Miercoles 01/04/15 PMI, ISM manufacturero

[Fenix]

8:52 Futuro Nikkei: Rompe máximos de 2007
Futuro Nikkei: Rompe al alza los máximos de 2007, abriendo el camino a la zona de resistencias entre 20800 y 22700 puntos. Los soportes más relevantes en su estructura alcista de medio plazo se sitúan en 16300 y 13500 puntos.

Comprar en correcciones.

Eduardo Faus
Original de Renta 4 Banco

8:44 Es probable que la Fed suba tipos en la venta junio-septiembre
Dennis Lockhart, presidente de la Reserva Federal de Atlanta
Dennis Lockhart, miembro de la Reserva Federal de EE.UU., ha afirmado que el crecimiento económico repuntará en el segundo trimestre del año, y añade:

- Es probable que la Fed suba tipos en la ventana junio-septiembre.
- La Fed aún tendrá sustancial control sobre los tipos a cortos una vez que las subidas comiencen.
- Aún creo que hay considerable infrautilización en el mercado laboral.

8:39 S&P 500 futuro junio. Vigilar de cerca la pauta de triángulo
La onda b alcista finalizó prematuramente en 2082 en lugar de su objetivo ideal de 2091/2104.

Si la pauta de triángulo se mantiene los precios deberían girarse al alza no por debajo del mínimo de la onda c en 2033 o de otra manera la pauta quedará obsoleta por una una cuenta bajista 1-2, cuenta (1)-(2).

Resistencias 2050 2062 2076 2082
Soportes 2033/31 2008 1980 1969

8:31 ABN Amro cree que el euro dólar descenderá a 0,95 a finales de 2015
Los economistas de ABN Amro siguen siendo bajistas con el euro dólar (EUR/USD), citando que el programa de compra de bonos del BCE (QE) seguirá pesando sobre la moneda común y mantendrá en mínimos históricos a los rendimientos de la zona euro.

Estiman que se alcanzará la paridad a finales de junio y cotizará en 0.9500 a finales de 2015.

8:23 Goldman cree que Grecia ya está sufriendo la falta de acuerdo con los acreedores
Los estrategas de Goldman Sachs advierten que las dificultades que está teniendo Grecia para conseguir financiación ya ha tenido un impacto significativo en la economía griega.

Señalan que la fuga de capitales por importe de 15.200 millones de euros que han sufrido los bancos griegos en los 3 últimos meses ha provocado un "endurecimiento de las condiciones financieras" siendo un shock para la economía.

8:15 Informe de empleo ADP en EEUU marzo 189.000 vs 225.000 esperado
El informe de empleo ADP estadounidense en marzo descendió a 189.000 desde 214.000 anterior (revisado al alza) y quedando por debajo de las estimaciones de 225.000.

Datos negativos para los mercados de acciones, aunque retrasa las expectativas de una subida de tipos, y el dólar.

¿Qué es la ADP? La encuesta ADP es una medida del empleo privado no agrícola, basada en un subconjunto de datos de nóminas agregadas y anónimas que representa aproximadamente a 400.000 de los 500.000 clientes empresariales de ADP en los Estados Unidos y aproximadamente a 24 millones de empleados trabajando en los 19 grandes sectores industriales privados de los Estados Unidos. Esta encuesta se toma como un indicador adelantado del empleo no agrícola oficial.

8:11 El precio del mineral de hierro cae por debajo de $50 por tonelada
El ingrediente para la fabricación de acero ha sufrido bandazo bajista, cayendo un 3,9 por ciento a 49 dólares por tonelada, de acuerdo con una evaluación de precios de The Steel Index.

Las pérdidas acumuladas desde principios de año alcanzan casi el 30 por ciento y sigue a un descenso del 50 por ciento de 2014. Esto significa que el mineral de hierro cotiza a niveles vistos por última vez durante la crisis financiera.

