Credit Conditions

Is a $400,000 house with NINJA loan normal? How about a $200,000 REO with missing appliances, a dead yard, a long list of maintenance and no financing? Maybe normal is a $300,000 flip after the flipper fixed everything and colored up the yard, and did some upgrades to the interior. Some may suggest that normal is more like a $300,000 sale with a 5.5% fixed rate and 20% down. Then again, it may be more normal if this $300,000 sale is financed with a 3.5% down FHA loan at 4%. Of course, all of the above is actually referring to the same house. So what is normal? At the moment, we know prices are going up in certain markets, and so are sales. Mortgage rates are higher now than when QE3 started in September 2012. Investors are gobbling up everything in sight in their favored target markets. As an example, they are buying 30% of the houses in Southern California, 38% in Phoenix and 53% in Vegas. First time buyers do not stand a chance. The percentage of home ownership is declining. Are policy makers happy with these results? Are these intended or unintended consequences of public policies?

A month ago we pointed out that even as the Chinese credit bubble - at a record 240% of GDP on a consolidated basis - is now clearly out of control, the far more disturbing aspect of China's credit-fueled economy is the ever declining boost to economic growth as a result of every incremental dollar created. Indeed, as the economic response to "credit shock" becomes lower and lower, even as the inflationary impact lingers, the PBOC is caught between a stagnating rock and an inflationary hard place. Nonetheless, there are few options and with the shark-like need to continue growing, or at least moving, in order to prevent collapse, China did precisely what we expected it to do: boost credit growth even more despite the obvious tapering economic impact of such money creation. Sure enough, overnight China reported that its M2 growth accelerated in April from 15.7% in March, to 16.1% on a Y/Y basis: the fastest pace of credit creation in two years. Yes, the PBOC may not be creating money, but the Chinese pseudo-sovereign commercial banks, sure are, and at a pace that puts the rest of the world to shame.

An overview of this week's drivers.

With the ECB's rate cut decision already wreaking havoc on logic and common sense everywhere, pushing the EUR much higher, and the USd and JPY lower, one can't wait just what non-standard measures Mario Draghi will come up with next to send the EUR to record highs, providing a boon to German IMports. Wait, but the GDP calculation said that net imports are... oh, nevermind. Perhaps Not so super Mario will announce a free Forex trading account for every unemployed European, with half functionality allowing only purchases of EUR, not sales. Look for that, and for further confirmaion from the former Goldmanite that the bailout mechanism at the heart of Europe's "sustainability", the OMT, still does not exist and never will, as it is simply impossible to actually agree on a legal term sheet which will govern it.

• *DRAGHI: CREDIT CONDITIONS FOR SMALL, MEDIUM-SIZED FIRMS TIGHT
• *DRAGHI SAYS ESSENTIAL TO REDUCE FRAGMENTATION FOR TRANSMISSION

While not in the throes of a real estate crash, Italian banks are seeing a sharp deterioration in the quality of their assets. And while Italy's bond spreads head back to pre-crisis lows, as BofAML's Alberto Cordara notes, the ongoing pace and depth of asset quality deterioration further erodes the banks' ability to help Italy on the way back to growth. Critically, the lack of demand for banks' NPLs suggests that asset valuations may be overstated, thereby posing doubts on the real solvency status of Italian banks (i.e. they are not being totally truthful about their balance sheet assets); which explicitly means more capital is needed and soon. The rate of acceleration in newly impaired loans is staggering as it appears the current recession, driven by falling internal demand, is more insidious than the export-led crisis in 2009. And no matter how the Italian banks try to differentiate their bad loan composition, it is an ugly picture. The Italian House Price Index (IPAB) decreased 4.6% yoy as a result of tightening credit conditions, new property taxes and a difficult macro environment; and is unlikely to provide any assistance any time soon. Based on losses and capital, ISP appears best positioned, and BMPS worst - and do not expect a new LTRO to help as this is "not a normal economic downswing."

The resilience of the euro and Australian dollar today, given the heightened rate cut speculation, may be indicative of a reversal of the US dollar's recent fortunes.

Due to decades of unreserved credit growth that temporarily boosted the appearance of sustainable economic growth and prosperity, rational economic behavior cannot produce real (inflation-adjusted) economic growth from current levels. The nominal sizes of advanced economies have grown far larger than the rational scope of production that would be needed to sustain them. This fundamental problem explains best the current state of affairs: malaise (i.e., bank system de-leveraging and economic stagnation) spreading through the means of production and the need for increasing policy intervention to stabilize goods, service and asset prices (by depressing the first three and inflating the last?). We live and work in a contrived meta-economy that can be managed through narrow channels in financial and state capitals. Given the overwhelming past misallocation of capital cited above, we think the most important realization for investors in the current environment is that price levels of goods, services and assets may be biased to rise but they are not sustainable in real (inflation-adjusted) terms. The crowd is ignoring the obvious, as all signs point towards the next currency reset.

