This morning has opened with something which feels like it is becoming a regular feature. This is the advent of negative bond yields in the UK as we become one of those countries where many said it could not happen here and well I am sure you have guessed it! The two-year bond or Gilt yield is -0.07% and the five-year is -0.03%. As well as the general significance there are particular ones. For example I use the five-year bond yield as a signal for the direction of travel for mortgage rates especially fixed-rate ones. If we look at Moneyfacts we see this.
Lloyds Bank had the lowest rate in the five year remortgage chart for those looking for a 60% LTV. Its deal offers 1.35% (2.8% APRC) fixed until 31 August 2025, which then reverts to 3.59% variable. It charges £999 in product fees and comes with the incentives of free valuation, no legal fees and £200 cashback.
A 1.35% mortgage rate for five-years is extraordinarily low for the UK and reminds me I was assured they would not go below 2%. I am sure some of you are more expert than me in deciding whether what is effectively a £799 fee is good value for free legal fees and valuation?
If we switch to the two-year yield it is particularly significant as it is an implicit effect of all the Bank of England bond or Gilt buying because it does not buy bonds which have less than three years to go. So it is a knock-on effect rather than a direct result.
QE
The total of conventional QE undertaken by the Bank of England is £616.3 billion as of the end of last week. The rate of purchases was £13.5 billion which is relevant for the May money supply numbers we will be looking at today. Looking ahead to June there has been a reduction in weekly purchases to £6.9 billion so a near halving. So as you can see there has been quite a push provided to the money supply figures. It is now slower but would previously have been considered strong itself.
Also the buying of corporate bonds which now is just below £16 billion has added to the money supply and I have something to add to this element.
NEW: The Fed has posted the 794 companies whose bonds it began purchasing earlier this month as part of its “broad market index” Six companies were 10% of the index: Toyota, Volkswagen, Daimler, AT&T, Apple and Verizon ( @NickTimiraos )
You may recall that the Bank of England is also buying Apple corporate bonds and I pointed out it will be competing with the US Federal Reserve to support what is on some counts the richest company in the world. Make of that what you will……
Engage Reverse Gear
This morning we have been updated on how much the UK plans to borrow.
To facilitate the government’s financing needs in the period until the end of August 2020, the UK Debt Management Office (DMO) is announcing that it is planning to raise a
minimum of £275 billion overall in the period April to August 2020.
Each sale reduces the money supply and I can recall a time when this was explicit policy and it was called Overfunding. Right now it would be a sub category of QT or Quantitative Tightening, should that ever happen.
Money Supply
We see that in a similar pattern to what we noted in the Euro area on Friday there is plenty being produced.
The amount of additional money deposited in banks and building societies by private sector companies and households rose strongly again in May (Chart 1). These additional sterling deposit ‘flows’ by households, private non-financial businesses (PNFCs) and financial businesses (NIOFCs), known as M4ex, rose by £52.0 billion in May. This followed large increases in March and April, of £67.3 billion and £37.8 billion respectively. The increase was driven by households and PNFCs, and continued to be strong relative to recent history: in the six months to February 2020, the average monthly increase was £9.3 billion.
The use of PNFCs is to try to take out the impact of money flows within the financial sector. Returning to the numbers we are seeing the consequences of the interest-rate cuts and the flip side ( the bonds are bought with newly produced money/liquidity) of the Bank of England QE I looked at earlier.
Last time around I pointed out we had seen 5% growth in short order and the pedal has continued to be pressed to the metal with a growth rate of 6.7% over the past three months. Or monthly growth rates which are higher than the annual one in May last year. All this has produced an annual growth rate of 11.3%.
Household Credit
This cratered again or to be more specific consumer credit.
Households repaid more loans from banks than they took out. A £4.6 billion net repayment of consumer credit more than offset a small increase in mortgage borrowing. Approvals for mortgages for house purchase fell further in May to 9,300.
I would not want to be the official at the Bank of England morning meeting who presented those numbers to the Governor. A period in a cake trolley free basement awaits. Indeed they may be grateful it does not have any salt mines when they got to this bit.
The extremely weak net flows of consumer credit meant that the annual growth rate was -3.0%, the weakest since the series began in 1994. Within this, the annual growth rate of credit card lending was negative for the third month running, falling to -10.7%, compared with 3.5% in February. Growth in other loans and advances remained positive, at 0.7%. But this was also weak relative to the recent past: in February, the growth rate was 6.8%.
Regular readers will recall when the Bank of England called an annual growth rate of 8.2% “weak” so I guess they will be echoing Ariane Grande.
I have no words
It seems like the air of desperation has impacted the banks too.
Effective rates on new personal loans to individuals fell 34 basis points to 5.10% in May. This was the lowest since the series began in 2016, and compares to a rate of around 7% at the start of 2020.
Mortgages
A small flicker.
On net, households borrowed an additional £1.2 billion secured on their homes. This was slightly higher than the £0.0 billion in April but weak compared to an average of £4.1 billion in the six months to February 2020. The increase on the month reflected more new borrowing by households, rather than lower repayments.
Looking ahead the picture was even worse.
The number of mortgage approvals for house purchase fell to a new series low in May, of 9,300 (Chart 5). This was, almost 90% below the February level (Chart 5) and around a third of their trough during the financial crisis in 2008.
We wait to see if the advent of lower mortgage rates and the re-opening of the economy will help here.
Comment
I am sure that many reading about the UK money supply surge will be singing along with The Beatles.
You never give me your money
You only give me your funny paper
And in the middle of negotiations
You break down
Some will go further.
Out of college, money spent
See no future, pay no rent
All the money’s gone, nowhere to go
Any jobber got the sack
Monday morning, turning back
Yellow lorry slow, nowhere to go
Do I spot a QE reference?
But oh, that magic feeling, nowhere to go
Oh, that magic feeling
Nowhere to go, nowhere to go
There will have been some sunshine at the Bank of England morning meeting.
Small and medium sized businesses drew down an extra £18.2 billion in loans from banks, on net, as their new borrowing increased sharply. Before May, the largest amount of net borrowing by SMEs was £589 million, in September 2016. The strong flow in May led to a sharp increase in the annual growth rate, to 11.8%.
Of course it was nothing to do with them but that seldom bothers a central bankers these days. This next bit might need hiding in the smallest print they can find though.
The quoted UK overdraft rate has reached 32% and yes you did read that right!
Please spare a thought for the unfortunate Bank of England official who has to show that to Governor Bailey. As he caused this surge when running the @TheFCA
— Shaun Richards (@notayesmansecon) June 29, 2020
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