Spanish inflation surges to 37-year high at 10%

Consumer prices in Spain rose at their fastest rate for 37 years in June, according to data released on Wednesday.

Spain’s harmonised index of consumer prices rose to 10% in June, up from 8.5 per cent in May, driven up by surging energy and food prices, in a further sign that inflationary pressures are intensifying across the eurozone.

Economists polled by Reuters had only expected Spanish inflation to increase to 8.7% in June.

The underlying rate of inflation in Spain, which excludes energy and food prices, rose to 5.5% in June, its highest since August 1993. “The increase in hotel, café and restaurant prices, higher than last year, also played a role,” said the national statistics agency.

Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez announced earlier this week that the government would extend its €16bn relief package for another six months and launch new measures to tackle inflation effects, in a plan that will cost an extra €9bn and still requires parliamentary approval.

The plan includes a reduction in sales tax on electricity, lower public transport costs, higher state pensions and one-off payments of €200 for people earning less than €14,000 a year.

Source: FT

Dear Customer, On February 27th, 2020, NEW MOMENTUM sent an internal communication to the employees with a Specific Prevention Plan, where they were provided with the rules of behavior to protect themselves and their environment, following the recommendations of the World Health Organization and the Ministry of Health. From NEW MOMENTUM we want to inform you that our office has always been prepared for emergency situations of this type and to ensure its services to customers.

At present, we are operating with total normality and we offer the level of quality and service that is usual. In order to favor fluid and safe communications, we advise and thank you for using e-mails.

Finally, I just want to say that, in these uncertain times, all of us at New Momentum are at your disposal to help you anticipate any financing related problem or any other kind of problem related to our services.

Yours faithfully

Bruno Atlan, CEO

This week, the Government Council released its decision on the monetary policy to support households, firms and banks during the current economy disfunction. The Council conducted the following package made of “ambitious and coordinated fiscal policy response”:

1.  In order to immediately provide liquidity support until June 2020, the Long-Term Refinancing Operation (LTROs) – injecting low interest rate funding to banks with sovereign debt as collateral on the loans – will be delivered as being an effective backstop in case of need, carried out as a fixed rate tender procedure via an auction mechanism and an interest rate amounting to the average rate on deposit facility (-0,50%).
2. Afterwards, from June 2020 to June 2021, the Targeted Long-Term Refinancing Operations (TLTROs) will be applied to push banks to lend to small, medium-sized enterprises and households. With an interest rate on these TLTRO III being at 25 basis points below the average rate applied: The Main Refinancing Operation rate (MRO), rate at which banks can borrow money from the ECB.
3.  The European Central Bank decided not to change its interest rate on the main refinancing operations (0,00%), the interest rates on the margin lending facility (0,25%) and its deposit facility (-0,50%).
4.  It also decided to raise the bank’s asset purchases by a temporary envelope of an additional € 120 billion until the end of the year in order to concentrate on bonds issued by companies and to further lower borrowing costs for the private sector.
5.  Lastly, The ECB will fully reinvest the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the Asset Purchase Programme (APP).

Source: ECB.

In an uncontrolled scenario of the death toll outbreak, some sectors found themselves making the most of the situation to achieve record profits. Indeed, Asian-based companies such as Top Glove, a rubber surgical gloves producer, and Zhende Medical, a medical supplier, saw their stocks skyrocket by 14% and 33% at the beginning of the month.

As such, we could have thought that the global healthcare sector would have been less affected by the situation, but it happened to be hypothetical.

Indeed, as the S&P 500 fell by more than -11.5% since the start of the week, the Health Care Select Sector SPDR Fund, composed by the biggest pharmaceuticals and health care equipment companies (Johnson & Johnson, UnitedHealth, Merck & Co, Pfizer, etc.), also lost more than 10% over the same period.

