WISE MONEY

The UK’s Q4 final GDP has come in at -0.3% which is lower than the expected -0.2% and is a disappointing number for the Pound which has faded lower this morning against the euro and the US Dollar.  The number is not a great surprise but more of a disappointment and will heap pressure on the Q1 2012 GDP to come.

The US Dollar remains somewhat on the back foot following Fed chairman Ben Bernanke’s dovish tone earlier in the week with rhetoric suggesting more QE could be required and the loose monetary policy stance is here to stay despite a sustained run of positive economic data.

The USD has managed to claw back a little overnight against the EUR and the GBP- this corresponds to a move out of risk on weaker Chinese data.

Elsewhere risk currencies such as the Australian Dollar have come under pressure overnight as further concerns of a slowdown in China have dampened demand for risk currencies.

February’s industrial sector profit fell 5.2% year to date, the markets will be closely watching the situation in China.

Essentially China and the US are the key drivers behind global growth and any signs of slowing growth will turn the markets into risk off mode benefitting the safe haven shores of the USD, JPY and CHF and weakening risk on commodity based currencies such as the AUD & South African Rand.

Only days after gifting european banks nearly half a trillion euros, the European Central Bank (ECB) has reported receiving record cash deposits of 412bn euros (£344 billion). The total beat the previous record of 384 billion euros set in June 2010.

The rising usage of the ECB deposit facility since the summer reflects nervousness among Europe’s banks about lending the money to each other.

The latest jump in deposits comes from cash lent to the banks by the ECB itself last week in order to ward off a fresh banking crisis and credit crunch.

The central bank provided 489 billion euros of its new three year loans just before Christmas, of which banks used some 200 billion euros to repay existing debts.

The rest has gone into cash accounts, including the deposit facility.

Cash from those loans arrived in the banks’ accounts on Friday 23rd- just before Christmas.

The ECB’s decision to offer the three-year loans – as well as a significant broadening of the types of collateral that the ECB would accept from the banks as security for its loans – had appeared to settle financial markets in the run-up to Christmas.

Prior to the ECB’s interventions, there had been growing fears in the international financial community that a major European bank was about to run out of money and go bust, threatening to spark a full blown money market meltdown.

The ECB has in effect had to fill the role of a safe intermediary in the market for short-term lending between the banks – which is crucial to their functioning – by receiving their spare cash as deposits, and then lending it back out to those banks that find themselves short of ready money.

But the banks have to pay a price for the safety provided by the ECB.

They must pay approximately 1% interest on the loans they receive from the central bank, whereas the ECB pays them only 0.25% annualised interest on the spare cash they put in the deposit facility.

European finance minsters are struggling to finalise a plan to give extra money to the IMF, with the plan then to lend the money European governments. The hope was for €200bn to be pledged by euro Area governments plus money from those outside of the Euro including Britain and Sweden, but the amount committed so far is only €150bn.

Britain, quite rightly, feels since the IMF is a global institution any increase in funding should be global in nature and not confined just to European countries.

The constant disappointment the markets are showing over the lack of any clear resolution is keeping the Euro depressed and stock markets on the back foot.

Traders hoping for a Santa Claus rally look set to be disappointed as the markets wind down into Christmas.

You can tell the various statistic agencies are also preparing for a two week break, as data releases this week are few and far between.

The Bank of England minutes are due tomorrow and continue to be important in gauging when the MPC will expand its QE program, currently expected to be early next year.

Finalised Q3 GDP numbers are also due on Friday expected to show 0.5% growth, not enough to stop the UK re-entering a technical recession in the first quarter of next year.

US Q3 GDP is also due on Thursday along with durable goods orders which will almost certainly show the US economy plodding along at a rate neither low enough to force the Fed to act or improving enough to warrant withdrawal of the current monetary stimulus.

Expect the Dollar to hold on to its strength into the New Year.

The ratings agency Standard & Poor’s left the growing mood of optimism about the eurozone debt crisis in ruins last night by warning the wise money markets that 15 of the regions 17 countries face credit downgrades if politicians do not gain control of their economies. S&P blasted Brussels “defensive” management of the crisis blaming the prolonged dispute among European policymakers for destroying investor confidence.

All of the AAA rated sovereigns which includes Germany and France have been placed on “negative credit watch”.

S&P highlighted that the French banks were a particular worry as the amount of external debt has risen above France’s GDP.

The timing could hardly have been worse as German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy sent investor sentiment soaring earlier.

Their united front had led to a significant drop in the borrowing costs for many of the struggling Eurozone nations including Italy, whose 10 year yields dropped below 6%.

The other announcements due out this week have been made rather insignificant though the central bank meetings due out on Thursday will maintain some weight in the markets.

The Bank of England will keep their base rate on hold at 0.5%, but any comments from the MPC Committee will be looked into.

The ECB will reveal their decision 45 minutes later and they are expected to cut their rate back to the 1% it was reduced to during the height of the credit crunch.

