Montreal, Canada
It’s a big mistake to assume that bank balance-sheets across Europe have seen the worst as the global economic recovery enters its sixth month. Credit default swaps, contracting bank lending, tepid consumer spending and regional woes in Central Europe all pose ongoing threats to a sustainable recovery in Europe.
To be sure, the risk of a systemic bank collapse has receded since governments across the euro-zone announced blanket guarantees on deposits last October. Many of the weakest institutions have been de facto bailed-out by local governments and stock prices have surged off their multi-decade lows.
Yet it’s important to point out that despite unprecedented government efforts to expand the money-supply since last fall and grow inflation, euro-zone M3 (the broadest measure of bank credit growth) is still contracting. Loan growth is also contracting. Consumer prices across the euro-zone remain in the deflation zone – another challenge for central banks as they hope to boost inflation, which remains in short supply since oil prices and asset bubbles collapsed starting in July 2008.
Evil still lurks across Europe – especially in the banking and insurance sectors. More losses are coming our way in 2010.
In late August the European Central Bank or ECB voiced concerns about financial derivatives or credit default swaps (CDS). These instruments are used for insurance-like purposes to hedge credit risk if a sovereign or corporate issuer defaults; the ECB continues to warn about CDS counter-party risk. The top ten counter-parties of the leading European banks accounted for 60% of CDS exposure, according to the ECB.
Governments in the West are still in the process of regulating a global platform to settle or clear outstanding credit default swaps, which according to some estimates tops approximately $30-$60 trillion dollars in notional value.
Nobody really knows what the total value of these derivatives is or how to even settle most counter-party trades. The entire sector remains a massive house of cards. Both Warren Buffet and George Soros continue to warn of impending trouble if a global platform is not launched to identify counter-parties; Soros proposes banning credit default swaps altogether.
If global markets were in a freefall from October 2007 through March 2009 – reacting negatively to the deluge of bad economic news – then the opposite is true today. Risky assets have continued to appreciate since March 9 in the biggest rally since 1932 measured in percentage terms.
Good news about the global economy and its continued recovery has pushed stock prices through the roof while even the occasional dose of bad news hasn’t affected prices. These include record U.S. insider stock sales in August, a gaping hole still widespread in financial sector intermediation, contracting loan growth among banks, declining consumer and wholesale prices and rising job losses.
The markets continue to feed only on good news. Just how long this mirage will last is hard to forecast. But at some point reality will check-in. My guess is that will happen in 2010.
Rising consumer goods prices is the sign of tight inflation , these having impact on loans and credit default ratio .
Posted by: Debt Rescue Relief | November 04, 2009 at 04:57 AM