There are two main explanations to that:

Most pharmaceuticals company’s supply chain depends heavily on China, leading markets to fear a shortage. Indeed, Laboratories buy a large part of their bulk components, vaccines, anti-cancer drugs and generics from China. In the 1980s, drug companies chose to relocate part of their production to Asian Factories, where they kept their research and development activities due to cheaper Labor and more flexible regulations.

Thus, a lasting virus spread would potentially put global supply at risk. Therefore, governments are currently alarming healthcare professionals on taking the necessary measures to guarantee health coverage. A few days ago, French Pharmaceutical giant Sanofi responded to that by announcing, a few days ago, that it will relocate part of its production sties in Europe before 2022. Too late for Investors.

The other explanation to healthcare stocks downturns appears to be political with the rising likeliness to see Bernie Sanders as the 2022 election Democratic candidate. The Left-wing program of the politician contains a dismantling of America’s private health care system, which would be replaced by a government-run Medicare-for-All. On the markets side, as the investiture of the democratic candidate seems more and more probable, private health insurance actors such as UnitedHealth are taking a big hit with the stock dropping by -13% over the week.

Even though it is still unlikely to imagine such legislation to go through, this puts the lights back on a sector that has been at the center of discussions since Barack Obama’s election and his affordable Care Act in 2008, period that corresponds to UnitedHealth’s all time low in stock markets, before its impressive performance in the past years, under the new laws.

Authors: Emilie Mayer, Côme Vigoureux

Sources: Reuters, France Info, State Street SPDR, Investopedia

Brazil: Impact of Elections on Financial Markets, an Opportunity for Importers and Exporters?

Recent events in Brazil generated volatilities in different financial markets, with a drastic shift in commodities, currency, bonds and stocks prices. This trend has already had a consequent implication for domestic but also foreign companies doing business in Brazil. For example, Spanish exporters will benefit of a 17% depreciation of the EUR versus BRL (from 4.92 the September 14th to 4.08 the October 29th). This opportunity may represent an interesting opportunity for European companies involved in Brazil to hedge a potential comes back on the 4.50 area.

Stock Market

After a bloody month of October for Global Equity markets and indexes from all over the world taking big losses (Nasdaq & Nikkei: -9 %; China: -7,75 %; CAC 40 & DAX: -7 %; India: -5,75%), the only survivor appears to be Brazil. Indeed, the BOVESPA grew by 10% this last month of national election that ended with the victory of Jair Bolsonaro, far-right party candidate promising a market-friendly economic program.

Economy and Tax

Alongside with its counselor and future economy minister, Paulo Guedes, a University of Chicago economist and fund manager known for its market-friendly position, Bolsonaro promised to undertake reforms widely praised by national investors.

Firstly, the new cabinet plans on privatizing every state-owned firm, including both energy giants Eletrobas and Petrobas, to raise over $400 billion and reduce the budget gap. This symbolizes the business-friendly policy promised during the election including deregulation and tax exemptions for companies. This strengthened analyst view of the Brazilian stock market, the national Index is up 13% since September and trading way beyond historical levels, leading analysts say it could reach 100,000 by the end of the year (current level is around 88,000 while it was at 75,000 in September).

In order to bring deficit from $37bn to “zero” as promised, the elected president planned spending cuts by implementing, what will appear to be the main challenge of its mandate, a pension system reform. This ambition to reform the country led investors to endorse Bolsonaro’s candidacy over the left-wing candidate. Moreover, the Workers Party is considered by many Brazilians to be responsible for the country’s worst recession in history. Indeed, the GDP of the eighth-largest economy in the world shrank by almost 8% and close to 13 million people are unemployed.

Rate market

The announcement of reforms and project to reduce deficit already had an impact on financial markets, firstly in the national bond market with the yield on the 10Y Government Bond going back to last month of May levels at 10% (against 12,5% in September – See Below).