[Fenix]

Las personas que buscan una respuesta "mágica" tienden a invertir en base al azar
por OnTrader •Hace 13 horas

Las personas que buscan una respuesta ‘mágica’, tienden a invertir en base al azar, al invertir al azar el resultado por lo general es malo, al ser el resultado malo la persona piensa que invertir es riesgoso, como el sistema educativo castiga a quien falla, esas ideas ‘tatuadas’ en esa mente logran que la persona actué de esa forma, entonces para no sentirse mal al reconocer que ha fallado, señala como responsable a los mercados financieros, llamando a Wall Street ‘Epidemia del mundo’, ‘El lugar donde hay gente que quita dinero a los demás’, ‘Wall Street es un casino’, ‘Invertir en los mercados financieros es riesgoso’, se pasan estas personas toda su vida calificando un activo entre riesgoso o no riesgosos, jamás se preguntan ¿Soy yo el riesgo?, jamás se califican a sí mismos , saben que son el problema, pero están programados para no fallar, entonces ignoran todo, les queda muy difícil reconocer que son la causa de sus errores financieros, el sistema los educo para ser ‘perfectos’.

Observo con gracia como muchas personas que atacan y critican a los mercados financieros cargan en sus bolsillos tarjetas de crédito, por lo general tarjetas de crédito extremadamente mal utilizadas, critican al gobierno por la tasa de desempleo alta, buscan trabajo en empresas que funcionan gracias al capitalismo, usan marcas que cotizan en la bolsa, trabajan en empresas cuyas acciones también cotizan en la bolsa, usan teléfonos móviles para grabar las manifestaciones que hacen a las afueras Wall Street, suben sus videos a internet a paginas como Youtube la cual hace parte de Google, la acción Google cotiza en el Nasdaq , las partes y el lugar donde hicieron ese teléfono móvil fue, es y será financiado por el sistema financiero, la empresa donde trabaja, donde come, donde hacen las marcas que usa, funcionan gracias a entidades financieras, mientras están ‘ocupando Wall Street’ se pasan por un restaurante de comidas rápidas a calmar el hambre, y probablemente ese restaurante produce su comida y paga la nomina de sus empleados, gracias al sistema financiero….las acciones de McDonald’s cotizan en la bolsa….estoy muy seguro que muchos después de hacer sus manifestaciones en Wall Street en contra de los mercado financieros, se pasan por McDonald’s.

Pero como a muchas personas les duele decir, ‘yo me equivoqué’, les queda más breve señalar al exterior como el culpable, en vez de usar el cerebro para crear dinero, usan su cerebro para crear excusas y buscar a muchos culpables, entonces culpan a Wall Street, culpan al gobierno, culpan al capitalismo, culpan al dinero y se inventan un montón de excusas, los mercados financieros tienen un grado de responsabilidad pero no todo, no puedo culpar al agua por la gente que se ahoga…tampoco puedo decir que el agua no tiene nada que ver.

La carencia de educación financiera se cubre con un pretexto, ‘No me interesa el dinero’, o para variar usan otra frase muy común ‘El dinero es malo’, la estrategia de esas personas consiste en ignorar la carencia de la inteligencia financiera, la maniobra de esta selva capitalista es jugar con nuestra libertad mientras apliquemos esa estrategia, cuando me dicen ‘No me interesa el dinero’, la pregunta que formulo es ¿Trabaja usted por fines caritativos, no recibe dinero a cambio de su trabajo?, el 99,9% me responden ‘No’, entonces es donde sintetizo que la traducción a esas frases es ‘No me interesa aumentar mi inteligencia financiera, no entiendo el juego del dinero’, de esas ideas y falta de educación financiera, se desprenden problemas sociales como la corrupción, desempleo, desigualdad social, e incluso problemas de salud, la mala administración del dinero conlleva a depresión, ansiedad, estrés e incluso sabemos de personas que se quitan la vida por deudas, entonces ¿Es el dinero importante o no importante?, cuando alguien me dice que no le interesa el dinero ,no lo creo, solo se lo creo a una persona internada en la selva, cuya comida la caza, de resto son solo excusas repetitivas.

