Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog – Page 23

Kiwi’s Cracking Under The Pressure, But RBNZ Says Nothing To See Here!

We had important releases from Stats NZ and The New Zealand Central Bank, which combined highlights a weird and unsettling cognitive dissonance. It was perhaps a matter of perspective, because the focus was on the financial system, not individual households, but given the economy is so strongly connected to what households and businesses do, the stability report appeared unanchored from reality, especially given the prospects of higher rates for longer.

And many of the themes we look at here, are relevant to other economies, including Australia too.

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What The FED? Higher For Longer As They Wait For More Data…Still…

On Wednesday we got the FOMC decision, and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s roughly 50 minutes press conference, but it was hardly worth the watch as he said price growth will likely resume cooling this year, but avoided offering a timeline for rate cuts. It seems, the burst of inflation seen in the first quarter has reduced policymakers’ confidence that price pressures are ebbing.

The central bank’s preferred gauge, the personal consumption expenditures index, rose 2.7% in March from a year earlier. That compared to a 2.5% advance in January. Policymakers explicitly acknowledged that data by adding a line to their post-meeting policy statement noting the “lack of further progress” toward their inflation goal in recent months.

Powell’s remarks reflected a broader shift in thinking at the Fed toward holding borrowing costs at a two-decade high for longer.

Three points to make on all this.

First Central Bankers are still not admitting they caused the inflation breakout due to their dramatic rate cuts, and QE programmes, done in tandem with Governments providing massive financial support through COVID. This is the root cause of the problem, yet of course the US Treasury continues to run a larger deficit, which is costing more because of the higher rates.

Second Powel was explicit of not be influenced by the political context, US election and all, arguing the FED was independent. We know some politicians have a different perspective on this issue.

Third, being totally reactive to data means the FED is looking back not forward. This may well mean events will catch them out. They have yet to acknowledge that the so called R star or neutral rate is significantly higher than they think it is, so the road is wide open to potential policy failure.
Meantime, many Americans have run down their savings, are putting more or credit, and housing affordability continues to deteriorate for many.

Which sort of begs the question: who is the FED really working for? Is it all Americans as he suggests?

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Banking On Profitability, If You’re Big Enough!

Against the backcloth of higher rates for longer, many of the Australian banks will provide trading updates over the next couple of weeks. As a group, they currently have the highest set of valuations seen for decades, but then, their earnings have held up relative to expectations. So what is ahead? And are all banks equal?

Some analysts are saying that although banks have flat to negative growth coming up for this year, from a capital management perspective, they’ve all got excess capital, so there will be more buybacks and special dividends to come. So the high valuations are just fine. But not everyone is convinced. Citi’s downgrades come a month after Macquarie told its clients to “underweight everything” in the banking sector.

But it’s worth highlighting that not all banks are created equal, because regional banks including Bendigo and Adelaide Bank, and Bank of Queensland are under the pump and look to be dying a slow death because of higher cost of funds compared with the big four banks, higher capital requirements, the upward pressure on costs from upgrading technology and lack of scale.

Treasury, the RBA and APRA need to ask themselves whether they are happy to ultimately have a financial services sector dominated by the big four banks and Macquarie. This is why a public bank, providing essential banking services to communities should be part of the solution, something which we hope will be tabled in the final report from the Senate looking in Regional Branch closures. As major banks leave smaller population centres without services, we need a valid alternative. We will discuss this again on Tuesdays live show at 8pm Sydney with Robbie Barwick.

Meantime, the larger players continue to buttress their profits, at the expense of ordinary Australians, and while the market like the high valuations, Australia INC is the poorer.

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The Scent Of Stagflation Hangs Over The Markets!

This is our latest weekly market update, starting in the US, UK, then Europe, Asia and Australia, and also covering Gold. Oil and Crypto. A comprehensive round-up of what is happening!

We are, it seems entering the twilight zone, as the scent of stagflation is spreading, as inflation becomes increasingly sticky, especially in services, while growth slows, leading to increased market volatility and questionable consumer confidence. Hopes of rapid Fed rate cuts have receded following a series of U.S. inflation readings.

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The Crippling Highrise Disaster Continues…

The truth is that recent high rise construction in many Australian cities, are riddled with defects, and someone needs to pay for rectification. This surge in high-rise apartment construction happened as building certification was privatised, costs cut and poorly trained workers employed.

As a result, we have a litany of increased building flaws and quality concerns, such as cracked foundations, water leaks, balcony defects, and flammable cladding. According to the NSW Building Commission strata survey, more than half of newly registered buildings since 2016 had at least one significant issue that will cost an average of $331,829 to correct.

The Strata Community Association NSW found that waterproofing was the most common major issue, followed by fire safety. It also discovered that around one out of every ten buildings had structural and enclosure difficulties, such as roof or facade flaws.

Examples include Sydney’s Opal and Mascot Towers, which were evacuated due to extensive cracking.

Building regulation consultant Bronwyn Weir cautioned that an “enormous” problem had developed whereby “thousands and thousands of apartments have serious defects in their buildings”. “Some of these buildings could potentially be a write-off. We have what is now you know, a systemic failure that is quite difficult to unravel”, she said.

Engineer Leith Dawes warned that purchasing an off-the-plan apartment in Australia had degraded into a game of “Russian roulette” because of the numerous building faults that are frequently overlooked.

Similar structural problems have been uncovered across Melbourne, including leaking buildings, mould, and faulty balconies, Canberra, Gold Coast and many other areas too.

These problems have cost owners and taxpayers millions of dollars to rectify. But the problems are widespread, and many individual property owners are caught in the crossfire.

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Looking Past Hopium Towards Real Numbers…

The value of stocks are driven partly by momentum, through perhaps we should really call this hopium, as its really investors betting with their gut, and the cold hard realities of financial results. Markets have been leveraged higher by rate cut expectations and the prospects of AI. But when the numbers come in at results time, sometimes hopium goes away. Especially when bond yields take the discount rate higher, (the US 2-year is currently at 4.925 and the 10-year at 4.646) so reducing the future value of earnings.

Australian markets were closed for the ANZAC holiday. We will remember them.

Ahead, Markets were also awaiting more cues on the U.S. economy and interest rates from upcoming data prints. US Gross domestic product data is due later on Thursday, and is expected to show just how resilient the U.S. economy remained in the first quarter.

More closely watched will be PCE price index data- due on Friday. The reading is the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, and is likely to factor into the central bank’s plans for interest rates.

As Warren Buffet says, when the tide goes out we can see who is swimming naked. To which I would add, when the tide of hopium goes out, we do indeed see reality below the water line and it may well not be pretty!

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Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/