Monthly Archives: October 2019

It’s Now or Never

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Like Elvis said, it’s now or never
For Boris’s Brexit endeavor
The Irish are chuffed
As Coveney huffed
He’s not, but he thinks he’s so clever

Around 7:00 this morning, PM Boris Johnson will be addressing the Tory party at their annual convention and the key focus will be on his plan to ensure a smooth Brexit. The early details call for customs checks several miles away from the border on both sides with a time limit of about four years to allow for technology to do the job more effectively. However, he maintains that the whole of the UK will be out of the EU and that there will be no special deal for Northern Ireland. His supporters in Northern Ireland, the DUP, appear to have his back. In addition, he is reportedly going to demand that an agreement be reached by October 11 so that it can be agreed in Parliament as well as throughout the EU.

Interestingly, the Irish are still playing tough, at least according to Foreign Minister Simon Coveney, who said that the leaked details formed “no basis for an agreement.” Of course, as in everything to do with this process, there are other views in Ireland with Irish PM Varadkar seemingly far more willing to use this as a basis for discussion. His problem is the Fianna Fail party, a key coalition member, is unhappy with the terms. I say this is interesting because in the event of a no-deal Brexit, Ireland’s economy will be the one most severely impacted, with estimates of 4%-5% declines in GDP in 2020.

With respect to the market, it is difficult to untangle the effect of the latest Brexit news from the dreadful economic data that continues to be released. This morning’s UK Construction PMI fell to 43.3, within ticks of the lows seen during the financial crisis in 2009. The pound has suffered, down 0.4% as I type, although it was even softer earlier in the session. The FTSE 100 is also weak, -1.8%, although that is very much in line with the rest of the European equity markets (CAC -1.6%, DAX -1.3%) and is in synch with the sharp declines seen yesterday in the US and overnight in Asia.

Speaking of yesterday’s price action, it was pretty clear what drove activity; the remarkably weak ISM Manufacturing print at 47.8. This was far worse than forecast and the lowest print since June 2009. It seems pretty clear at this point that there is a global manufacturing recession ongoing and the question that remains is, will it be isolated to manufacturing, or will it spill over into the broader economy. Remember, manufacturing in the US represents only about 11.6% of GDP, so if unemployment remains contained and services can hold up, there is no need for the US economy to slip into recession. But it certainly doesn’t help the situation. However, elsewhere in the world, manufacturing represents a much larger piece of the pie (e.g. Germany 21%, China 40%, UK 18%) and so the impact of weak manufacturing is much larger on those economies as a whole.

It is this ongoing uncertainty that keeps weighing on sentiment, if not actually driving investors to sell their holdings. And perhaps of most interest is that despite the sharp equity market declines yesterday, it was not, by any means, a classic risk-off session. I say this because the yen barely budged, the dollar actually fell and Treasuries, while responding to the ISM print at 10:00am by rallying more than half a point (yields -7bps), could find no further support and have not moved overnight. If I had to describe market consensus right now, it would be that everyone is unsure of what is coming next. Will there be positive or negative trade news? Will the impeachment process truly move forward and will it be seen as a threat to the Administration’s plans? Will Brexit be soft, hard or non-existent? As you well know, it is extremely difficult to plan with so many potential pitfalls and so little clarity on how both consumers and markets will react to any of this news. I would contend that in situations like this, owning options make a great deal of sense as a hedge. This is especially so given the relatively low implied volatilities that continue to trade in the market.

Turning to the rest of the session, a big surprise has been the weakness in the Swiss franc, which has fallen 0.6% this morning despite risk concerns. However, the Swiss released CPI data and it was softer than expected at -0.1% (+0.1% Y/Y) which has encouraged traders to look for further policy ease by the SNB, or at least intervention to weaken the currency. But just as the dollar was broadly weaker yesterday, it has largely recouped those losses today vs. its G10 counterparts. Only the yen, which is up a scant 0.15%, has managed to show strength vs. the greenback. In the EMG space, KRW has been the biggest mover, falling 0.55% overnight after North Korea fired another missile into the sea last night, heightening tensions on the peninsula there. Of course, given the negative data (negative CPI and sharply declining exports) there is also a strong case being made for the BOK to ease policy further, thus weakening the won. Beyond that, however, the EMG currency movement has been mixed and modest, with no other currency moving more than 25bps.

This morning after Boris’s speech, all eyes will turn to the ADP employment data (exp 140K) and then we have three more Fed speakers this morning, Barkin, Harker and Williams. Yesterday, we heard from Chicago Fed president Charles Evans, who explained that he felt the economy was still growing nicely and that the two rate cuts so far this year were appropriate. He did not, however, give much of a hint as to whether he thought the Fed needed to do more. Reading what I could of the text, it did not really seem to be the case. My impression is that his ‘dot’ was one of the five looking for one more cut before the September meeting.