[Fenix]

La caída del Euro nubla la vista a los inversores europeos
por Blog oportunidades en bolsa •Hace 13 horas

Desde inicios del verano pasado, el Euro frente al Dólar Americano se ha depreciado más de un 21%.

Las consecuencias de la apreciación del dólar americanos en el precio de la cotización de las principales materias primas han sido directas.

Pero, ¿Qué está pasando en la renta variable?

Utilizando el índice, que nos proporciona la compañía Dow Jones, con las 30 empresas de referencia en España cotizado en Euros y en Dólares americanos podemos observar importantes diferencias.

En la siguiente imagen vemos como el índice DJ SPAIN TITANS 30 en Euros se ha apreciado un 5,62% desde Junio 2014.

Imagen

Sin embargo, el índice DJ SPAIN TITANS 30 en USD ha caído un 16% desde Junio 2014.

Imagen

Si comparamos dichos índices en un mismo gráfico vemos que, a pesar de las variaciones en la cotización del par EUR/USD, estos siempre han seguido la misma tendencia de precios. Es decir, siempre han tendido a subir y bajar a la vez (con diferencias en sus máximos y mínimos generados por el cambio EUR/USD, pero siempre con la misma tendencia).

Imagen

¿Qué está pasando ahora?

La subida de precios del índice DJ SPAIN TITANS 30 en euros no está siendo acompañada por el índice en dólares.

Evidentemente, la caída del precio del Euro y las fuertes subidas en el precio del Dólar han facilitado mucho esta situación pero, entonces, ¿las acciones españolas han subido o han bajado? o mejor dicho, ¿el valor de las empresas españolas ha subido o ha bajado?

Esta es la pregunta del millón.

Pues bien, un último gráfico nos puede ayudar a entender la situación.

Imagen

Como podemos observar, si comparamos la evolución de la cotización de los precios del índice S&P 500 y el DJ SPAIN TITANS 30 USD, desde Junio 2014 mientras del S&P 500 ha subido casi un 6,8% el DJ SPAIN TITANS 30 USD ha caído casi un 16%.

Por lo tanto, si las caídas en el índice de empresas españolas hubieran sido únicamente generadas por la apreciación del dólar americano también se habrían dado en el índice S&P 500.

Por otro lado, creemos que si la tendencia alcista del dólar americano continúa aumentará la probabilidad de una corrección en los índices americanos.

Mientras Draghi sigue imprimiendo billetes los precios suben, pero el valor...

[Fenix]

9:26 Evolución del precio objetivo de National Bank of Greece
Anteriormente publicábamos que el multimillonario Mark Mobius, presidente ejecutivo de Templeton Emerging Markets Group, apostaba por las acciones griegas, especialmente el sector bancario, al encontrarse "extremadamente baratas". De hecho Mobius ya ha empezado a tomar posiciones en National Bank of Greece (NBG).

9:45 PMI manufacturero EE.UU. marzo 55,7 frente 55,3 esperado y anterior
El PMI manufacturero de EE.UU. en el mes de marzo sube a 55,7 frente 55,3 anterior y esperado por el consenso.

Dato positivo para el dólar.

9:37 Economía rusa sube un 0,4% en el cuarto trimestre frente +0,0% esperado


Anticiclón por el norte

Análisis técnico semanal
Miércoles, 1 de Abril del 2015 - 9:50:

Futuro Eurostoxx 50. Recomendación:MANTENER

Multitud de referencias clave se agolpan en la zona de 3750 puntos, pese a que algunos índices homólogos han roto al alza niveles idénticos. Cualquier debilidad no será grave mientras mantenga el soporte en 3300 puntos. Soporte intermedio en 3425


Futuro S&P 500. Recomendación:MANTENER

Cede desde la zona de 2100 puntos, estableciendo este punto como su principal resistencia a corto plazo. Soporte inmediato en 2040 puntos antes de 1980 puntos.


