Gold was close to its nominal all-time high today, reaching as high as $1419 per ounce, as the Euro fell, and bourses oscillated during the day. The focus is on the Irish budget vote tomorrow, with markets remaining reasonably quiet in the lead-up period.
Bernanke says cheap yuan is bad for both China and U.S. More QE possible if the economy continues to underperform.
The limited bullishness in trading was a result of the focus on Ben Bernanke's comments today during interview for the CBS program "60 minutes", in which the chairman made it clear that he and his team are prepared to go further beyond the $600 billion in bond purchases and similar operations if the sluggishness of the economy persists.
On the USDCNY issue, he stated that the Chinese must allow greater flexibility for the yuan so that they do not have to adopt the same monetary stance as the Fed, and can combat inflation by pursuing their own independent stance based on domestic factors. He maintained the line adopted by Treasury Secretary Geithner that the Chinese position is untenable and harmful to the U.S., China, and their trading partners. On the whole, the currency issue appears to have been left almost entirely to the management of the Treasury Department, and Mr. Bernanke's comments do not signal any change.
The chairman was asked some questions about the external debt of the U.S., to which he replied in an optimistic but cautious tone, saying that while the U.S. does not face a confidence or solvency crisis at the moment, Americans should not "wait however many years it takes until we are at that point". He maintained his cautious tone in response to questions about budget cuts, stating that the U.S. must avoid hasty budget cuts, although something needs to be done to manage the rising debt burden.
Although in this particular case, Bernanke did much to say nothing while talking a lot, in general it is hard to fault the Fed Chairman for indecisiveness, or lack of clarity. The ECB for instance, finds it difficult to find a common stance nowadays, and is a hotbed of dissession of conflicting opinions. Rapid reversals of course are common. The Fed, on the other hand, presses on with its conclusive main theme of printing as much money as it can in order to keep the economy afloat and preventing a recession, and while the merits of its choices are always open to heated discussion, that it has been communicating its plans sufficiently clearly over the past quarters is not a major point of contention. Whether this will benefit the U.S. economy over the long term is a different matter, however.
Merkel threatens to leave the Euro, refuses to commit to an enlargement of the EFSF, CDS rally
The Guardian newspaper has published an article where it is reported that PM Angela Merkel threatened, somewhat lightly, that Germany may quit the Eurozone if her concerns are not heeded. Bloomberg, too, reports that the Germans are unwilling to join the Eurobond idea currently being discussed, and that they don't want to sponsor the proposed increase in the size of the EFSF. At the same time, the same Germans are saying that the Euro is safe, that the Eurozone will not break up, and that they will do their utmost to prevent the risks from threatening the demise of the common market. One must wonder what exactly they have in mind if they are not prepared to pay when the bill comes due, since the cost of the survival of the single currency is not small.
There seems to a degree of consensus among a majority of analysts and commentators that the Germans will eventually have to give in to market demands, if only because the alternative is impractically dangerous and destructive. No one knows how deep the impact of the chain reaction following the implosion of the Euro would be. We quote in this context briefly from report in Bloomberg that reads:
Europe has "no credibility" in ruling out debt restructurings, Kenneth Rogoff a Harvard University professor and former International Monetary Fund chief economist, said in a Bloomberg Television interview broadcast today. "Greece will be very lucky to avoid restructuring, Ireland, Portugal -- they're just in denial, saying it can't happen. They really haven't drawn clear lines, they haven't really said what they wanted to do, they haven't really made choices."
Nor can the nations of the core afford to let them collapse with totally unpredictable consequences for the whole world. So some series of bailouts will follow until Spain reaches the door with open hand.
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Meanwhile, ECB's Christian Noyer, the Governor of Bank of France, has remarked today that the present measures of liquidity are to be maintained at least until the first quarter of 2011.Many suspect that they may be extended quite a bit further unless the periphery stages a rather unlikely recovery by then.
Although Moody's cut Hungary's sovereign rating by two notches to Baa3, the debt markets were generally stable, after the exhausting widening of the past weeks. The market remains weak, but is not willing to stage any strong move to either side at the moment. This is, after all, a Monday. Our eyes will be on Ireland's vote this week on the 2011 austerity budget, as the government tries to survive with its paper-thin majority. The possibility of failure, and an ensuing general election is preventing the markets from staging a meaningful movement before the result of the Tuesday vote becomes clear.
With respect to the interbank market, the improvement in CDS and peripheral spreads has not been mirrored in the Euribor rates, with the 3-month benchmark moving to 1.028% vs. Friday's 1.027%. Euribor rates have retreated from the 1.050% level reached earlier, but we conjecture that they will reach beyond those levels at some point next year as the usual concerns become transferred to the banks due to exposure concerns. That tensions remain significant in this segment is made evident by the deposit facility usage statistics of the ECB, which show that Eurozone banks placed some Eur84.85 billion in the bank's coffers for interest income versus the previous week's Eur26.93 billion, implying a lack of counterparty trust in the region as uncertainty dominates. These numbers are tempered by the lack of a need, apparently, to resort to the marginal lending facility, which we take to mean that the banking sector remains isolated for now from the issues for as long as the authorities can avoid a breakdown. As Merkel's comments show, however, it is far from clear that this will be the case.
Monday is a quiet day, with few news providing guidance on how the rest of the week may progress. At the same time, we suspect that the Irish vote tomorrow has the potential to wreak havoc on the markets if the result leaves the country without a government during this most difficult period.