The stock market is not crashing yet, but there are lots of other market crashes happening in the financial world right now.  Just like we saw back in 2008, it is taking stocks a little bit of extra time to catch up with economic reality.  But almost everywhere else you look, there are signs that a financial avalanche has begun.

Perhaps the best measure to gauge the European recovery is by the soaring number of companies going bust, because only from this perspective is Europe finally "fixed." As Reuters reports citing a report by Axesor, a record 2,564 companies filed for "insolvency proceedings", a more palatable version of the word bankruptcy, in the first quarter - an increase of 10% from Q4 and up a whopping 45% from Q1 2012. The reasons given: "tight credit conditions and meager demand." Or in other words: no actual cash flow to fund demand for products and services. Obviously it will take some truly phenomenal massaging and manipulation to represent GDP as rising in this environment, but we are confident the Spanish authorities are already on it, and somehow the Spanish pension fund, already 97% filled with Spanish government bonds, will somehow have a finger in yet another completely unbelievable economic print which will fool most of the algos most of the time on flashing red Bloomberg headlines.

After leaving rates unchanged and following Kuroda's efforts overnight, it appears Draghi had to do something in his press conference. Despite Barroso's assurances that the worst of the crisis is over, ECB's Draghi admits:

*DRAGHI SAYS ECONOMIC WEAKNESS EXTENDED INTO BEGINNING OF YEAR
*DRAGHI SAYS RISKS TO ECONOMIC OUTLOOK ARE ON DOWNSIDE
*DRAGHI SAYS RECOVERY IN 2H IS SUBJECT TO 'DOWNSIDE RISKS'
*DRAGHI: WEAKNESS IS EXTENDING TO COUNTRIES W/OUT FRAGMENTATION
*DRAGHI SAYS ECB WILL ASSESS DATA AND STANDS READY TO ACT

This 'negativity' jawboning, which is really nothing new to anyone who looks at real data, has battered EURUSD 80 pips lower and implicitly smacked S&P 500 futures down 5-6 points as the verbal currency wars continue.

After months of posturing, promising, prevaricating, and proclaiming; the time is rapidly upon us where the central planner of the world will have to actually make actions rather than words. As SocGen notes, Central Bank decisions at the BoJ, ECB and BoE will take centre stage tonight/tomorrow but it is the BoJ announcement that is most highly anticipated after the epic jawboning. SocGen’s Sebastien Galy: "Only the truly brave can feel confident trading into the BoJ event"; adds, "It is not completely clear what economic consensus is expecting in terms of BoJ decision apart from broad outlines." Given positioning, the risk of disappointment and short JPY covering cannot be underestimated should Kuroda underdeliver.

An update on Cyprus and what else the week has in store.

While JPMorgan's arrogance and complete ignorance (intentional or not) of both risk limits and regulatory expectations is now grossly obvious, the fact remains that a lie is a lie and given the following, how can anyone ever trust anything that anyone from this 'fortress-like' balance sheet ever says again? To wit, again and again and again, the public and the regulators were told this was a long-term 'hedge' for a bank that is a natural net 'lender' and therefore exposed to deterioration in credit markets over the long-term. However, as JPMorgan's own data and words show, the SCP 'hedge' in fact lost money in all spread-widening scenarios - exactly when it should be making money to cover 'offsetting' losses in the bank's lending book. In fact, it appears, that this was simply another low 'risk-weighted' way to get around regulatory capital rules and be 'long' the market - in the first three months of 2012, the CIO tripled the size of the SCP book, taking it from $51 billion to $157 billion, in a buying spree that was not motivated by decision-making on a “very long-term basis.”

The France-based ratings agency has just joined China's Dagong, and US Moody's by Fitch-slapping Italy with a BBB ratings handle. Citing four main reasons: election results which and 'non-conducive' for further structural reforms, deeper than expected recession, greater than expected budget deficits, and a weak government less able to respond to shocks. But apart from all that, as we noted earlier, Italian stocks and bonds are bid.

From a valuation perspective, Chinese equities do not, at first glance, look to be a likely candidate for trouble. The PE ratios are either 12 or 15 times on MSCI China, depending on whether you include financials or not, and do not scream 'bubble'. And yet, China has been a source of worry for GMO over the past three years and continues to be one. China scares them because it looks like a bubble economy. Understanding these kinds of bubbles is important because they represent a situation in which standard valuation methodologies may fail. Just as financial stocks gave a false signal of cheapness before the GFC because the credit bubble pushed their earnings well above sustainable levels and masked the risks they were taking, so some valuation models may fail in the face of the credit, real estate, and general fixed asset investment boom in China, since it has gone on long enough to warp the models' estimation of what "normal" is. Of course, every credit bubble involves a widening divergence between perception and reality. China's case is not fundamentally different. In GMO's extensive discussion below, they have documented rapid credit growth against the background of a nationwide property bubble, the worst of Asian crony lending practices, and the appearance of a voracious and unstable shadow banking system. "Bad" credit booms generally end in banking crises and are followed by periods of lackluster economic growth. China appears to be heading in this direction.