Futuro crudo. Recomendación:AL MARGEN DEBAJO 57

A corto plazo establece resistencia en 57 dólares y 52,5, en su camino a la baja hacia referencias de mínimos históricos registradas durante los años 1986 y 1998 en la zona 39-38 dólares. Soporte clave a corto plazo en 43,5 euros

Futuro euro/dólar. Recomendación:AL MARGEN DEBAJO 1,12

La paridad se acerca, y parece un psicológico imán, a pesar de las referencias de soporte presentes en 1,05. La proyección bajista apunta a 0,97. La sobreventa es acusada, pero la debilidad en el precio también lo es debajo de 1,11

Futuro bund. Recomendación:MANTENER

Se mantiene en máximos históricos pese a la alta sobrecompra que presenta en los indicadores. A corto plazo se hace imprescidible vigilar el soporte anual en 156. Pequeña resistencia en 160.


Eduardo Faus
Original de Renta 4 Banco

[Fenix]

10:00 Gastos construcción EE.UU. febrero -0,1% vs -0,1% esperado
Los gastos de construcción en EE.UU. caen un 0,1% en febrero frente -0,1% esperado y -1,7% anterior.

Dato negativo aunque no tendrá efecto en el mercado.

10:00 ISM manufacturero EE.UU. marzo 51,5 frente 52,5 esperado
Anterior 52,9
El ISM manufacturero en EE.UU. cae en marzo a 51,5 frente 52,9 marzo y 52,5 esperado.

- Subíndice de empleo 50,0 frente 51,9 esperado y 51,4 anterior.
- Subíndice nuevas pedidos 51,8 frente 52,5 anterior.
- Subíndice de precios 39,0 frente 38,0 esperado y 35,0 anterior.

Datos negativos para el dólar y la renta variable.

10:30 Inventarios semanales de energía EE.UU.
Inventarios crudo +4,766 millones barriles frente +4,193 millones esperados.
Inventarios destilados +1,325 millones frente -286.000 barriles esperados.
Inventarios gasolina -4,258 millones frente -943.000 barriles esperados.

Dato bajista para el petróleo por la fuerte reconstrucción de inventarios del crudo y destilados.


Some Folks At The Fed Are Lost - No Juice To The Macros, Part 1
Tyler D.
03/25/2015

Submitted by David Stockman

Yesterday we demonstrated that stock market valuations are not merely “on the high side” as Janet Yellen averred last week. Instead, they are positively in the nose-bleed section of history.

You don’t get the Russell 2000 trading at 90X honest-to-goodness GAAP earnings or 125 biotechs with aggregate LTM losses of $10 billion sporting a combined market cap of $280 billion unless you are deep into bubble land. In fact, the chart on the median PE multiple for all NYSE stocks bears repeating.

Recall this graph is based on trailing GAAP earnings for all companies with positive income. But that was for the LTM period ending in June 2014. Since then the market is up by 7%, yet reported earnings have basically flat-lined. S&P 500 earnings for the June 2014 LTM period, for example, were $103 per share——-a level that has now dropped to $102 per share for the December LTM period.

In short, the median NYSE valuation multiple is now at upwards of 22X—a level far above even the dotcom and housing bubble peaks. It is no wonder, therefore, that even a certified Cool-Aid drinker like St Louis Fed head, James Bullard, has now confessed that he fears a “violent” Wall Street sell-off when the Fed finally ends an 80 month streak of ZIRP sometime this fall.

So what are they waiting for? Actually, this morning’s Wall Street Journal expressed it about as plaintively as it comes. In a word, the monetary politburo is waiting for zero interest rates, massive debt monetization and its wealth effects promises and “puts” to goose the macros:

The central bank has kept rates near zero since the recession to spur hiring, investment and spending.

Does it really take purportedly intelligent people six years to see that the macros are not responding? Better still, isn’t it time for the Fed to explain the exact channel by which its interest rate pegging and forward guidance is supposed to be transmitted to the main street economy?

After all, if these channels are blocked or ineffective - then its flood of liquidity never leaves the canyons of Wall Street. In that event, the central bank actually functions as a financial doomsday machine, inflating the next financial bubble until it bursts. Then, apparently, its job is to rinse and repeat.

