Category Archives: FX

Fed is facing a dilemma…actually a trilemma

05 Friday Jun 2020

Posted by in Asset Allocation, Debt, Equity, FX, Monetary Policy

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Fed is now probably considering which is worse: a UST flash crash or a risky asset flash crash. Or both if they play their hand wrong.

Looking at the dynamics of the changes in the weekly Fed balance sheet, latest one released last night, a few things spring up which are concerning.

1.The rise in repos for a second week in a row – a very similar development to the March rise in repos (when UST10yr flashed crashed). The Fed’s buying of Treasuries is not enough to cope with the supply hitting the market, which means the private sector needs to pitch in more and more in the buying of USTs (which leads to repos up).

This also ties up with the extraordinarily rise in TGA (US Treasury stock-piling cash). But the build-up there to $1.4Tn is massive: US Treasury has almost double the cash it had planned to have as end of June! Bottom line is that the Fed/UST are ‘worried’ about the proper functioning of the UST market. Next week’s FOMC meeting is super important to gauge Fed’s sensitivity to this development

2.Net-net liquidity has been drained out of the system in the last two weeks despite the massive rise in the Fed balance sheet (because of the bigger rise in TGA). It is strange the Fed did not add to the CP facility this week and bought only $1Bn of corporate bonds ($33Bn the week before, the bulk of the purchases) – why?

Fed’s balance sheet has gone up by $3tn since the beginning of the Covid crisis, but only about half of that has gone in the banking system to improve liquidity. The other half has gone straight to the US Treasury, in its TGA account. That 50% liquidity drain was very similar throughout the Fed’s liquidity injection between Sept’19-Dec’19. And it was very much unlike QE 1,2,3, in which almost 90% of Fed liquidity went into the banking system. See here.  Very different dynamics.

Bottom line is that the market is ‘mis-pricing’ equity risk, just like it did at the end of 2019, because it assumes the Fed is creating more liquidity than in practice, and in fact, financial conditions may already be tightening.  This is independent of developments affecting equities on the back of the Covid crisis. But on top of that, the market is also mis-pricing UST risk because the internals of the UST market are deteriorating. This is on the back of all the supply hitting the market as a result of the Treasury programs for Covid assistance.

The US private sector is too busy buying risky assets at the expense of UST. Fed might think about addressing that ‘imbalance’ unless it wants to see another flash crash in UST. So, are we facing a flash crash in either risky assets or UST?

Ironically, but logically, the precariousness of the UST market should have a higher weight in the decision-making progress of the Fed/US Treasury than risky markets, especially as the latter are trading at ATH. The Fed can ‘afford’ a stumble/tumble in risky assets just to get through the supply in UST that is about to hit the market and before the US elections to please the Treasury. Simple game theory suggest they should actually ‘encourage’ an equity market correction, here and now. Perhaps that is why they did not buy any CP/credit this week?

The Fed is on a treadmill and the speed button has been ratcheted higher and higher, so the Fed cannot keep up. It’s a dilemma (UST supply vs risky assets) which they cannot easily resolve because now they are buying both. They could YCC but then they are risking the USD if foreigners decide to bail out of US assets. So, it becomes a trilemma. But that is another story.

The Fed needs to make a decision soon.

Dollar shortage vs. dollar funding stress

19 Thursday Mar 2020

Posted by in FX

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I think we should distinguish between dollar shortage and dollar funding stress. We have a lot of the latter and much less of the former compared to any previous crisis.

‘Dollar shortage’ is your classical EM currency crisis stemming from a balance sheet currency mismatch: borrow in dollars to fund a non-dollar asset. Cue Mexico’94, Asia’97, Russia’98, Brazil’99, Turkey’01, Argentina’01. There are fewer of them nowadays.

A ‘dollar funding stress’ stems from borrowing in dollars to fund a dollar asset – that’s the problem today (see for ex. Z. Pozsar’s latest). It feels like the old EM currency crises because a lot of dollar assets are owned by foreigners but it is very different at the same time as there are no balance sheet currency mismatches.

