Andrea Iannelli (Fidelity) | Central banks have again become the protagonists in the quarter which has just ended. A generalised movement towards more expansionary positions, with the Federal Reserve in the lead, supported risk tolerance and lifting all kinds of assets, reversing the poor returns registered in 2018.
After a period of gloomy macro data, market watchers are starting to see the light. According to Allianz research, the share of “bulls” has increasedfrom around 30% at the start of the year to currently 54% net. At the same time, the volatility index is some 20% below its historical average, in spite of the much greater uncertainty facing the world economy.
Some challenges that markets will face in 2019 are not new in the picture: global debt, trade tensions between the US and China, and the sensitive situation in some European countries. We asked some of the best Spanish analysts about their forecast and this is what they said.
Neil Dwane (Allianz) | The response of central banks to the financial crisis 10 years ago may have saved the world from a devastating depression, but it also created a host of unforeseen effects – from more indebtedness to more economic inequality. Looking back at what we got right – and what went wrong – what lessons can we take away for the future?
Multiple rounds of quantitative easing and liquidity injections resulted in more than a four-fold increase in the aggregate G4 central banks balance sheet in the last decade. This experience has many worried about a “quantitative tightening ” trade. Here analysts at BoAML argue that those worries can be put off for another day.
The message unanimously churned out by politicians, central bankers, and ‘mainstream’ economists is that central banks are there for the ‘greater good’. However, accoding to a market report from Degussa, “unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth.”
J.L.M. Campuzano | The ECB calculates that its extreme expansionary monetary measures have contributed nearly two points to European growth since 2014. The question now is whether the benefits of maintaining them outweigh the risks of prolonging excessively lax financial conditions too long.
The biggest economic threat today is not the interest rate, nor the exchange rates, nor the possible trade war fuelled by Trump: it’s the debt accumulated by countries across the world. This has increased 12% of GDP since the crisis, totalling 225% of global GDP. Starting with China, followed by Europe and ending up with the US, the threat from the current and future debt is terrifying.
We need to be aware of the existence of regulations over and above the well-known Taylor Law, starting with this regulation adjusted to establishing a downward limit on rates of 0%, which is very important in the US Fed’s case.
There’s an idea circulating amongst the central banks or, more accurately, amongst pressure groups in the central banks. The crux of this idea is: “the central banks should normalise interest rates”.