Since housing is in the news today, its a good place to start. Historically, the concept of easing worked like a charm in this sector because the nation’s households had not yet been buried in mortgage debt, and home prices had not yet been inflated for so long that they ended up out of reach for a large portion of families.

Accordingly, when the macro-economy weakened—-usually because the Fed had previously overstimulated and had been forced to throw on the brakes—it simply pushed down the interest rate. That caused affordability and mortgage borrowing to soar, thereby kicking-in the housing investment component of a standard Fed-fueled “recovery”.

Yet that self-evidently was a one-time parlor trick, not the activation of eternal economic laws like those which govern the operations of free markets. Since this kind of easy money stimulus required a steady ratcheting up of debt relative to income, it was a mathematical necessity that sooner or later household balance sheets would be tapped out.

In fact, the Greenspan housing bubble disabled the home mortgage credit channel once and far all. On the one hand, it drove real housing prices to levels that made home purchases unaffordable for a huge portion of middle class households. Between Greenspan’s 1987 arrival at the Eccles Building, in fact, and the 2007 peak, the US housing price index soared by 160% or by nearly 3X the rise in the GDP deflator.

At the same time, it saturated the household sector with upwards of $3 trillion of MEW debt (mortgage equity withdrawal). That is, Greenspan’s policy essentially encouraged households to massively liquidate the equity in their homes to finance current non-housing purchases—– such as vacations, boats, autos and tuition——but at the expense of permanent mortgage servitude.

That is why upwards of 20 million households are either underwater on their mortgages completely or have mortgage debt so high relative to market value that the cannot generate sufficient cash to cover the down-payment and brokers fees on a “move-up” transaction.

So home finance is semi-frozen and the normal dynamic which generates turnover of the existing housing stock and demand for new construction has been badly impaired. At the same time, tepid growth of real wages and salaries have made it impossible for households to rapidly earn-out from under their existing mountain of debt.

It therefore needs to be said once again: This condition of “peak debt” is a macro-economic game changer. It means that for the first time in modern history, debt ratios are being slowly reduced during a recovery, not ratcheted-up. Consequently, there is no booster shot to household spending from ZIRP. What is being spent by main street households is a function of what can be earned, not incremental debt leverage.

Untitled

The data for household mortgage borrowings are dispositive. For the first time in modern history, mortgage debt outstanding has actually shrunk during the course of the recovery. And as shown in the chart below, the contrast with the Fed’s leverage ratchet mechanism in past cycles could not be more dramatic.

During the seven years after the 1981 peak, for example, household mortgage credit outstanding doubled from $1 trillion to $2 trillion in dollars of the day. Likewise, during the seven years after the 1990 peak, the Fed sharply reduced interest rates and mortgage debt soared again. This time it rose by 52%—-from $2.5 trillion to $3.7 trillion.

But it was Greenspan’s madcap rate cutting and monetary easing after the dotcom boom and bust that generated the mother of all mortgage borrowing binges. During the seven years from the Q4 2000 peak through the end of 2007, mortgage debt outstanding in the household sector exploded, rising from $4.8 trillion to $10.6 trillion.

That’s right. More mortgage debt was issued during that 84 month period than had been outstanding at the turn of the century. If the Keynesian money printers who inhabit the Eccles Building had any sense that balance sheets are important, they surely would have recognized that peak debt was nigh, and that the old standby parlor trick of cheap rates and higher leverage was over and done.

In fact, that’s exactly what happened. As of Q4 2014, outstanding household mortgage debt stood at $9.38 trillion—-down nearly 12% from its pre-crisis peak.

Its goes without saying that if your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So in response to the financial crisis and the so-called Great Recession, the Fed not only drove money market interest rates to zero in order to stimulate household borrowing, but it effectively jumped in with both feet, purchasing upwards of $1.8 trillion of GSE mortgage debt.

In conjunction with an even greater volume of US treasury debt purchases, this unprecedented maneuver was designed to flatten out the yield curve and squeeze the traditional Treasury/GSE spread in order to drive mortgage rates to rock bottom levels. That it did—-driving mortgage rates to the sub-basement of modern history.

