Kurzfassung:
1. Es gibt nicht genug Staatsanleihen am europäischen Bond-Markt für Draghis 1,1 Bio. Aufkaufprogramm.
2. Während QE in USA und London in Perioden hoher Neuverschuldung fiel, sind Eurozonen-Staaten wegen der 3 % Neuverschuldungsgrenze gemäß Maastricht und wegen der Sparpolitik die Hände gebunden.
3. Wenn Banken Staatsanleihen an Draghi verkaufen, entgegen ihnen die Zinseneinnahmen daraus, und sie müssen obendrein für Cash-Einlagen bei der EZB Strafzinsen zahlen. Zudem könnten durch den Draghi-Squeeze deren Kurse noch weiter steigen, was die Verkaufsneigung weiter hemmt.
4. Weil Banken wegen Basel-III mehr Kapital vorhalten müssen, werden sie ohnehin nur zögernd Kredite vergeben. Weiterhin sind die Ausfallrisiken in den PIIGS zu hoch.
------------------------------
To be sure, we’ve written quite a bit lately about the ECB’s upcoming plunge into the world of 13-figure debt monetization (or as we call it, Draghi’s Waterloo), and while we hate to beat a dead horse, the sheer lunacy of a bond buying program that is only constrained by the fact that there simply aren’t enough bonds to buy, cannot possibly be overstated.
Among the program’s many inherent absurdities are the glaring disparity between the size of the program and the amount of net euro fixed income issuance and the more nuanced fact that the effects of previous ECB easing efforts virtually ensure that Q€ cannot succeed. On the latter point, even though negative deposit rates and miniscule yields limit banks’ options for what they can do with the proceeds from any EGBs they’re willing to sell to the ECB, they could of course choose to do the unthinkable and actually make loans. ECB chief economist Peter Praet is pretty confident banks will be forced to do just that if they want to maintain margins (which have ironically been crushed by the same type of policies that the ECB is set to roll out):
“...as expected returns on securities will be compressed, maintaining net interest income will require banks to shift their portfolios away from securities and towards loans to firms and households.”
However, this simply isn’t going to happen for the same reason other attempts to pump money into the system haven’t filtered down to Main Street: banks are too scared to lend and a tougher regulatory regime is reinforcing their reluctance. Here’s Bloomberg:
The incentive to lend created by lower returns on securities runs into the Basel III regulatory framework. The new rules, which aim to make banks resilient to shocks, mean banks must set-aside more capital for loans.The cocktail of Basel III and QE therefore poses a dilemma for banks: either continue to hold cash and sovereign bonds, both are liquid assets and have a zero percent risk-weighting, or lend to the real economy in return for higher interest payments but lower liquidity and capital ratios.
To the extent that banks will make a profit when they sell their sovereign bond holdings, there may be a bit of extra capital floating about to make new loans. However, given the regulatory context, the chances of a big boost to lending are slim.
This dynamic is exacerbated when you consider the dramatic increase in NPLs that has occurred across the currency bloc over the course of the protracted crisis.
(siehe Chart unten)
We’re not finished yet. Consider also this knock-on effect of the supply/demand imbalance: if sellers suspect prices will go higher because they believe the ECB will be desperate to meet its €60 billion euro/month target, they’ll likely hold out, especially if some market participants get nervous about the availability of certain issues for short covering.
From FT:
When the Bank of England and US Federal Reserve launched QE, their governments were still running massive fiscal deficits. With eurozone governments retrenching fiscally, purchases under the ECB’s QE programme will comfortably exceed net debt issuance — especially in Germany.
So to meet its target, the ECB will have to squeeze others out of government bond markets. That will be hard if bond holders are reluctant to sell, either because there is nowhere else to put their money, or they expect prices to rise further, which may then become the case...
All of this is compounded by the fact that no one really knows how the hell this is actually going to work (logistically we mean). The mechanics simply have not been spelled out and while Hank Paulson will probably tell you that the whole reason you wield a bazooka is so you don’t have to explain the details, the market is starting to get nervous. For as Bloomberg explains, there are many unanswered questions....
Zurück