And that’s what we have for today. Barring something remarkable from Boris, it appears that if ADP is in line with expectations, the dollar is likely to consolidate this morning’s gains. A strong print will help boost the buck, while a weak print, something on the order of 50K, could well see the dollar cede everything it has gained today and then some.

Good luck
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A Lack of Well-Being

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Down Under the RBA eased
And Aussie bulls have gotten squeezed
In Europe they’re seeing
A lack of well-being
Which has politicians displeased

The RBA cut rates by 25bps last night, as fully expected by the interest rate markets, and they indicated that despite the fact that their base rate was now at a record low of 0.75%, they were considering further easing in the future. The Aussie dollar suffered on the news and is the worst performer in the G10 today, down 0.80%. In fact, Aussie is now at its lowest level since the financial crisis and, in truth, the trend certainly looks like it has further to fall. Australia continues to suffer from the combination of China’s slowing growth as well as the fall-out from the US-China trade war. Alas for the Australians, there is precious little they can do to insulate themselves from those things given they have literally built their economy over the past twenty-five years on the back of Chinese growth. Given the US dollar’s overall trend higher, I see nothing that would change this in the near term. Receivables hedgers beware.

Adding to the global gloom was the release of the Eurozone Manufacturing PMI data which continues to point to a manufacturing recession there. Germany’s was actually slightly better than forecast, but at 41.7 remains far and away the worst of the bunch. The overall Eurozone reading was at 45.7, essentially unchanged from last month and showing no signs of improvement whatsoever. In fact, the sub-indices showed that both new orders and prices paid are falling even faster. Given this news it can be no surprise that Eurozone CPI was released at a weaker than forecast 0.9% this morning as well. It is easy to see why Signor Draghi has been keen to add stimulus to the Eurozone economy, but it will take some time for the most recent activities to work their way into the data, which implies that things are going to get worse before they get better. Interestingly, after an early dip on the data, the euro has clawed back those losses and is now essentially unchanged on the day. Of course, the euro remains in a very clear downtrend and is lower by 1.9% since the ECB’s last policy meeting where they cut rates and restarted QE. Looking back a bit further into the summer, since last June, the single currency has fallen more than 4.6%. This trend, too, has legs.

As a harbinger of the narrative, the WTO released updated forecasts for growth in global trade this morning and the reading was not pretty. The new forecast is for global trade to grow just 1.2% in 2019 and 2.7% in 2020. This compares to growth of 3.0% in 2018, and its last forecasts of 2.6% and 3.0% for this year and next. At this point, the market is sharpening its focus on the upcoming trade negotiations due to begin in Washington on October 10th. Everybody is hoping for a positive outcome, but from everything that has been reported so far, it appears the two sides remain far apart on a number of issues, and though a deal will be beneficial for both, it remains a distant prospect I fear.

Turning our attention to Japan, last night the government auctioned a new tranche of 10-year JGB’s with pretty disastrous results. A day after explaining they will be reducing the amount of purchases in the back end in order to steepen the yield curve, they were true to their word. Yields there climbed 5bps with the bid-to-cover ratio a very weak 3.42, the lowest since 2016. This price action had a knock-on effect everywhere in the world as Treasury prices fell (yields +6bps) with a similar story in Germany (+4.5bps) and the UK (+7bps). For our purposes, the impact was in USDJPY, which is higher by 0.25% this morning, extending its bounce of the last month. Once again, the current market does not appear to be risk sensitive per se, this is simply dollar outperformance.

A quick look at the rest of the FX world shows SEK a key underperformer this morning, falling 0.55% as the market continues to focus on the change in tone from the Riksbank. They had been working hard to ‘normalize’ interest rates over the past year, but the data there continues to undermine their case with this morning’s PMI release of 46.3 dramatically lower than forecasts and the weakest reading since 2012. Instead, they are far more likely going to need to cut rates again, hence the krone’s weakness.

In the EMG sphere, ZAR is the biggest loser today, falling 1.0% on the back of two related stories; first Fitch cut the credit rating of Eskom, the troubled government-owned utility, to CCC-, essentially dead. This situation has been weighing on economic growth there for quite a while, and the bigger concern is that it forces a countrywide credit downgrade. South Africa is currently under review by Moody’s, and another cut would put them in junk territory forcing a significant amount of ZAR bond sales by international investors (with some estimates as high as $15 billion worth), and correspondingly, driving the rand even lower. But if you look across the board, while ZAR is the worst performer, the dollar is higher against virtually the entire space.

Turning to the upcoming session, we are looking forward to ISM Manufacturing data (exp 50.0) after a very weak Chicago PMI number yesterday (47.1). We also get to hear from three Fed speakers, Evans, Clarida and Bowman, although the last of these, Governor Bowman, rarely speaks of monetary policy with her focus on community banking. Beyond this, the bigger trend remains a higher dollar and there is nothing to indicate that trend is changing.

Good luck
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