Even the 30-year fixed rate reached 3.3% at its low point in spring 2013, leaving the rates that had prevailed during the Greenspan boom far back in the rearview mirror. If low interest rates could trump peak debt, there would have been a mortgage borrowing boom like no other.

Except obviously there wasn’t. So what the Fed’s whole post-crisis money printing spree actually did was to cause the re-pricing of existing mortgage debt and mortgage backed securities, not the creation of new debt and new housing assets.

Needless to say, the value of mortgage debt soared in inverse proportion to the plummeting yields shown in the graph above. In the immediate sense, this was a windfall to the most affluent main street households——those with enough income adequacy and stability and enough embedded home equity to refinance their existing mortgages via the Fed’s fabulous refi machine. Yet as a policy matter, the only result was the arbitrary transfer of income from savers and depositors to about 10 million out of 115 million households which were in a position to refinance.

Even worse, it resulted in tens of billions of windfall gains to bond traders and hedge funds which were prescient enough to front-run the Feds various QE bond buying campaigns; and then to fund these dramatically appreciating “assets” on 95% repo leverage at essentially zero cost of carry. In a word, the real winners were bond speculators who earned triple digit return on the smidgeon of equity capital needed to control billions of GSE and Treasury debt.

Then again, there was no transmission of the Fed’s historic leverage magic to real rates of activity in the residential housing sector. In effect, what had been the Fed’s historic clean-up hitter in its stimulus line-up just plain struck out. As was evident last week, housing starts are still in the sub-basement.

But that is not the whole story—-and the rest of it is even worse. Our Keynesian monetary politburo is besot with the illusion that any and all “spending” is good, and that if it takes building useless pyramids or digging and filling holes to generate more GDP, so be it.

As a result, it fails to note that the production of GDP also results in the consumption of real resources, and that unless productivity, efficiency and added inputs of labor and capital are brought to the table, actual societal wealth and welfare will not be improved.

And it is here that we get to the truth about the real fiasco in the housing sector resulting from the Fed’s thirty-year drive to stimulate GDP by essentially pulling activity forward in time via higher and higher leverage. Now that we are on the other side of peak mortgage debt and real housing construction and investment has slipped to rock-bottom levels, the truth comes out. Namely, that we are effectively liquidating the housing stock—–that is, reducing national wealth—– because implicit depreciation now exceeds new construction.

That is evident in the chart below. Other than during a few dark months amidst the inflation crisis of 1980-81 when mortgage rates nearly reached nearly 20%, there has never been a lower rate of real net investment in the housing stock since LBJ was finishing out his term in the White House.

That’s right. In 1968, real net investment (after depreciation) in the residential housing stock was about $180 billion (2009$). By the time Ronald Reagan left office it had reached $275 billion or 53% higher. And at the peak of the Greenspan bubble in 2005, the figure was $510 billion. By contrast, the rate of real net investment today is just $125 billion——or hardly 20% of its Fed-fueled bubble peak.

It might be argued, of course, that depreciation of the residential housing stock doesn’t matter—–that the number in the NIPA accounts is just theoretical. That’s partially true, but it also ignores the bigger elephant in the room. Namely, that nearly $1.4 trillion of the GDP total that is so assiduously worshipped by our Keynesian central bankers is actually imputed housing consumption, not actual tangible spending.

And that latter number has risen by roughly 15% since the Greenspan housing construction boom peaked-out in early 2006. At the same time, new spending on residential housing construction is still 50% below the 2006 level. So for all practical purposes, the US household sector is liquidating its principal asset.

To be sure, the bean counters in the Census Bureau might well argue that NIPA accounting doesn’t matter. After all, the imputed housing services number shown in the graph below is obtained from a telephone survey in which a few thousand homeowners are asked what they would rent their house for on a monthly basis if they were in the landlord business. Surely that is one of the most arbitrary fictions in all of Federal statisticaldom——even if it does amount to nearly 9% of GDP.

