There is much to consider today as we consider the actions of our lords (ladies) and masters or rather our central bankers. Last night brought something which as we have noted before was in the category of “no surprises” sung about by Radiohead.
In view of realized and expected labor market conditions and inflation, the Committee decided to raise the target range for the federal funds rate to 1-1/2 to 1-3/4 percent. The stance of monetary policy remains accommodative,
That was of course the US Federal Reserve and I added the last bit because in a few words it tells us that they are not finished yet. Regular readers will be aware that I think it would be much better to simply raise rates to 2% and take a break as moving at at snail’s pace gives more time for something to go wrong. This brings me to two consequences of what is happening.
Libor
No not the scandals at least not yet! this time we are looking for the first time in a while at sustained increases. From Bloomberg yesterday.
The three-month London interbank funding rate rose to 2.27 percent Wednesday, the highest since 2008. The concern is that the Libor blowout may have more room to run, a prospect that borrowers and policy makers in various markets are just beginning to grapple with.
One way of looking at this is that as we expect more rises that seems reasonable and if we look at the past rather small fry.
If you think Libor is going up now… , check out 1994. Back in the days Amazon just sold books. pic.twitter.com/TWX0LYsecF
— Martin Whetton (@martin_whetton) March 22, 2018
Of course not all of us can remember 1994 and the financial world is of course to coin a phrase “resilient” at least according to the central bankers. This has led people to mull this.
“There has been sort of the perfect storm of factors tightening financial conditions,” said Russ Certo, head of rates at Brean Capital in New York. “Banks do have tremendous liquidity still, but it’s at a higher price.”
You may recall a few years back when worries about bank liquidity in US Dollars were all the rage. This was the era of central banks making agreements for foreign exchange swaps which were mostly ways of making sure they could get US Dollars for their banks from the original source ( the place that can print them at will….) if needed. Here is a refresher on the subject.
In November 2011, the Federal Reserve announced that it had authorized temporary foreign-currency liquidity swap lines with the Bank of Canada, the Bank of England, the Bank of Japan, the European Central Bank, and the Swiss National Bank. These arrangements were established to provide the Federal Reserve with the capacity to offer liquidity to U.S. institutions in currencies of the counterparty central banks (that is, in Canadian dollars, sterling, yen, euros, and Swiss francs). The Federal Reserve lines constitute a part of a network of bilateral swap lines among the six central banks, which allow for the provision of liquidity in each jurisdiction in any of the six currencies should central banks judge that market conditions warrant.
These exist for the opposite purpose as whilst the US Fed is describing things from its point of view and it may one day need some £’s Yen or Euros it is vastly more likely that the counterparty central bank will want US Dollars. After all if the world has a reserve currency in spite of some changes it is it and the likely song is from Aloe Blacc.
I need a dollar, dollar
Dollar that’s what I need
Well I need a dollar, dollar
Dollar that’s what I need
Said I said I need dollar, dollar
Dollar that’s what I need
And if I share with you my story would you share your dollar with me?
Oh and you may like to know that the US Federal Reserve eventually fell into line with the definition of temporary to be found in my financial lexicon for these times.
In October 2013, the Federal Reserve and these central banks announced that their liquidity swap arrangements would be converted to standing arrangements that will remain in place until further notice.
The banks
In the end it all comes down to the “precious” of course and food for thought has been provided by what might be called the central bankers central bank choosing this morning to put this out on social media. From the Bank for International Settlements.
Non-US banks collectively hold $12.6 trillion of dollar-denominated assets – almost as much as US banks…….Dollar funding stress of non-US banks was at the center of the GFC. ( GFC= Global Financial Crisis).
They seem to be pointing the finger in one direction.
We find that Japanese banks pay a premium in their repurchase agreements (“repos”) with US MMFs. We show that the bargaining power of MMFs fund families, together with the particular demand for long term funding of Japanese banks, help explain this premium. ( MMF = Money Market Funds).
This has been a theme of my career which is that in terms of overseas buying ( UK Gilts, Australian property etc…) the Japanese overpay. Care is needed though as the stereotypical response of assuming stupidity ignores the possibility of a longer game being in play. In this instance they have responded.
We provide evidence for European banks intermediating repos to Japanese banks, with economically significant estimated spreads from maturity transformation.
So any issues with the Japanese banks would also affect European ones? The mind boggles as of course contagion was supposed to be off the menu these days due to all the regulation and reform. As we look back I am reminded that it was European and on a smaller scale Japanese banks which dipped into these lines back in the day.
Would it be considered rude to point out that shares in my old employer Deutsche Bank are down another 2% as I type this? More significantly the 11.8 Euros is a fair bit lower than the 17.1 of mid-December.
Libor-OIS
As a consequence of the factors above this is also taking place. From Bloomberg reporting on some analysis from Citibank.
Strategists at the U.S. lender predict that the gap between the London interbank offered rate for dollars and the overnight indexed swap rate will continue to widen, potentially leading to a sharper tightening of financial conditions than central bankers have been anticipating. The differential between three-month rates has already more than doubled since the end of January to 55 basis points, a level unseen since 2009.
Now 55 basis points sounds much more grand that 0.55% but there is a flicker here as we try to price risk.
Comment
As you can see there are stresses in the financial system right now. Some of this was always going to take place when interest-rates went back up. But for me the real issue comes when we look at another market. This is because whichever way you look at the analysis here you would think that the US Dollar would be rising. You can arrive at that route by observing the apparent demand for US Dollars or by the higher interest-rates being paid in it or both. Yet it has been singing along to Alicia Keys.
Oh baby
I, I, I, I’m fallin’
I, I, I, I’m fallin’
FallI keep on
Fallin’
You can represent this by the UK Pound £ being in the US $1.41s or the Japanese Yen being in the 105s take your pick. The latter is off though because if Japanese banks are so keen for US Dollars why is the Yen so strong? To my mind that is much more worrying than Libor on its own as we switch to Carly Simon.
Why?……Don´t know why
Meanwhile returning to the shores of the UK I expect Royal Bank of Scotland to be along. After all it has been in everything else.