03-06-2014, 09:30 AM
'Eerily reminiscent' of pre-GFC conditions
Date
June 3, 2014 - 10:27AM
96 reading nowRead later
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Retail investor trades are easier to detect and hence more lucrative for HFTs.
The warnings are similar to those voiced by the ECB's Jean-Claude Trichet in January 2007, when he told investors to brace for trouble. Photo: Bloomberg
A storm alert today from Simon Derrick at the Bank of New York Mellon. He cites three warnings from leading central bankers, all alarmed by the remarkable disregard for risk in the equity, credit, and currency markets.
The Bank of England's Deputy Governor Charles Bean says the lack of volatility is "eerily reminiscent" of the run up to the financial crisis in 2007-2008. Investors are turning a blind eye to a large fact: that central banks are intent on extricating themselves from QE and emergency policies come what may, and this is going to be a painful experience.
Italy central bank Governor Ignazio Visco issued a similar warning on Friday: "Volatility on the financial markets in the advanced economies has subsided to well below the historic norm, reaching levels that in the past sometimes preceded rapid changes in the orientation of investors."
In America, Dallas Fed chief Richard Fisher has been warning for several weeks that the decline in the VIX index measuring volatility is an accident waiting to happen. One almost has the impression that he is itching to inflict some "two-risk way" into markets to shatter this complacency.
Mr Derrick says dash for yield is all too like the last stage of the carry trade just before Russia and East Asia blew up in 1998, and again in the summer of 2007 when investors seemed to lose all fear. Both episodes ended with a bang, at first signalled by a surge in the Japanese yen.
Today's warnings feels very like those of the ECB's Jean-Claude Trichet at Davos in January 2007 when he told investors to brace for trouble. He said risk spreads had been compressed to dangerously low levels, though the boom was of course to run on for many more months.
Greek 10-year yields ultimately traded at just 26 basis points over German Bunds. Anybody who held on to those Greek bonds lost roughly 75pc.
Willem Buiter, a former UK rate-setter (now at Citigroup), was even blunter at the time. "Current risks are ludicrously underpriced. At some point, someone is going to get an extremely nasty surprise."
My own view is that ever rising equity prices today are incompatible with ever sliding bond yields. The two markets are each telling a different story about the state of the world.
I notice the heroic efforts to justify this on the grounds that falling inflation raises real incomes and profit margins. To which one can only say that falling inflation – and therefore falling nominal GDP growth – also lowers the forward trajectory of equity prices, at least compared to what they were assumed to be. Investors are latching on to one part of the story they like, but ignoring the other part.
Split personality in bonds and stocks can happen for short periods. This rarely lasts. One or the other is going to face reality before long.
Telegraph, London
Date
June 3, 2014 - 10:27AM
96 reading nowRead later
Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Retail investor trades are easier to detect and hence more lucrative for HFTs.
The warnings are similar to those voiced by the ECB's Jean-Claude Trichet in January 2007, when he told investors to brace for trouble. Photo: Bloomberg
A storm alert today from Simon Derrick at the Bank of New York Mellon. He cites three warnings from leading central bankers, all alarmed by the remarkable disregard for risk in the equity, credit, and currency markets.
The Bank of England's Deputy Governor Charles Bean says the lack of volatility is "eerily reminiscent" of the run up to the financial crisis in 2007-2008. Investors are turning a blind eye to a large fact: that central banks are intent on extricating themselves from QE and emergency policies come what may, and this is going to be a painful experience.
Italy central bank Governor Ignazio Visco issued a similar warning on Friday: "Volatility on the financial markets in the advanced economies has subsided to well below the historic norm, reaching levels that in the past sometimes preceded rapid changes in the orientation of investors."
In America, Dallas Fed chief Richard Fisher has been warning for several weeks that the decline in the VIX index measuring volatility is an accident waiting to happen. One almost has the impression that he is itching to inflict some "two-risk way" into markets to shatter this complacency.
Mr Derrick says dash for yield is all too like the last stage of the carry trade just before Russia and East Asia blew up in 1998, and again in the summer of 2007 when investors seemed to lose all fear. Both episodes ended with a bang, at first signalled by a surge in the Japanese yen.
Today's warnings feels very like those of the ECB's Jean-Claude Trichet at Davos in January 2007 when he told investors to brace for trouble. He said risk spreads had been compressed to dangerously low levels, though the boom was of course to run on for many more months.
Greek 10-year yields ultimately traded at just 26 basis points over German Bunds. Anybody who held on to those Greek bonds lost roughly 75pc.
Willem Buiter, a former UK rate-setter (now at Citigroup), was even blunter at the time. "Current risks are ludicrously underpriced. At some point, someone is going to get an extremely nasty surprise."
My own view is that ever rising equity prices today are incompatible with ever sliding bond yields. The two markets are each telling a different story about the state of the world.
I notice the heroic efforts to justify this on the grounds that falling inflation raises real incomes and profit margins. To which one can only say that falling inflation – and therefore falling nominal GDP growth – also lowers the forward trajectory of equity prices, at least compared to what they were assumed to be. Investors are latching on to one part of the story they like, but ignoring the other part.
Split personality in bonds and stocks can happen for short periods. This rarely lasts. One or the other is going to face reality before long.
Telegraph, London
LC