But here’s the thing. You can’t rent a house that is falling apart—-even a theoretical one. So the underlying reality is this: US households are still too leveraged to invest in the residential housing stock on a net basis. The phony national GDP gains obtained by Greenspan and Bernanke during the height of their MEW bonanza will subtract from national wealth for years to come.

Meanwhile, the Fed keeps hammering on the nail of low interest rates, failing to recognize that the mortgage channel of monetary policy transmission is broken. Yet even that futile undertaking is not without its baleful consequences. To wit, while most main street households are still liquidating their overhang of mortgage debt, the very top of the income ladder has net worth and cash to spare from the bubble in financial assets, and ready access to so-called jumbo mortgages or other forms of collateralized finance against financial portfolios.

Not surprisingly, that further deformation showed up beneath the headlines in today’s new home sales release for February. As shown below, new home sales below the $200,000 median are still flat-lining on the historical bottom, while top end sales continue to rise.

Thanks Fed! Click to enlarge
New Homes Sales Over $750,000 - Click to enlarge

New Homes Sales Over $750,000 – Click to enlarge

How in the world, it might be asked, is it possible that the chief beneficiary of the financial repression policies of the Fed is the very most affluent segment of society? That is a salient question—-but don’t bother to ask the liberal Keynesians who run the Fed. They do not even have a clue that it’s happening.

[Fenix]

Es totalmente apropiado hablar de subida de tipos

Esther George, presidenta de la Reserva Federal de Kansas City
Miércoles, 1 de Abril del 2015 - 12:00:00

La presidenta de la Reserva Federal de Kansas City, Esther George, ha señalado que el crecimiento firme de la economía demanda una reducción en el nivel de estímulo que la Reserva Federal (Fed) estadounidense ha estado inyectando a la economía. Así, George considera que teniendo en cuenta las mejoras en el crecimiento y lo que parecen ser precios relativamente estables, es totalmente apropiado hablar de subir tipos, lo que ella describe como más la finalización de una posición de emergencia de la política monetaria que un proceso de intentar ralentizar la economía, y que cuanto antes se haga mejor. Además, George ha indicado que al reducir el estímulo también se reduce la asunción de riesgos en el sistema financiero y descienden las posibilidades de que se produzca una burbuja que dañe la economía en su conjunto.

El presidente de la Reserva Federal de Richmond, Jeffrey M. Lacker, miembro con derecho a voto del Comité de Mercado Abierto de la Reserva Federal (FOMC), dijo ayer que considera que la reunión que el Comité celebrará en junio supone la primera oportunidad para subir los tipos de interés sin que esta decisión perjudique la política de comunicación de la institución. Según dijo, "dado lo que conocemos actualmente, puede haber fuertes argumentos a favor de tipos más altos". Además, recordó que la Fed dijo en su último comunicado que una subida en la reunión de abril es improbable, por lo que junio "es la primera cita en la que podrían subirse los tipos sin menoscabar comunicaciones anteriores".

Link Análisis

13:15 Futuro Nasdaq 100: Prosigue impecable senda al alza
Prosigue su impecable senda al alza hacia los máximos históricos pre burbuja tecnológica en 4820 puntos, a un 8 por cien de distancia desde los niveles actuales. El precio presenta soporte inmediato en 4300 puntos.

Recomendación: MANTENER

Eduardo Faus
Original de Renta 4 Banco

[Fenix]

14:08 Halliburton: resistencia principal a corto plazo en 47
CMC Markets
Punto de rotación se sitúa en 42.1.

Preferencia: la subida se mantiene siempre que el soporte se sitúe en 42.1.

Escenario alternativo: por debajo de 42.1, el riesgo es una caída hasta 40.5 y 39.6.

En lo referente al análisis técnico, el índice de fuerza relativa (RSI) se encuentra por encima de su zona de neutralidad de 50. El indicador de convergencia/divergencia de medias móviles (MACD) se sitúa por encima de su línea de señal y es positivo.

Asimismo, la acción se sitúa por encima de su media móvil de 20 y 50 días (se sitúa a 42.18 y 42.31 respectivamente).