If this is the case, it will show a remarkable turnaround in the fortunes for the eurozone as the interest rates seemed to be on an upward curve in the 2nd quarter of this year.

Italian President Giorgio Napolitano announced last night that under attack Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi will step down once new austerity measures are passed. The Italian government successfully passed a finance bill yesterday, but only after the opposition Democratic Party abstained.

This led to Berlusconi losing his majority triggering calls for his departure.

The Euro initially strengthened on the back of this as the “Bunga Bunga” PM’s leadership failed to reform Italy’s public finances and slow economy.

The new austerity measures are expected to be passed by the end of November at which point he is expected to resign.

Once the initial Euphoria of the news from Italy, the euro started weakening again as the consensus is that the euro crisis is far from over.

The bond yields, which are the easiest way of assessing confidence in an economy peaked at 6.77 per cent, creeping ever closer to the significant 7 per cent level.

This level was where Portugal and Ireland were forced to seek bailouts as they could not support their debts.

As Italian bonds total €2 trillion, which is considerably greater than Portugal, Ireland and Greece combined; the threat of a default is hanging over the markets.

The future of the Euro is hanging by a thread and the impact of these pending austerity cuts from Italy is key to what happens next.

The under fire Greek Prime Minster George Papandreou sensationally performed a u-turn yesterday by cancelling his controversial idea of a referendum into whether the Greece should accept the latest bailout package. This has left the Greek government on the brink of collapse as infighting has led to the PM losing his majority.

The political skirmishes spread to the latest G20 summit in Cannes where numerous politicians have balked at the idea of putting up more cash to support the ailing Eurozone economies through the IMF.

The main discussion of the summit is whether to double the size of the International Monetary Fund.

Prime Minster David Cameron has maintained his view that it was in Britain’s economic interest to offer to underwrite billions of pounds in IMF loans.

Even if Greece can avoid default through its current bailout and the support of a beefed-up IMF, world leaders have for the first time spoken about the possibility of Greece exiting the Euro.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy said it was up to the Greek people to decide their future- through his clenched teeth.

The other big announcement yesterday came in the shape of the latest ECB rate decision.

New President Mario Draghi surprised the markets by cutting the base rate from 1.5% to 1.25% in a bold move looking to increase growth across Europe.

In the subsequent press conference, the new president discussed inflation in the Eurozone stating that it is currently over 3%, but will fall below the target level of 2% in 2012.

At least one more cut is predicted over the months ahead as the ECB continues to battle a rapidly worsening economic outlook.

Eurozone finance ministers are meeting to discuss the region’s debt crisis in the first of several summits to be held in Brussels over the weekend.On Saturday, ministers from all 27 EU countries will hold talks. EU leaders will then gather on Sunday and at an extra meeting on Wednesday.

They need to agree a second bailout for Greece, how to recapitalise banks, and a stronger bailout fund, before Greece can then be allowed to default- and there still appear to be deep divides between France and Germany.

In particular, the two need to agree on how to increase the firepower of the eurozone’s bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), from its current 440billion euros ( £383 billion).

France has proposed turning the EFSF into a bank so that it could borrow from the European Central Bank (ECB), but Germany has refused to sanction such a move, arguing it would compromise the ECB’s impartiality.

The German government has also promised its taxpayers that its contribution will not go above 211bn euros so is looking for a way to increase the size of the fund without increasing the liabilities of German taxpayers.

Despite no apparent movement on the deadlock, markets were trading higher, with the leading indexes in London, Frankfurt and Berlin all up between 1.5% and 2.7%, while US markets also rose at the start.

Jean-Claude Juncker, the chairman of the eurogroup and the prime minister of Luxembourg, said the delay to a deal portrayed a “disastrous” image of the eurozone to the rest of the world, adding that it was not necessarily just France and Germany that had differences of opinion.

This crisis has underlined that the EU, in large part, remains a Franco-German union. The other members of the eurozone appear as bystanders whilst the French and German leaders determine the fate of their currency.

A deal on the euro had been expected to be signed on Sunday, but France and Germany said they would not be able to reach an agreement by then and announced that leaders would meet again on Wednesday.

Sunday’s summit had already been delayed from 17-18 October because more time was needed to finalise a plan.

A second hurdle in the way of any rescue plan is that negotiations have not yet begun properly with private sector lenders to Greece on a further reduction of what the Greek government will repay them.

Banks have already agreed to take a 21% loss, or “haircut”, on their loans to Greece but there is growing pressure for them to accept higher losses.

Previous disagreements between France and Germany about the bailout plans have centred on how much the private sector would have to contribute to any package.

UK inflation figures were published this morning showing that price rises are still rocketing.  The CPI for September was up +0.6% and the year on year level up to 5.2%.RPI was also up +0.8% and 5.6% for year on year.

Normally, a strong inflation number indicates that interest rate increases could follow and thus we see a gain in the value of the currency.

