The trade de jour is the steepening yield curve and rising inflation. I have noted many times that the inflation narrative is much more cyclical than it appears owing to early cycle constraints that will fade relatively quickly into 2022. The other driver, so say the narrative, is MMT and runaway US fiscal support. Goldman hoses that today:
US overheating risks
Despite recently raised concerns that substantial additional fiscal stimulus on top of an already-recovering economy could push demand above potential GDP, leading to a sharp rise in inflation, we’re less concerned about this risk, for several reasons. First, although we expect that the passage of a $1.5tn Phase 5 fiscal package as well as an infrastructure bill later this year will push GDP close to potential, we think the risk of overheating from these measures is limited because much of the spending is one-off, and some of the items such as unemployment (UI) benefits will shrink if the economy recovers more quickly than expected. Indeed, as our chart of the week shows, we believe the impact of fiscal stimulus on growth will peak in 2Q21 and then decline over subsequent quarters. Second, we estimate that only roughly 20%of the sharp run-up in “excess” household savings built up during the pandemic will be spent in the first year after reopening given their composition and distribution, with lower-income households more likely to spend down this savings than higher-income ones. And, third, we believe that current estimates of the amount of slack in many major DM economies are understated, suggesting less risk of overheating from continued expansionary policies. In particular, we think output gaps are 3-4pp larger than the average official estimates in the US and the UK, and as much as 5-6pp larger in France, Italy, and Spain.
Sharper yield moves, higher risks
Continued improvement in the near-term virus situation and the increased likelihood of a larger fiscal stimulus package have led US real yields to rise again, and we continue to expect a fairly modest rise in 10yr real yields through the course of 2021 as the growth recovery gathers steam. However, we believe that a sharper-than-expected move higher in real yields is a plausible risk, which could have negative implications for asset markets depending on the source of the real rates move and the broader macro backdrop. For equities, we believe that a sharp rise in real rates driven by an increase in growth expectations—the risk that is most consistent with our forecasts—is more likely to flatten overall equity returns than to lead to a sustained correction, although it would likely lead to pressure on the Nasdaq/tech complex. But rising real rates driven by concerns over more hawkish monetary policy—less likely in our view, but possible through miscommunication—would likely put pressure on US equities and credit spreads, and we would expect the S&P 500 to fall and US credit spreads to meaningfully widen in such a scenario. We would also expect EM equities to underperform in that scenario, although that underperformance would likely only be substantial in the case where China growth expectations also slow. And for FX, we predict that the sharpest pressure for many currencies would occur on a combination of a real rates increase and a slowdown in China growth expectations, with pressure particularly substantial for EM Asia and commodity currencies. Broadly speaking, we believe that the simplest portfolio protection against large real rates increases comes from Treasury markets themselves, although tilting portfolios towards less rate-sensitive areas may also help, and note that gold and USD/JPY may also offer good optionality against real rate risk.
That’s roughly my view. MMT is not embedded enough yet to drive inflation higher beyond 2021. That said, I think markets are going to tantrum a little as the real inflation numbers come in.
Sadly, I am giving up on gold. The real rate risk is obvious now and it has decoupled completely. The only thing I can point to is Bitcoin. As ridiculous as that is, it’s a ridiculous world and fighting that is ridiculous.
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal.
He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.
> As ridiculous as that is, it’s a ridiculous world so I’m not fighting that one anymore.
So… crypto payment gateway for articles soon? :p
You guys could either convert it all directly to AUD on payment, or hedge and convert more than half direct to AUD, and see what the rest does.
Pretty sure there are wordpress plugins that do it all for you.
Matchbox
10y breakeven has gone from 0.5 to 2.2 in 1 year. That takes us back to 2014.
Someone thinks we are getting some inflation, especially commodities.
Agree 10y REAL yields looks like it might have bottomed but we are playing with really small numbers here now.
10yr bonds could rise to 1.5 – 2% before things get messy but that will run off the back of inflation running 2%+
That might get the real yields back to 0 for the short term BUT once things flip and bond yields fall fast, it’s hard to get that runaway inflation down especially as they will NOT raise rates. That will mean we could have 0.5% 10 year yields and falling with 2% inflation that’s lagging.
Want to stop 10-year yields rising causing a market rout and run inflation hot? Yield Curve Control.
But I don’t know if they will do that. That would be great for Gold though.
Willy2MEMBER
– The RBA, FED, ECB, …………….. etc. aren’t capable of controlling the yield curve. Because they FOLLOW the rates as set by a person called “Mr. Market”.
– The 10 year or the 30 year yield going through the roof is actually VERY DEFLATIONARY !!!!
Matchbox
The RBA already do YCC. Japan also target their yield. Other CB’s can adopt it as well if they want.
10y yield rising (i.e. prices falling) is due to inflation expectations as shown in the 10y breakevens.
Whether we actually see inflation is still a question mark, although the massive rise in commodities and the recent PPI print certainly points to an pretty good inflation print for Jan.
But signals are all over the place ( us retail sales smashed exp in Feb at 5.3%! but then over 800k people filed for jobless claims) and so people are really split on whether we really get sustained inflation or not.
It’s a real messy mixed bag
Willy2MEMBER
– As long as wages don’t rise at the same pace as (Price) inflation there won’t be any serious inflation any time soon.
– In e.g. the 1970s workers received wage increases at and above price inflation and that enabled producres to increase prices at the same pace. That was the cause of high Price inflation.
