2014-15.

While markets went through similar balance sheet wind downs through 2014 and into 2015 - driven predominantly by the Fed and ECB - not only was the stock of global QE lower with less central banks conducting such operations, we also had a situation where the tapering was consistent with a reduction in government issuance.

Fast forward to 2018 and a reduction of purchases across the globe could be occurring at a time when there is a move to increase government spending even if this isn’t yet showing up in the forecasts. The US tax plans haven’t been finalized as we go to print but an unfunded tax cut is our base case which will add to the deficit and eventually to treasury issuance. In the UK the budget - seen just before we went to print - included some loosening of the fiscal purse, as the current administration deal with Brexit risks and a population tired of austerity. Even in Germany, the recent election uncertainty and eventual coalition could include some fiscal stimulus.

So we think the tide is turning away from ultra-loose monetary and relatively tight fiscal even if the official fiscal forecasts from most commentators are yet to include much in the way of easing across the globe.

Reid backs up his forecasts with charts for the three key central banks, firstly the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan. The chart for the Fed shows that its purchases of Treasuries have never exceeded net supply. In contrast, the BoJ has exceeded net supply during the last four or so years of Abenomics, although the ratio has stabilised at around three times.

Turning to the ECB, the change in ECB purchases versus net issuance will be dramatic as 2018 unfolds.

 

Reid argues that.

Interestingly, if we look at the Fed, BoJ and ECB Government bond purchases versus net supply of domestic Government bonds we can see how the ECB’s removal of QE could be very different to that of the Fed relative to when it started tapering. In addition the supply/demand dynamic for European Government bonds has recently been even more extreme than in Japan…as ECB purchases have recently been seven times net issuance at their recent peak.

So in other words we’ve seen the huge PSPP volume far outstrip the relatively negligible net issuance in the Euro area. While the Fed program was clearly huge in absolute terms, relative to supply it was much more modest. It also declined along with Treasury issuance meaning that yields could be sheltered from the tapering impact.

In Europe we could see government bond QE go from seven times net issuance in Q3 2017 to more in line with it by the end of 2018. As the realisation mounts that ECB QE withdrawal is much more significant in relative terms to that seen in the US in 2014 then fixed income markets could become more vulnerable which may in turn create more volatility and more difficult conditions for credit spreads.
Which…unless we are missing something…sounds very bearish for European credit.

Nonetheless, when it comes to the DB team’s central case for credit spreads in 2018, they are relatively benign. Indeed, DB expects a tightening in Q1 2018, followed by a modest widening from Q2 2018 to the end of the year.

As the report notes, team member “Craig” is more bearish than his colleagues and his views seems more in keeping with the general thrust of the report.

Combining the net purchases versus net issuance data for the Fed, ECB and BoJ, Reid notes.

When we combine these three central bank purchases with net issuance historically in Figure 18 we can see just how supportive the technicals have been for government bonds. This is seemingly peaking out at the end of 2017 and with our forecasts for central bank purchases and a continuation of the 2013-2017 reduction in Government bond net issuance we expect this now to reverse. For choice we think fiscal spending will start to pick up which means these net issuance estimates are probably too aggressive on the downside.

Once again, the correct conclusion would seem to be bearish, although DB seems reluctant to go there. We are even more perplexed when DB cites the risk that inflation will surprise on the upside.

Meanwhile we think the risks to inflation are on the upside…will likely mean that crosswinds pick up as we move through Q2 and into H2 – a period where US inflation might start to more consistently beat on the upside (or at least not consistently miss on the downside) and markets start to think about a June ECB meeting where the end of Euro QE is possibly announced.

Returning to his metaphor of the tightrope walker, DB notes the probability of him remaining on his wire will deteriorate as the year progresses.

If we’re correct on inflation it’s going to be difficult for central bankers to justify anything other than the slow and steady removal of the safety net beneath our intrepid tightrope walker. As such his task will get more difficult purely because his confidence must surely weaken with more risks associated with any fall. As such he’s likely to wobble more. So expect volatility to finally start to increase after surprising many by staying as low for as long as it has done. At this stage the tightrope walker may have enough skill to safely navigate across to the next point (end 2018), however the probabilities of such a successful outcome are likely to be getting lower as the year progresses.

