Blog
In the past few weeks, China has signaled that it will arrest the currency appreciation, allow the use of leveraged collateral for international investment and finally deal with overheating domestic prices. This means that it should accelerate outbound investment by selling FX to buy USD and Euro assets.  This means a reduction in the RRR, a domestic reduction in deposits and sales of dollar holdings. Reserves in the West are large, but let’s not forget [...]
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In virtually all cases globally, movements in bank stocks tell us important information about property stocks. The assets of banks are mostly collateralized property. And the liabilities of property companies are mostly collateralized loans. Of course they are tied at the hip. A prime example is the Philippines. The bank stocks and the property stocks have a 98% correlation. They are the same creature. The charts inside show this without a shadow of a doubt. [...]
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China wants lower asset prices. It wants fewer reserves. It wants less inflows. The only way to do this is to accelerate capital outflows and encourage international leverage.  This is happening now. How 1) The CNY volatility is intentionally being encouraged. 2) Important new rules have been promulgated to encourage PRC nationals to use domestic asset prices as collateral for FX borrowing. 3) Offshore RMB issuance is being ramped up in a big way.  (Take a [...]
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Feb. 21 - Paul Schulte, CEO & chairman at Schulte Research, says India's policymakers are allowing the rupee to depreciate which has, in turn, led to inflation. In an interview with ET NOW, Schulte says India's twin deficits combined are worse than that of any other emerging market economy.
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Property is the collateral of a bank and must be funded by deposits liabilities and capital. We wrote on December 9 that 2013 marked the year when the deposit liabilities of GEMS countries were all spoken for and, therefore, property collateral was in jeopardy.  In layman's terms, the GEMS credit cycle is over and the Western credit cycle is bottoming out. Marginal money is rightly moving away from GEMS property and into western property.  Goodbye Shanghai and [...]
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We continue to pound the pavement looking for companies that are moving into the emerging world with mobile phone banking. That is clearly the future. Branch banking is dead. The real winner so far is Monitise.  Few others are on the horizon.   I am at Finovate Europe 2014 in London now and the companies which are showing off their banking applications this year border on the tedious and, I dare say, "goofy".   There is general disappointment among [...]
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China is intensifying its crackdown on lavish spending.  South East Asian LDRs are rising above 100 all over. Investment banks are shrinking, and GEMS commercial banks may FINALLY figure out that mobile phone banking is 98% cheaper than branches.  Think about it -- US banks closed 1,500 branches across the US and branches have been declining since 2010.  GEMS banks will figure this out soon.Dubai is taking market share. Japan is really cheap now. Even Italian [...]
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I have known Peter Stella for 6 years now. In 2011, he was bravely saying that QE would become MORE aggressive and would last way into 2014. A great call. As the former liaison to central banks from the IMF, he has had a great seat in the brave new world of QE. What's he saying now? He is our guest writer this week. GLOBAL. Growth in the US, EU and Japan is significantly below [...]
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UBS GETS IT. The bank outsourced most of its patchwork of multiple platforms (mostly fixed income) and appointed disruptors Murex and Ion. This is supposed to save UBS hundreds of millions and shed thousands of jobs. This is further evidence to show how smaller firms are able to go head to head with banks and erode the foundations. THAT UBS IS SURRENDERING TO THIS IS A GOOD THING. Other banks don't get it.