However, we are not in normal market conditions and the uptick in inflation will not be reflective of future rate increases as the Bank of England expects inflation to fall back towards 2% in time.

The current weak growth that is threatening the UK’s recovery continues to overshadow inflation and with the risk of a double dip recession still lurking, the BoE has no choice but to keep interest rates low.

The fact that the number was higher than forecast is actually a negative for the pound and we have seen the pound dip against the US Dollar and slightly against the Euro since the numbers were released.

Late in yesterday’s trading, the Euro lost value as pessimistic comments from Angela Merkel dampened the positive mood that was building towards the October 23 summit.

Wise Money expects the euro and the US Dollar to be volatile ahead of the summit as the Eurozone leaders hammer out further bailout measures to support the single currency and some of its ailing economies.

Things seem, for once, to be moving quickly in the eurozone. After high drama in Slovakia over ratification of the enlarged bail-out fund last week, this week looks set to be all about leverage.

More specifically, it will be about how the eurozone makes sure the EFSF has enough fire power to assure the markets that if things begin to unravel, Spain and Italy will be able secure funding without leaving the cupboard bare.

The plan gaining most traction was proposed by Allianz and involves the EFSF guaranteeing the first wave of losses on Greek, Portuguese and Irish bonds.

This would see the funds boosted to around €3 trillion.

Sounds good in theory doesn’t it? Except the structure looks eerily similar to the instruments at the heart of the sub-prime meltdown – collateralised debt obligations or CDO’s for short.

The CDO’s were supposed to spread risk around the system making it safer overall.

What they did, along with industrial scale securitisation was disconnect the borrower from the lender, mask the risks behind complex mathematical formulas and in turn removed all due diligence procedures about the credit worthiness of the borrower.

The risk with the EFSF insuring debt is that if we move back into a serious recession and other eurozone countries look to default because it is suddenly easier to do so, all the losses will simply have been moved from lots of smaller place to one huge pot.

Despite the worries over the structure of the newly enlarged bail-out funds, euro sentiment continues to improve and lift the Euro against both the Dollar and Sterling.

Moody’s has downgraded the credit rating of 12 UK financial firms including Lloyds TSB, RBS, Nationwide and Santander UK.The ratings agency said it now believed that the UK government was less likely to support firms that got into trouble.

However, the firm emphasised that the downgrades did not “reflect a deterioration in the financial strength of the banking system”.

Moody’s also downgraded nine Portuguese banks, blaming financial weakness.

Shares in both RBS and Lloyds were among the FTSE 100′s biggest fallers, down 3.7% and 2.7% respectively in afternoon trading.

Seven UK building societies were among the firms downgraded, a move that the Building Societies Association (BSA) called a “normalisation” that had “been expected for some time”.

“It does not represent any change in financial strength and it is business as usual across the sector,” the BSA said.

Analysts and investors watch closely the ratings that firms such as Moody’s put on the creditworthiness of companies and governments.

Along with Standard & Poor’s and Fitch, Moody’s is one of the big three agencies. Their ratings influence heavily the amount interest that companies and governments pay to borrow money.

“The downgrades have been caused by Moody’s reassessment of the support environment in the UK which has resulted in the removal of systemic support for seven smaller institutions and the reduction of systemic support… for five larger, more systemically important financial institutions.”

The downgrades include a two-notch cut for government-controlled RBS, to A2 from Aa3, and a cut of one-notch, to A1 from Aa3, for Lloyds TSB, a division of part-nationalised Lloyds Banking Group.

Spanish bank Santander had its UK business downgraded by one notch, to A1 from Aa3, while Nationwide Building Society suffered a two-notch cut, to A2 from Aa3.

Other institutions downgraded were Co-operative Bank, and the building societies Newcastle, Norwich & Peterborough, Nottingham, Principality, Skipton, West Bromwich and Yorkshire.

The rating cuts did not concern HSBC, Barclays or Standard Chartered, Moody’s said.

RBS said it was “disappointed” that Moody’s announcement did not reflect the “significant progress” the bank had made to restructure it finances.

Lloyds said that it believed Moody’s was reflecting what was already understood in the market, and that it would “have minimal impact on our funding costs”.

Nationwide said that Moody’s announcement was part of an industry-wide review, and “not a reflection of Nationwide’s business model”.

The Chancellor, George Osborne, said one reason for the downgrades was that the government was seen to be “trying to deal with the too-big-to-fail problem”.

Mr Osborne said he was confident that British banks were well-capitalised. “They are not experiencing the kinds of problems that some of the banks in the eurozone are experiencing at the moment.”

Moody’s split the downgrades into three categories.

Banks with a “high likelihood of support” are RBS and Lloyds.

Banks or building societies with a “moderate or high likelihood of support” are Nationwide, Santander UK, Co-operative Bank, and Clydesdale Bank. Clydesdale’s rating was reaffirmed, not cut.

George Osborne: “They think the British government is actually moving in the direction of trying to get away from guaranteeing all the largest banks in Britain”