Perhaps Reid has been dissuaded from taking a more bearish stance by the ultra-low environment for volatility which he noted had made 2017 so boring. Indeed, he notes the close correlation between major asset volatility levels and credit spreads.

As we noted in our first pass on DB’s “2018 Credit Outlook”

Reid joins countless other strategists opining on the lack of vol in the past year, asking "why has volatility been so low and can it continue?" His answer is that the most likely reason for volatility being so low is a combination of:

• Synchronised and firm global growth;


• Inflation that has consistently been in the ‘Goldilocks’ range and not accelerating as much as expected in 2017, and;


• Global central bank liquidity which in 2017 has still been close to peak levels.

What Reid neglected to mention is that volatility has itself become a tradeable input – making it reflexive in nature - and one which has been shorted to insane levels, both implicitly and explicitly.

The rapid elimination of the central bank security net coupled with rising inflation are transforming the risk profile for Reid’s tightrope walker, as he acknowledges, and one where the chances of a sustained spike in volatility must be commensurately higher. We know from his writings that Reid is a big Liverpool (soccer) fan, as are we. It’s been a frustrating season so far. So often, the build-up play has been excellent while putting the ball in the back of the net has been elusive. We felt like this about DB"s otherwise impressive report.

Morgan Stanley Turns Apocalyptic On Credit: "A Cycle Turn Is Closer Than Many Believe"

While many have repeatedly warned over the past year that the record gains in credit are simply too good to stay - especially in Europe where yields and spreads have collapsed largely thanks to the ECB"s relentless purchases of corporate debt, with the central bank announcing on Monday it held a record €127.7bn in bonds under its CSPP program - few are as bearish on credit as Morgan Stanley, which today issued ots 2018 US Credit Outlook which is, in a word, "dire."

In the report titled "When the Levee Breaks" strategist Adam Richmond list the three biggest headwinds for credit as follows: "Fed policy should become a material headwind, markets seem very late cycle, and valuations look extremely rich" and details each below:

An unprecedented central bank unwind... We think there is way too much complacency regarding what is a notable and growing shift in central bank policy globally. Remember, monetary policy has been massive in this cycle, and extremely supportive for credit markets. The Fed is now tightening in an untested way, through the balance sheet, while also pushing rates near restrictive territory. Markets expect a seamless unwind. We do not.

 

...with markets late cycle, and very dependent on ultra-easy liquidity... It is not a coincidence that fundamental problems are becoming more apparent in one sector after the next, as the Fed withdraws liquidity. In fact, we see late-cycle risks popping up all over the place, and as is often the case near a top, these risks are mistakenly (we think) being rationalized as purely "idiosyncratic" problems. Defaults should remain low in 2018, but that is expected. Credit markets anticipate defaults one year ahead of time, and we think a cycle turn is closer than many believe.

 

...and valuations very rich: Spreads are near all-time tights, adjusting for the quality deterioration in the indices over time. Yes, the technicals have been strong, but that may change as the Fed"s balance sheet shrinks faster. We note, a recession is not necessary to see negative excess returns, especially in the second half of a cycle, and particularly late in a Fed tightening cycle. Credit markets have not experienced three straight years of positive excess returns in over 20 years.

Looking at the technicals, Morgan Stanley echoes what we said last month when he showed the collapse in spreads to 2007 levels, and warns that "credit spreads are very rich nearly any way we slice the data. Spreads adjusted for leverage are back to 2007 levels in high yield, and 1997 levels in IG."

Exhibit 20 shows our fair value model for IG, HY and loans. In short, we estimate that IG, HY and loan spreads are 41bp, 197bp, and 111bp rich to fair value, respectively, using long-term default, downgrade, and risk-premium assumptions. And as we show in Exhibit 21 below, if we adjust for the deterioration in quality of the IG index over time, we find spreads are only 9bp wide of the all-time tights.

One of the main reasons for Richmond"s bearishness, is the "complacency" about the Fed"s tightening, which of course is applicable to all asset classes. He explains:

More than anything else, we firmly believe that central banks have been THE driver of credit in this cycle, stimulating markets like never before. Now they are attempting to tighten in a completely untested way, and yet credit is pricing in a seamless unwind. At the least, we expect a bumpier 2018, with a tougher setup anyway we slice it. Growth will decelerate, while the Fed continues tightening into a low-inflation environment, driving a completely flat yield curve (per our rates forecasts). Additionally, the year is beginning with booming confidence, as hopes for tax cuts rise, thus the bar to positively surprise is high, while "Goldilocks" is firmly in the price across most risk assets.

