ECB’s Focus Shifting to Bank Lending

Oct 1, 2020 | European Economy

The ECB has repeatedly stressed the primacy of its PEPP asset-purchase program in tackling the economic impacts of Covid, despite the importance of the bank-lending channel for the European economy, given the high degree f financial intermediation. The decision taken...

AUSTRALIA’S HOUSING DATA STILL TERRIBLE ACROSS THE BOARD

Feb 22, 2019 | Australia

The vulnerability of the Australian housing market should be well-known to the market by now, but there is no reason to fight this and be contrarian for contrarian’s sake. The latest housing market data in Australia continues to deteriorate and maintains the very...

The Italian Doom Loop

Nov 16, 2018 | European Economy, Uncategorized

With Rome appearing to square off with Brussels over its contentious budget, BTPs have faced considerable pressure and bank stocks have been hammered. This is the nefarious doom loop: Italian banks own a large chunk of Italian government debt and, given the lack of...

Dollar Funding Shortage set to Continue

Nov 8, 2018 | US Economy

The widening of the cross-currency basis (JPY, EUR and GBP, in particular) against the US dollar provides further evidence of a structural dollar-funding shortage, which is set to worsen as the Fed tightens. Although the spread typically widens towards year end, the...

Australian Banks: A Shorting Opportunity

Feb 3, 2017 | Australia

The housing-driven downturn we have discussed through last year continues to develop, albeit at a slower pace than we originally expected. The situation is deteriorating, though, with building permits – the best leading indicator for housing – now falling...

Financials Rally at Odds with Credit Cycle

Jan 6, 2017 | US Economy

Financials have been the biggest winners since the Trump election  The S&P Bank ETF KBE has rallied 29% since the election.  We’ve written about financials over the past few weeks, but it is worth highlighting again. While we may see financials rally in the short...

Negative Feedback Loop in Europe

Jul 22, 2016 | European Economy

While most of the attention post-Brexit has been on the UK, we are far more concerned about Europe.  Markets and the economy operate in a feedback loop, and the performance of European banks relative to the stock market points to a fall in lending ahead in Europe. ...