The focus shifts today to the Euro area as there has been action on a number of fronts. Firstly the world’s second most notable orange person has been speaking at the online Northern Lights Summit. The Orangina Christine Lagarde seems to have upset the folk at ForexLive already.
Lagarde reaffirms that government debt will eventually have to be repaid
No. Just no. Governments will never run surpluses just with a snap of a finger and what is happening to the world and their debt levels now is basically what we have seen with Japan over the past two decades.
Actually before the pandemic Germany was running surpluses but the majority were not. We also got some classic Christine Lagarde as she waffled.
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The euro zone is “probably past” the worst of the economic crisis caused by the coronavirus pandemic, European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said on Friday, while urging authorities to prepare for a possible second wave.
“We probably are past the lowest point and I say that with some trepidation because of course there could be a severe second wave,” Lagarde told an online event.
At least she is not declaring success as Greeks and Argentinians have learnt to be terrified of what happens next after painful experience.
Also there has been this.
FRANKFURT (Reuters) – It is better for the European Central Bank to be safe than sorry when it decides whether to withdraw aggressive stimulus measures deployed to combat the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic, ECB policymaker Olli Rehn said on Friday.
“It’s better to be safe than sorry,” Rehn said. “Recall the premature rate hikes of 2011 during the euro crisis.”
This is a classic strategy where a policymaker suggests things may be reduced (yesterday) and today we have the good cop part of this simple Good Cop,Bad Cop pantomime.
Money Supply
Back on the 29th of May I pointed out that the blue touch paper had been lit on the money supply boom of 2020. Well the rocket is lifting off.
Annual growth rate of narrower monetary aggregate M1, comprising currency in circulation and overnight deposits, increased to 12.5% in May from 11.9% in April.
That compares with the recent nadir of an annual rate of 6.2% in January of 2019. Another comparison is that the rate of annual growth was around 8% before the latest phase of monetary action such as the extra Quantitative Easing of the PEPP. The weekly reporting does not exactly match a month but we saw an extra 116 billion Euros in May from it.
You will not be surprised to learn that the surge above pushed broad money growth higher as well.
Annual growth rate of broad monetary aggregate M3, increased to 8.9% in May 2020 from 8.2% in April (revised from 8.3%).
Indeed it is mostly a narrow money thing.
Looking at the components’ contributions to the annual growth rate of M3, the narrower aggregate M1 contributed 8.4 percentage points (up from 8.0 percentage points in April), short-term deposits other than overnight deposits (M2-M1) contributed 0.2 percentage point (up from -0.1 percentage point) and marketable instruments (M3-M2) contributed 0.3 percentage point (as in the previous month).
The pattern here is not quite the same as whilst the January 2019 reading at 3.8% was low the nadir is 3.5% in August of 2018. That provides some food for thought because if you apply the expected response to this the Euro area economy should have been slowing further about now. Of course the pandemic has created such a fog we cannot see one way or another about whether that held true.
There is another way of analysing this and here is a balance sheet style view.
credit to the private sector contributed 5.3 percentage points (up from 4.8 percentage points in April), credit to general government contributed 3.6 percentage points (up from 2.3 percentage points), net external assets contributed 1.0 percentage point (down from 1.4 percentage points), longer-term financial liabilities contributed 0.0 percentage point (as in the previous month), and the remaining counterparts of M3 contributed -0.9 percentage point (down from -0.3 percentage point).
I counsel caution about reading too much into this as back in the day such analysis when spectacularly wrong in the UK. Accounting identities are all very well but they miss the human component as well as some of the actual numbers. But we see growth from the government sector and the private-sector here. Also the external component has faded a bit in relative terms which provides a counterpoint to another piece of news.
Grandstanding?
From yesterday when all our troubles apparently not so far away.
Eurosystem repo facility for central banks (EUREP) introduced as precautionary backstop to address pandemic-related euro liquidity needs outside euro area….EUREP to allow broad set of central banks to borrow euro against euro-denominated debt issued by euro area central governments and supranational institutions….New facility to be available until June 2021.
These things are invariably badged as temporary but last time I checked the “temporary” income tax in the UK to pay for the Napoleonic War is still here. But as to what good it might do in a world where nobody seems to actually want Euros in this manner I am not sure. Perhaps it is a protection against another outbreak of the “Carry Trade” as this bit hints.
The provision of euro liquidity to non-euro area central banks aims at alleviating euro liquidity needs in the respective countries in a stressed market environment. The
potential beneficiaries are banks that need euro funding and are not able to obtain such funding in the market or get it only at prohibitive prices.
Although there is no real link at all to this.
Overall, these arrangements aim to facilitate a smooth transmission of monetary policy in the euro
area to the benefit of all euro area citizens
Let me help out bu suggesting replacing “all euro area citizens” with “The Precious! The Precious!”.
Here is what is presumably the official view from former ECB Vice-President Vitor Constancio. You may recall that Vitor’s job was to respond with technical questions at the ECB presser with a long involved answer that would send everyone to sleep. But at least he had a role unlike his replacement.
The ECB, reflecting awareness about the international role of the euro, just announced a new repo facility for other central banks to get euros against collateral.The FED dit it recently ..In general, the EU is finally aware of its geo-political interests.
The Fed saw demand of over US $400 billion at the peak whereas I suspect the Euro interest may be more like 0. Maybe someone will request a million or two as a test?
Comment
The relevance of the money supply changes is as follows. Narrow money supply impacts in the next 6 months and broad money in around two years. So assuming there is no Covid-19 second wave the push will impact as economies are picking up anyway. That is awkward as there is a clear inflation danger from this. There are signs of it already as we see the oil price pick up which even the neutered official inflation numbers will record. They of course miss the bit described by Abba.
Money, money, money
Must be funny
In the rich man’s world
Money, money, money
Always sunny
In the rich man’s world
Although we do see evidence of a type of money destruction.
Germany’s Wirecard collapsed on Thursday owing creditors almost $4 billion. ( Reuters )
The regulators are now on the case but.
All the money’s gone, nowhere to go ( The Beatles )