Currency market

Those announcements combined with the assurance that the Central Bank will be able to act independently brought back the domestic currency to the milestone of 3,6 per dollar with analysts planning a stabilization at those levels. Following the strengthening of the Real, Price of nationally produced commodities such as Sugar and Coffee (Brazil being responsible for a Third of worldwide production) rallied last month. Indeed, a stronger Brazilian real makes commodity exports less attractive for holders of other currencies (See Graph below).

Even though investors have welcomed Bolsonaro’s election positively, no details of this program have been released and there is no certainty on whether it will be approved or not. Indeed, his Social Liberal Party (PSL) doesn’t hold the majority at the house of Congress, which could make it more complicated to vote constitutional amendments such as a pension reform.

On the financial markets side, analysts believe the Bovespa index could resume its rise during the next months if the new government (official on the 1st of January) materialize its reforms in 2019. Otherwise, this positive trend won´t be sustainable.

Conclusion

Volatility doesn’t necessarily mean bad news, with some anticipation and expertise on its side, it could also represent a strong opportunity for any kind of business. New Momentum can assist you in all kind of capital market problematics.

Côme Vigoureux

Last 15th of March, Standard & Poor’s decided to upgrade Portugal’s credit rating to BBB, an announcement quickly followed by the one of Moody’s, which, chose to leave the one of Italy unchanged. Later this months the S&P’s maintained Spain’s rating at A- with a positive outlook, opening the debate on a future increase in the short run. In a climate of Bond Rallies, those decisions drove investors to rush on those countries’ bonds, as well as those of their neighbors.

What parameters did rating agencies consider in their assessment? What can we expect from the apparent recovery of “Mediterranean” economies in the debt capital markets, both sovereign and corporate?

Facts and Macro Explanations

In Portugal, the reforms undertaken by the government over the last years appear to pay off as the countries’ economy is expected to grow between 1,5% and 1,7% during the next two years. Moreover, Portugal is expected to record a budgetary surplus (including the debt reimbursement) by 2020, allowing them to reduce their debt to GDP ratio. Enough for S&P’s to upgrade the countries’ credit rating.

Net contributions to real GDP growth (Portugal) | In percentage points

Sources: Banco de Portugal and Statistics Portugal

The picture seems a little less bright for Italy where the Treasury revised its GDP Growth estimate to 0,1% , after slipping into recession in the second half of 2018. Moody’s decision appears to be more motivated by next week’s agenda and it still unclear whether the other rating agencies will also postpone report scheduled at the end of May. Indeed, the vote on 2020’s budget proposal is scheduled next month and the possible increase of the Value Added tax with it. Moreover, the outcome of the EU election is likely to have an impact on the Government’s policy.

In Spain, S&P’s decided to maintain the current rating of A- with a positive outlook, although some analysts were expecting to see it rise. The agency pointed out that their position could evolve in the coming months if the government manages to consolidate the deficit level and improve the payout of exterior debt. On the political side, the outcome of the Catalonia crisis and the anticipated election could also be preponderant. The Spanish economy is expected to grow at 2,2% this year and then deaccelerate as the economic cycle will mature, sustained by a growing internal demand, according to S&P’s. The rating agency also expects the private consumption to rise as salaries will keep growing. Nevertheless, the recent growth of the minimum salary could reduce the pace of new employments creation.

Consequence on Sovereign Bond Markets

Shortly after Moody’s decision to leave Italy’s Baa3 credit rating unchanged, the Italian Treasury 10y Bond yield was pushed to 2.42%, its lowest since May 2018. Its spread over Germany’s narrowed to its tightest since last September at 234 basis points, far from its end of 2018’s level when it crossed the 300bp.

On its side, Portugal’s 10y bond yield dropped to its lowest in at least 25 years, to 1.25%. This only confirmed the market trend as the gap over Germany has narrowed by about 30 basis points since the start of the year and was last at about 137 basis points after investors rallied on the German Bond, pushing it to negative levels.