 

We would not rule out the scenario in which financial conditions could tighten materially next year as the Fed withdraws stimulus in this unprecedented way, especially if growth expectations decline at the same time, pushing us from late cycle to end of cycle (though not our economists’ base case). And for those expecting the Fed to come to the rescue any time volatility picks up, remember that, with the balance sheet now effectively set on "auto-pilot," reversing course, in our view, is a last resort.

 

Taking a step back, per our forecasts, the Fed will hike 3 times in 2018. While gradual on the surface, this rate-hike cycle needs to be put in context. In other words, as we show in Exhibit 3 this time around, the Fed began hiking much later in an expansion, when GDP growth was weaker and corporate leverage higher vs. the start of past rate-hike cycles. In fact, given the drop in the neutral real Fed funds rate over time, monetary policy is already not that far from restrictive territory

 

 

As a result, we believe markets can withstand less tightening than a low absolute level of rates might suggest (exhibit 4). And remember, this is a unique rate-hike cycle. One, tightening began not when the Fed first hiked rates in December 2015, but when they began tapering in early 2014. In this regard, the Fed has arguably already tightened policy by a similar amount as in past cycles (Exhibit 5), a point when credit spreads tend to widen on average (Exhibit 6). Two, along the same lines, the Fed is continuing to tighten, not just by hiking rates, but also through reverse QE.

 

 

In fact, we believe investors are focused primarily on the "gradual" pace of rate hikes, treating the balance sheet as an afterthought. But the numbers are large. For example, the Fed will shrink its balance sheet by ~$400bn in 2018 alone. In our view, credit investors underestimated the tailwind from QE in this bull market. Similarly, they may now be underestimating the headwind from reverse QE. And while global central banks will still be adding liquidity next year, even they will be doing so at a slower pace, with the ECB cutting their purchases in half in 2018 and likely ending QE altogether around September of next year, while the BOJ hikes their long-term rate target in 3Q18.

 

 

We see "quantitative tightening" as a clear catalyst for weaker technicals – i.e., fixed income demand needs to rise to absorb the additional supply or prices have to adjust somewhere (supply/demand 101). Why not expect the opposite of what happened when the Fed was expanding its balance sheet in this cycle (one-way flows into US credit), as the Fed begins its unwind, at least at the margin?

Assessing rate risk, MS says that while the Fed may in fact be successful at threading the needle, an outcome that is likely already priced into markets. However, the bank warns that "at the least we can be certain that as the balance sheet shrinks more rapidly, so will the "liquidity buffer" in markets, which should magnify any negative catalyst that pops up along the way."

Another major risk factor for Morgan Stanley is that the US economy is now very late in the cycle, to wit:

Markets are very late cycle, in our view, and if anything these risks have risen compared to this time last year. That we are in a late-cycle environment is a consensus view, but "late cycle" can mean different things to different people. To be more specific, we think there is a good chance that markets peak for the cycle in 1H18 and price in rising defaults in a bigger way throughout the year. But even if our timing continues to be too early, remember, late-cycle environments are often not great for credit returns regardless, with equities often outperforming. (Note, as we discuss further below, we believe the very late-cycle signal where credit/equities diverge is already happening, focusing on CCC-rated HY credit.) A recession is not necessary for credit spreads to widen late in a cycle. In fact, credit markets have not had three straight years of positive excess returns since 1996.

Here Richmond takes offense with the argument that weak growth for much of this cycle has prevented "excesses" from building, and hence an already long cycle can last even longer. As he says "we disagree and see excesses all over the place, driven in part by years of ultra-low rates." He notes the following specific details:

• Credit markets have grown by 116% in this cycle, and leverage is at unprecedented levels for a non-recessionary environment.


• Low quality BBB issuance was 44% of total IG supply in 2017, a record as far back as we have data, and B rated or below loan issuance is now two thirds of total loan supply.


• LBOs levered over 6x are now a higher percentage of new LBO loans than in 2007. Covenant quality is considerably weaker than pre-crisis, while the debt cushion beneath the average loan is much lower.


