Brazil

Fostering dependence on irresponsible banks and a still very vulnerable banking sector will make the entire western financial and economic system even more vulnerable.

While the massive, $19.2 billion outflow in the week of the August 24 flash crash was understandable, as the market's record complacency was shaken by days of violent selling, as was the snap rebound inflow of $5.8 billion the following week resulting from oversold conditions, the fact that EPFR reported that in the week ended September 9 equity outflows once again surged, rising to a total of $19.4 billion - greater than two weeks prior, and the largest of 2015 - will cast doubt that the recent market correction is a one and done event, especially if the selling becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Perhaps after intervening every single day in the past week (remember that FT piece saying the PBOC would no longer directly buy stocks... good times) in either the stock or the FX (both on and offshore) market, China needed a day off; perhaps even the algos got tired of constantly spoofing the E-mini and inciting momentum ignition, but for whatever reason the overnight session has been oddly uneventful, with no ES halts so far, few USDJPY surges (then again those come just before the US open), and even less violent CNY or CNH moves, leading to virtually unchanged markets in Japan (small red) and China (small green). And while the initial tone in Europe has been modestly "risk off", it is nothing in comparison to the massive gyrations that have become a stape in the past few weeks.

This level of global inter-connected financial risk is hazardous in Mexico, where it’s peppered by high bank concentration risk. No one wants another major financial crisis. Yet, that’s where we are headed absent major reconstructions of the banking framework and the central bank policies that exude extreme power over global economies and markets, in the US, Mexico, and throughout the world. Mexico’s problems could again ripple through Latin America where eroding confidence, volatility, and US dollar strength are already hurting economies and markets. The difference is that now, in contrast to the 1980s and 1990s debt crises, loan and bond amounts have not just been extended by private banks, but subsidized by the Fed and the ECB.  The risk platform is elevated. The fall, for both Mexico and its trading partners like the US, likely much harder.

News That Matters

Market participants, be they lenders or borrowers, know that “easy money” has an expiry date. If The FOMC raises rates, "we foresee negative effects on world GDP in the medium term, not only for emerging markets but also for industrialized economies." In other words, though emerging markets – through their dependence on capital inflows – will be at risk when America’s monetary policy eventually returns to “normal,” the same will be true for advanced economies.

Exactly one month ago, in the aftermath of the Chinese devaluation announcement, we made a simple prediction. "Biggest immediate loser from China's devaluation: Brazil" Today, following the overdue, long anticipated, and yet "shocking" downgrade of Brazil by the S&P to junk, this prediction is coming true.

• Compare: S&P 500 Futures Advance After U.S. Stocks Ignored Global Rally (BBG)
• And contrast: Global Stock Rally Grinds to a Halt (BBG)
• And be very confused: Global Stocks Lower on U.S. Interest Rate Uncertainty (WSJ)
• Hilsenrath: Fed Wavers on September Rate Rise (WSJ)
• Time for more QE: Abe Adviser Says Next Month Good Opportunity for BOJ Easing (BBG)
• Brazil downgraded to junk rating by S&P, deepening woes (Reuters)
• Kiwi dollar tumbles after New Zealand cuts interest rates (Reuters)

It has become virtually impossible to differentiate between actual central bank intervention, hopes of central bank intervention, and how the two interplay on what was once the "market" but is now merely the place where money printers duke it out every day in some pretense of price discovery set by those who literally print money.

Brazil, whose economy officially slid into recession in Q2 - a quarter during which Brazilians suffered through the worst inflation-growth outcome (i.e. stagflation) in over a decade - and whose efforts to plug a yawning budget gap are complicated by political infighting and a growing public outcry against embattled President Dilma Rousseff, has been cut to junk by S&P.

"We believe a global recession scenario has become the most likely global macroeconomic scenario for the next two years or so. Helicopter money drops would be the best instrument to tackle a downturn in all DMs. We expect to see QE #N, where N could become a large integer, as part of the monetary policy response in the US and the UK, and QEE2 in Japan." 

Don’t expect to see any end to desperation and instability in MENA, but do expect new demographic crises out of other regions: Indonesia, Ukraine, Pakistan, West Africa, and Brazil, with its cratering economy. It’s not inconceivable that China might bust apart politically, with centrifugal consequences. The global economy is contracting. We have indeed attained the limits to growth. Cheap oil is bygone and the capital infrastructure we have won’t run on expensive oil — including the oil industry itself. New technology or further central bank legerdemain is not going to fix that. We’re in population overshoot and a scramble is underway to bail on the places that just can’t support the people who live there. National boundaries will be defended. Sentimentalists will have to step aside. History is not a bedtime story about bunnies and kittens.

The world is in the waning days of a historic multi-decade experiment in unfettered finance. International finance has for too long been effectively operating without constraints on either the quantity or the quality of Credit issued. From the perspective of unsound finance on a globalized basis, this period has been unique. History, however, is replete with isolated episodes of booms fueled by bouts of unsound money and Credit – monetary fiascos inevitably ending in disaster. We see discomforting confirmation that the current historic global monetary fiasco’s disaster phase is now unfolding.

Before China’s bursting equity bubble grabbed international headlines, and before the PBoC’s subsequent devaluation of the yuan served notice to the world that things had officially gotten serious in the global currency wars, all anyone wanted to talk about when it came to China was a "hard landing." Now that the yuan devaluation has all but proven that China has landed, and landed hard, here are the five channels of contagion.