That distinction is important because the market is treating it as if it is a dollar shortage crisis while it is a classic ‘Mark-to-market (MTM)’ crisis. If the dollars were borrowed through the swap market, refinancing would widen the basis and move the currency. If the borrowing was in the loan/bond market, it would be a credit story, not a currency story.

There is also a break even price for dollar funding above which foreigners would choose to sell the dollar asset and repay the loan, rather than continue to finance it (probably they will have to top up if the MTM has moved too much from where they bought it). All this is a very different situation from a dollar shortage crisis whereby they would need to sell a local currency asset and actually convert proceeds into dollars.

The Fed is well aware of all this and has acted very swiftly to respond to the recent strengthening of the dollar by improving massively the terms of the five existing central bank swap lines and by adding today nine more to the frame. The extraordinary moves in some DM currencies, notably NOK and AUD, has also prompted the respective central banks to verbally intervene (Norges) or ‘not to rule out’ intervention (RBA).

Some people have mentioned to me that a new Plaza Accord is needed. I am not so sure. In my opinion, it would be counterproductive. From a behavioral point of view, a weak dollar is not necessarily beneficial for US assets given that a big chunk of them is owned by foreigners. Just like a worsening of the dollar funding terms may push these people to sell, so could an attempt to substantially weaken the dollar. We shouldn’t forget a small but very much overlooked fact of the 1987 stock market crash: on the weekend before Black Monday, the US Treasury Secretary threatened to devalue the dollar.

Bottom line is that a dollar funding crisis should have a much smaller effect on weakening the local currency than a dollar shortage crisis. The market does not need a dollar devaluation, rather a stable dollar. Policy makers should make sure foreign dollar funding does not blow up. And finally, market pundits should be careful exaggerating the dollar shortage issue.

Fed’s crisis response may endanger the dollar

13 Friday Mar 2020

Posted by in Equity, FX

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The response from the two most powerful central banks could not have been more different. ECB is innovative, using fine tuning and precision in tiered rates and targeted lending; Fed is still throwing the kitchen sink at the market by flooding the banking system with liquidity.

ECB is also going more direct partially because the banking system there is in shatters, but also because it makes sense regardless. Plus, the ECB is already taking credit risk by buying corporate bonds. Surely, the next step is literally direct credit lending and massively expanding the ECB counterparty list.

Fed is still stuck in the old model of credit transmission, entirely relying on the banking system. That model died in 2008, in fact, even before that, in the early 2000s, as the first Basel rules came into effect and the shadow banking system flourished.

Post 2008 it became much more common for financial institutions, like PE etc. to get in the credit loan business. Needless to say, this carries a big risk given that they don’t have access to Fed’s balance sheet like the banks.

The US banking system is now flooded with liquidity. If the new repo auctions are fully subscribed, this will double banks’ reserve balances and will bring them to the peak post the 2008 crisis. But do banks need that liquidity?  It does not seem so: the first $500Bn repo auction yesterday had just $78Bn of demand. But that liquidity from the Fed is there on demand, plus the central banks swaps lines are open, and as of March 12, none has been drawn. And finally, the foreign reverse repos pool balance at the Fed has not shown any unusual activity (no drawdowns). All this is indicating that USD liquidity is at the moment sufficient, if not superfluous, so, it should have a negative effect on USD, given long USD has been a popular position post 2008.

All this liquidity, however, may still do nothing to stocks, as seen by their performance into the close yesterday, because balance sheet constraints prevent banks from channelling that liquidity further into the US economy where it is surely needed. From one hand, the Fed is really pushing on a string when it comes to domestic dollar liquidity, but, on the other, it is providing more than plenty abroad. 

Risky assets are still a sell on any bounce, and the USD is probably a sell as well, as the Fed will be forced to keep cutting but it is now running a risk of foreign money exiting long established overweight positions in US assets.