• Investors have reached for yield in fixed income in this cycle in a massive way. Foreign flows have flooded into the asset class, arguably treating US credit as a rates product, while liquidity needs have risen, with mutual fund/ETF ownership of credit now over 19% vs. 11% pre-crisis.


• Excesses are apparent even outside of corporate credit, with underwriting quality deteriorating in auto lending in this cycle, while non-mortgage consumer debt is at a high, and CRE prices are ~25% above prior-cycle peaks.


• Stock-buyback activity has been substantial in this cycle, credit valuations have rarely been richer, and consumer confidence has not been this high since 2000.

Summarizing, and "cutting through the details" Morgan Stanley says that it has high conviction in the following two points:

1. Excesses have to be out there, given what central banks have done in this cycle – i.e., rates near or below zero for nearly a decade and round after round of QE globally, and


2. the excesses are always difficult to spot as markets are rising, and then become obvious after the turn (how did I miss that?). We think this time is no different. To be clear, excesses are not everywhere. For example, credit quality did not deteriorate in places like housing and US financials in this cycle. However, this simply tells us that the problems of the last cycle will not be the same as the problems of the next.

As a result, 2018 is when the critical mass of excesses finally spills over, or, to reuse the title, "the levee finally breaks":

While the excesses may be out there, that has arguably been the case for a while. The difference, we think, is that more cracks are now forming under the surface, which in our view, means a turn is closer than the consensus believes. For example, outside of corporate credit, we have seen signs of weakness and tighter credit conditions in places like commercial real estate. Consumer delinquencies are rising across products (i.e., autos, credit cards, and student loans). And in corporate credit, one sector after the next is exhibiting "idiosyncratic" problems (e.g., Retail, Telecom, and Healthcare to name a few). All of this is consistent with a late-cycle environment where the yield curve is flattening, correlations in markets are dropping, the economy is at (or arguably through) full employment, the Fed is well advanced in its tightening cycle (we think), and equity multiples are expanding.

To Richmond, these dynamics are "late-cycle 101. Problems pop up early on in the areas that experienced the most severe deterioration in fundamentals in the bull market. Investors initially treat those issues as "idiosyncratic." The problems then spread when credit conditions tighten more broadly. And along these lines, we think it is not a coincidence that weaker-quality high yield credits are underperforming, as the Fed is hiking faster and quantitative tightening is now being set in motion."

If that wasn"t enough, Morgan Stanley highlights two further risks: one having to do with the incremental impact of tax cuts, should they pass...

And as a side note, tax cuts would not extend the cycle in our view – they risk doing the opposite. Very simply, credit markets will benefit from anything that keeps the cycle going – modest growth and a patient Fed. Tax cuts that come when the unemployment rate is 4.1%, which drives an overheating labor market, forcing a more aggressive Fed, if anything could cut off the cycle sooner.

... and the inevitable rise in default intensity:

We think there is a high likelihood that defaults will start rising again late next year and into 2019. Without going into the details here, in our view, CCC HY bonds are already "sniffing out" these budding default risks with their recent weakness. This should continue as tighter central bank policy exposes the fundamental challenges in the asset class (the problems are easier to hide when markets are flooded with liquidity). And the fundamental issues are broad-based. Not only is leverage high across sectors, but we also estimate that almost 30% of the HY market is either in secular decline or has clear operational challenges (Exhibit 16), with declining revenue growth over the past five years. Thinking about it more quantitatively, as we show in the default section below, based on the lag between when the cycle indicators we track have turned historically and when defaults have subsequently spiked, as well as the status of those metrics today, 2019 could be a year of materially higher defaults.

Wrapping up the above, Morgan Stanley"s conclusion is the following:

Adding everything up, we see three key challenges in 2018: 1) Credit markets have been hugely reliant on central banks in this cycle, and now the Fed is withdrawing liquidity in an unprecedented way. We think markets are underestimating the risks of a mistake. 2) This liquidity withdrawal is happening while late-cycle risks (we think) are popping up all over the place. 3) Investors are buying credit at valuations that almost guarantee poor long-term returns, with the assumption that they will be able to time when to get out before the turn.

... or stated even simpler, "get out now."