The macroeconomic outlook for South Africa is gloomy. After a year of unprecedented electricity shortages in 2023, economic growth is only expected to rebound very slightly in 2024. However, investor confidence has been boosted with new political forces entering into government in June 2024, following the general election in May. The new coalition government, with populist parties largely absent, offers the prospect of a degree of political continuity, continued fiscal consolidation and the implementation of reforms designed to increase the medium-term economic-growth potential. However, this government of national unity is built on uneasy alliances
Would you rather find yourself barreling down towards a cliff edge, or mis-stepping onto a slippery slope? The answer seems obvious. The former predicament typically ends with multiple traumas, the latter with bruises at worst, albeit ultimately it also leads to the bottom if one keeps going. European policymakers have shown a knack for U-turning at cliff edges; they now need to learn to get off slippery slopes. It may prove even harder.
Less than 2 years after spiking to decades highs, inflation is back in the neighbourhood of central bank targets in most of the world. Yet it is too soon to declare victory, as there are still cross currents for economic policy-makers to navigate. As they have earned a good track record of it, and room to act, the year-ahead baseline scenario is fairly benign for both advanced economies and emerging markets, with gradually easing financial conditions (from lower interest rates and a likely weaker US dollar) allowing activity to stabilize around trend growth.
Bank Indonesia unexpectedly cut its monetary policy rates on 18 September (-25 bps). This easing was largely due to the rupiah strengthening against the USD since August (+6.4%).
The outstanding amount of loans to households for house purchase fell year-on-year by 0.65% in July 2024. It stood at EUR 1,424 billion, compared to EUR 1,433 billion at its record high in July 2023. This fourth consecutive decline is particularly remarkable, given that the first (-0.06% in April 2024) was already unprecedented for this series of data, which has been recorded since April 1994.
While the date of the Fed's first rate cut is now foreseeable (it will be at the FOMC on 17-18 September), everything else remains uncertain: the size of the cut, as well as the overall extent of the easing cycle and the timing of the cuts. Developments on the US labour market are key in this calibration. In terms of inflation, significant progress has been made regarding the return to price stability on both sides of the Atlantic, but the battle is far from won. This calls for caution in the monetary easing that is beginning
US growth has clearly moderated in the first half of the year and the latest data for the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation metric (core personal consumption expenditures inflation) have been welcomed by the Fed and financial markets. The latter are now pricing in a high likelihood of a first rate cut in September. Faced with a still low but rising unemployment rate, the focus of the Federal Reserve is shifting. From exclusively looking at inflation, economic activity and employment also start to matter now, even more so considering the latest progress in terms of disinflation.
Like their number, the economic weight of corporate bankruptcies has increased to an unprecedented extent since March 2022, starting from an all-time low in 2021. This ratio compares the outstanding amount of bank loans to newly bankrupt corporates to the total outstanding amount of bank loans to corporates (in difficulty or not). These developments are mainly due to the continued catch-up of corporate bankruptcies. This concerns more fragile corporates whose would have already gone bankrupt in the absence of the economic and health measures put in place in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, the repayment of State-Guaranteed Loans does not seem to have an excessive impact on the financial situation of the majority of corporates that have benefited from them
On 5 June 2024, Eurobank Ergasias Services and Holdings, National Bank of Greece, Alpha Services and Holdings, and Piraeus Financial Holdings (in that order the first to fourth largest Greek banking groups by CET1 capital) were authorised by the European Central Bank to pay out a weighted average of 24% of their 2023 net income attributable to Equity Holders. This payout, totalling EUR 875 million, 93% of which is in the form of dividends, is the first of its kind since 2008 for these banks, which between them account for some 90% of the Greek banking system’s total assets.
Speaking at a joint press conference in Germany on Tuesday, 28 May 2024, the French President and German Chancellor expressed their desire to create a “European savings product” to “bolster Europe’s competitiveness and growth”. This political will follows on from the Letta[1] and Noyer[2] reports and statements made by the French Minister of the Economy. It’s a new approach to getting Capital Markets Union back on the rails.