At the end, Spanish 10y Yield curve could be even more significant to analyze investors views on the region. Indeed, if S&P’s announcements on Spain didn’t influence consequently its 10y Yield curve, the one on Portugal’s upgrade had it decreased by 4.5%. Now looking back to the last 6 months, the Spanish curve went from 1,73% to 1,10% since October, showing investors overall optimism on the region.

Spain Generic Govt 10Y Yield

Source: Bloomberg

To recall, Spain broke a national record on its 10-year bond sale last January, with about 47 billion euros of orders on a 10 billion-euro issue. This paved the way for Italy and Portugal to go out in the market. But the most iconic case is surely the one of Greece that issued its first 10y Note in the last decade after Moody’s improved the country’s credit rating to B1 with stable Outlook. This allowed Athens to capitalize on it and go test investors’ confidence after the mixed success of a previous a shorter-term bond sale two months before. In the meantime, yields on old 10y bonds dropped to their lowest since 2006 (It is currently trading around 3.77%). To recall, Greece is just going out of one the biggest recession in its history and was disabled to issue new bonds, receiving emergency loans from the EU and the IMF for financing. This drove the Government Bond 10y yield to a record high of 48.60% back in 2012.

First sovereign issuers, then corporates?

It is usual to see banks benefit from countries upgrades, especially in southern Europe. This time, the upgrade of Portugal’s rating was quickly followed by S&P’s rising Santander’s long and short-term credit rating in Portugal to BBB and A-2. In Spain, Fitch improved Abanca’s rating to BBB- and F3, meaning that the Galician bank is now considered as Investment Grade. In the meantime, it increased Liberbank’s rating from BB to BB+ with a stable outlook.

It could not take so long to see the trend spreading to companies which are partly owned by local governments or with the biggest exposure to such economies.

Côme Vigoureux

Sources : Reuters, Bloomberg, S&P’s, Moody’s, Fitch

The recent EURUSD spot move is drawing a new FX world picture. The acceleration of the move has been quite unusual for the last 5years (between the summers 2014 and today EURUSD spot lost almost 25%).

The market seems consolidating the current level around 1.0500-1.0700 which gives us the opportunity to analyze the situation.

What has changed in the EURUSD market which can explain this spot acceleration?

We can easily find arguments to demonstrate that what happened was predictable but without back trading consideration lets summarize some facts.

At the countries levels, Europe has to manage social tensions and political crisis. Greece, Ukraine, France (extreme right party increase) are elements which can explain the lack of trust in European countries to manage those issues.

Terrorism represents as well in Europe a threat particularly imminent. European institutions have, by consequences, to deal between urgent threats with heavy political process and unlikely consensus making any solution very slow.

At the financial level, Central banks seem more and more isolated with a bigger distance with real problematic and finally a panel of solution quite limited to fix the economic situation. The SNB PEG release has been the perfect demonstration of this situation. By unexpected decision EURCHF collapsed from 1.2000 to 0.8500 in less than one day, making the FX market much more volatile and strengthening the trust issue in those institutions.

All CHF exporters have seen their margins considerably reduced by that decision jeopardizing the Swiss economy. Even if the PEG was probably very expensive to maintain and unilateral decision created an extra tension to a situation already uncomfortable. In Europe, ECB decision to unleash QE seems to convince less than in the others countries due to the fact that it is difficult for nineteen Europeans nations to do the same thing. In New Momentum, we saw a lot of our customers (corporates and Institutional) believe finally in a limited centrals banks impact on the economic world.

What are the market anticipation and why the idea of breaking the parity is more and more credible?

One of the best way to have the market feelings about a trend is reflected in the market prices and more particularly in the FX options pricing. Why those products particularly because every parameter is priced: the level of volatility given by the implied volatilities and the smile which included the asymmetry between the upside or downside level (given by the Risk Reversal or RR).
The implied volatilities for example moved from the lowest levels ever this summers at a level almost three time higher (3 Months implied volatility moved from 4.88% the 30june14 to 11.31% actually (Bloomberg source).