Not only that the savings rate has exploded as we have never been given so much stimulus to everyone, even people completely unaffected by the covid shutdowns.
Here is the savings rate in the US that dwarfs the peak in the 70’s: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT
BUT velocity of money has gone completely tanked since the GFC! You NEED velocity of money to increase inflation.
Why is no one spending? where is the money locked up? The answer is risk assets mainly in tech stocks and excess bank reserves. The money is there, it just needs to be spent.
Willy2MEMBER
– As long as wages don’t rise faster than PRICE (!!!) inflation – like in the 1960s and especially the 1970s, I don’t see how MMT is going to accelerate “inflation”.
– MMT certainly is inflationary (= increase of money & credit) but as long as this done by increasing the amount of (government) debt, MMT won’t achieve anything permanent. MMT is then merely a (one time) socalled “sugar high”. A better analogy is drinking alcohol. As long as one keeps drinking (think: increase debt) the party will continue but it’s inevitalble that we’ll have a hang over. And the more we drink (think: debt) the larger the “hang over” (a.k.a. (credit/debt) deflation).
– Even if we would give everyone UBI (Universal Basic Income) and/or a 10%, 20% or even 50% payhike then this wouldn’t inevitably cause Inflation. Because A LOT OF people/would choose to start paying down debt (= deflation).
> As ridiculous as that is, it’s a ridiculous world so I’m not fighting that one anymore.
So… crypto payment gateway for articles soon? :p
You guys could either convert it all directly to AUD on payment, or hedge and convert more than half direct to AUD, and see what the rest does.
Pretty sure there are wordpress plugins that do it all for you.
10y breakeven has gone from 0.5 to 2.2 in 1 year. That takes us back to 2014.
Someone thinks we are getting some inflation, especially commodities.
Agree 10y REAL yields looks like it might have bottomed but we are playing with really small numbers here now.
10yr bonds could rise to 1.5 – 2% before things get messy but that will run off the back of inflation running 2%+
That might get the real yields back to 0 for the short term BUT once things flip and bond yields fall fast, it’s hard to get that runaway inflation down especially as they will NOT raise rates. That will mean we could have 0.5% 10 year yields and falling with 2% inflation that’s lagging.
Want to stop 10-year yields rising causing a market rout and run inflation hot? Yield Curve Control.
But I don’t know if they will do that. That would be great for Gold though.
– The RBA, FED, ECB, …………….. etc. aren’t capable of controlling the yield curve. Because they FOLLOW the rates as set by a person called “Mr. Market”.
– The 10 year or the 30 year yield going through the roof is actually VERY DEFLATIONARY !!!!
The RBA already do YCC. Japan also target their yield. Other CB’s can adopt it as well if they want.
10y yield rising (i.e. prices falling) is due to inflation expectations as shown in the 10y breakevens.
Whether we actually see inflation is still a question mark, although the massive rise in commodities and the recent PPI print certainly points to an pretty good inflation print for Jan.
But signals are all over the place ( us retail sales smashed exp in Feb at 5.3%! but then over 800k people filed for jobless claims) and so people are really split on whether we really get sustained inflation or not.
It’s a real messy mixed bag
– As long as wages don’t rise at the same pace as (Price) inflation there won’t be any serious inflation any time soon.
– In e.g. the 1970s workers received wage increases at and above price inflation and that enabled producres to increase prices at the same pace. That was the cause of high Price inflation.
Interesting you mention the 70’s as real wages in the US are back the that peak again.
You can see here in this article which shows it well in a simple format:
https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/04/50-years-of-us-wages-in-one-chart/
Or here in the fed website. You can tweak the graphs timeframes as you wish:
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2018/02/are-wages-increasing-or-decreasing/?utm_source=series_page&utm_medium=related_content&utm_term=related_resources&utm_campaign=fredblog&_gl=1*21f4s1*_ga*NjQ4NDQzOTQ3LjE2MTM1MTUyMjQ.*_ga_5K9L4B5XET*MTYxMzcwMzk2OS4xMS4xLjE2MTM3MDQ3OTkuMA..
Not only that the savings rate has exploded as we have never been given so much stimulus to everyone, even people completely unaffected by the covid shutdowns.
Here is the savings rate in the US that dwarfs the peak in the 70’s:
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PSAVERT
BUT velocity of money has gone completely tanked since the GFC! You NEED velocity of money to increase inflation.
Why is no one spending? where is the money locked up? The answer is risk assets mainly in tech stocks and excess bank reserves. The money is there, it just needs to be spent.
– As long as wages don’t rise faster than PRICE (!!!) inflation – like in the 1960s and especially the 1970s, I don’t see how MMT is going to accelerate “inflation”.
– MMT certainly is inflationary (= increase of money & credit) but as long as this done by increasing the amount of (government) debt, MMT won’t achieve anything permanent. MMT is then merely a (one time) socalled “sugar high”. A better analogy is drinking alcohol. As long as one keeps drinking (think: increase debt) the party will continue but it’s inevitalble that we’ll have a hang over. And the more we drink (think: debt) the larger the “hang over” (a.k.a. (credit/debt) deflation).
That is the rub.
– Even if we would give everyone UBI (Universal Basic Income) and/or a 10%, 20% or even 50% payhike then this wouldn’t inevitably cause Inflation. Because A LOT OF people/would choose to start paying down debt (= deflation).