Faced with a significant increase in official interest rates, companies have been surprisingly resilient. Can this last in an economy which is bound to slow given the ‘high policy rates for longer’ environment? The Federal Reserve’s latest Financial Stability Report gives some comfort based on a comparison of corporate bond yields and spreads to their historical distribution. Moreover, resilient earnings imply a robust debt-servicing capacity. Does this assessment hold in a stress test scenario? A recent analysis of the Federal Reserve concludes that the debt-servicing capacity of the U.S. public corporate sector as a whole is robust to sustained elevated interest rates, unless in case of a severe economic downturn
After being left reeling by the unexpected money market crisis during its first round of quantitative tightening (QT1), the Federal Reserve (Fed) intends to manage the reduction of its balance sheet better. This means destroying some of the reserves held by banks at the Fed without triggering a shortage in central bank money, given the liquidity requirements imposed on banks.
Annual flows of money market fund shares/units held by non-financial corporations (NFCs) in France were positive throughout 2023, having been negative from the second quarter of 2021 to the fourth quarter of 2022. This trend reversal was due most notably to the increase in key ECB interest rates on 27 July 2022, which pushed up money market returns.
Since June 2022, the US Federal Reserve (Fed) has scaled back its balance sheet, by limiting the reinvestment of maturing debt in its securities portfolio. The scale of the effects of this quantitative tightening (QT2) will depend in particular on the nature of buyers of newly issued securities.
Monetary anchoring is one of the main arguments put forward by central banks to justify an eponymous digital currency. According to supporters of the digital euro, a reduction in the use of paper money or even its disappearance would be the natural next step and result in the creation of a digital form of central bank currency that would be the only guaranteed way of keeping the currency anchored in the digital era. Nothing could be less obvious.
Net issues of debt securities, cumulated over 12 months, by non-financial corporations (NFCs) were positive in December 2023 (EUR 8.3 bn) for the fourth consecutive month.
The ECB’s tightening of monetary policy between the summer of 2022 and September 2023 continued to have its effects on euro zone bank lending in the fourth quarter of 2023. However, in the absence of a further turn of the screw since September 2023, these effects have not intensified further. Outstanding bank loans to the private sector even accelerated slightly, year-on-year, in the fourth quarter (up 0.5% in December 2023 compared to 0.3% in September) in line with GDP (up 0.1% in the fourth quarter from 0.0% in the third). The credit impulse remains negative but increased slightly for the first time since the ECB began to increase rates in July 2022.
BNP Paribas Economic Research wishes you all the best for 2024. On the macroeconomic front, the highlight of 2023 was the peak in official rates in the United States and the eurozone, but what is in store for 2024?In this video, you can discover the topics and points of attention that will be monitored throughout 2024 for each team: Banking Economy, OECD and Country Risk.
After the historic peak in the first quarter of 2021 (“Covid savings”), financial investments and the household savings rate fell in step with each other through to the second quarter of 2022.
On the margins of discussions about banking regulation and supervision, the role played by the Federal Home Loan Banks (FHLB) prior to the bank run in Spring 2023 is bitterly disputed. Seeking to correct the distortions resulting from their status and refocus the FHLBs on their main mission, their regulator, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), has proposed several areas of reform.However, limiting the FHLBs’ capacity to support bank liquidity could have significant effects on the money markets and structurally increase banks’ requirements for central bank money.
Because of its significance and its many connections with the real and financial spheres, the residential property sector plays a central role in the economic cycle. The acceleration in property prices in the eurozone, which began in 2014, the year in which the monetary bloc emerged from recession, intensified after the "Great Lockdown" of 2020, peaking at almost 10% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2022. The tightening of monetary policy by the European Central Bank, unprecedented in its scale and speed, seems to have put a halt to this progress, although at this stage there are significant differences between countries. Economies where the property market had withstood the subprime crisis better now appear to be in greater difficulty in the face of tighter credit conditions
The net short position of hedge funds in the US Treasury futures market has expanded considerably over the course of the year. At the end of November, it stood at an unprecedented level of almost USD 800 billion. Asset managers, eager to hedge against interest-rate risk, increased their net long positions.
The FHFA recently proposed reforming the Federal Home Loan Banks, which are accused of having taken on the role of lender of next-to-last resort, a role that was much too big for them.
Last October, an average of over USD 1,500 bn was traded daily on the Treasuries repo markets through the Fixed Income Clearing Corporation (FICC), USD 500 bn more than in October 2022. While transactions between FICC clearing members remained relatively stable, sponsored repo loans rose sharply.
The tightening of euro-zone monetary policy, which began in July 2022 and carried on until September 2023, continued to curb demand for loans and dampen economic activity in the third quarter of 2023. The initial effects on core inflation have also been apparent since the end of the summer.