The acceleration of the move is as important as the current level itself because it traduces the market tension with the current situation. All the elements explain in the previous part contributed for sure for a good part of it but the technical level of the current spot around 1.0500 very close of the psychological level of the parity maintains a high level of uncertainty. Let´s relativize a bit those levels, in capital market world, FX remains an asset with the lowest volatilities. For example Lehman crisis brought EURUSD 3 Months implied volatility at 23% when the VIX reached more than 45%. Last point, does an asset with 25% move in few months is worth 11% vol Implied? The ratio seems to us still interesting even if the best level of the last summer seems definitively gone.

The smile component completed this analysis by the information regarding a trend. The 3 months 25d RR is quoting 2.10% PUT EUR over, it means that a PUT EUR 25d (strike 1.0165 with 1.0600 spot) will have a volatility 2.10% higher than CALL EUR 25d (strike 1.1003 with 1.0600spot). In other word the market is paying more to buy a hedge in the downside than the upside. Higher is the extra cost, more the market is ready to pay for the downside. To translate that with the market data the 3 months 25d RR moved from 0.55% PUT EUR over this summer at 2.10% currently, or almost 4 times higher.

The Graphic above shows the 3 Months Implied volatility and 3 Months 25d Risk Reversal, confirming all the elements explained above with first an Implied volatility much higher and Risk reversal paying more for PUT EUR (-0.55% to -2.10%).

The green curve reflects the spread and we see that during the last summer we were in a configuration where volatility and smile were the cheapest. It traduces a very interesting idea probably more explicit in the graphics below that PUT EUR 25d was on its cheapest level.

Between this summer and today, the PUT EUR 25d increased from 5.30% to 12.67%. This reflects all the ideas expressed above, the market prices the bearish trend much more than 8 months ago. An interesting exercise can complete this demonstration, let´s consider the current spot 1.0600 (to be able to compare the volatility and smile effect we will assume a constant spot at 1.0600) and let´s take the 01july2014 market data and the current one:

• 01july2014 : EUR PUT 25d with Spot at 1.0600 would be equivalent to a strike of 1.0415
• 17march2015 : EUR PUT 25d with Spot at 1.0600 is equivalent to a strike of 1.0202

What does that mean? If we had the July market data today, the strike would be closer than the current spot. The fact that we see more than 200pips between the two strikes reflects that today the market anticipates a much bigger potential on a downside movement. A corporate exposed to a EURUSD lower will have to pay a more expensive premium to get a hedge at a similar strike.
The previous elements finally have shown that the market anticipates all the current events as a serious and credible risk for EUR against USD (or others currencies).

It would be probably interesting to quantify that risk and get some answer about a potential timing. Once again a part of the answer will be given by the market pricing but instead of considering vanillas options we will focus on One Touch options which reflects the price during a maturity to touch a certain level. On a spot ref of 1.0600, a 3 Month One Touch 1.0000 is priced 28% and a 6 Months One touch around 50%. In other words, the EURUSD Spot has 50% to reach 1.0000 in 6 months regarding the market anticipation.

Beside the mathematics, what would change a break of the parity?

Let´s consider another effect very important and probably underestimated by the market, the psychological impact of a EURUSD below the parity. In New Momentum, we see a lot of customer under hedge on a level below 1.0000. That fact mixed with the bank risk aversion is creating a perfect situation for an acceleration below the parity. It means that the market is probably long EUR and will contribute to a panic situation when everyone will run behind their exposures. A lot of market experience disappears from the banks with the new bonus regulation, making the market with less memories than before. The recent EURCHF movement can give us a good idea of what can be a market panicking. Even if for the moment we believe in a consolidation of the spot (if any politic announcement or critical event happens), however we are firmly convinced than below the parity all the negative effects will accelerate the trend.