Este indicador pone de manifiesto que el crecimiento salarial se acerca

Miércoles, 1 de Abril del 2015 - 14:30:00

Hay pocas dudas sobre el buen momento por el que está pasando el mercado laboral de Estados Unidos. Los economistas pronostican que los datos de empleo del viernes mostrarán que la economía agregó más de 200.000 puestos de trabajo durante su 13er mes consecutivo.

Pero esta mejora no ha venido acompañada de un crecimiento de los salarios. La semana pasada, Torsten Sløk de Deutsche Bank destacó seis gráficos argumentando un próximo repunte de los salarios.

Y en una nota el martes, Joseph LaVorgna de Deutsche Bank señalo que la tasa de desempleo a corto plazo - que representa a las personas que han estado sin trabajo durante 6 meses o menos - apunta a un próximo crecimiento de los salarios.


"Si esta medida de desempleo disminuye en la misma cantidad que que en los últimos cinco años, vamos a estar en el 3,4% a finales de este año. Lo más importante de esta medida es que fija la presión salarial subyacente", dice LaVorgna.

Fuentes: Business Insider

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Las 10 mejores acciones en Europa

Miércoles, 1 de Abril del 2015 - 14:57:00

En los últimos tres meses hemos visto como los datos económicos han mejorado considerablemente en Europa, impulsando una recuperación de las bolsas hasta máximos multianuales y en algunos casos máximos históricos.

La flexibilización cuantitativa del Banco Central Europeo (QE) también ha hecho su parte, haciendo que los inversores se lancen a por los activos de mayor riesgo en la búsqueda de rentabilidad.

A pesar de las sensibles alzas en los mercados de acciones, todavía hay casas de análisis que creen que hay grandes oportunidades. Estas son las 10 mejores acciones europeas para Barclays según el potencial de revalorización:

10) Wolseley. Proveedor de materiales de construcción con sede en Reino Unido

Wolseley ha remodelados sus divisiones desde que se incorporó el director general Ian Meakins, dejando a Wolseley como el líder indiscutible en el mercado de fontanería y calefacción.

Potencial alcista de las acciones: +16%


9) Credit Suisse Group. Banco Europeo de Inversiones

Credit Suisse sustituye a ING como nuestro Top Pick entre los bancos europeos CS está haciendo un gran progreso sobre el capital y el apalancamiento, con una reducción sustancial del balance, y recobrando un nuevo impulso con la nueva administración. La transformación debe fortalecer el capital, y allanar el camino para el crecimiento de dividendos. Es importante destacar que también debe aumentar la rentabilidad financiera.

Potencial alcista de las acciones: +17%


Alcatel-Lucent. Empresa francesa de telecomunicaciones

Alcatel-Lucent ofrece una atractiva combinación de crecimiento de los ingresos y auto-ayuda que aún no está plenamente descontada por el mercado, en nuestra opinión. El próximo capítulo de crecimiento vendrá impulsado por las redes de migración hacia una arquitectura definida por software, donde Alcatel está bien posicionada, dada su fortaleza en el enrutamiento IP y plataformas.

Potencial alcista de las acciones: +20%


7) Norilsck Nickel. Minería y metales de Rusia

Norilsk Nickel es uno de los mineros diversificados más rentables con una cesta de productos básicos convincente que ha recibido una gran ayuda de la fuerte devaluación del rublo ruso. Gracias al conjunto favorable de factores externos, la empresa está pasando por un cambio de tendencia de la eficiencia interna y se ha comprometido a distribuir al menos el 50% del EBITDA (una medida de los ingresos) en forma de dividendos.


Potencial alcista de las acciones: +21%


6) Redrow. Constructor de viviendas del Reino Unido

A diferencia de la mayoría de las otras constructoras de viviendas, Redrow continúa invirtiendo en su crecimiento futuro ya que cree que el ciclo de la vivienda tiene un largo camino por recorrer y creemos que esta inversión se verá recompensada en el medio plazo. Creemos que esto beneficiará a aquellos que estén dispuestos a sacrificar los dividendos a corto plazo por un crecimiento a largo plazo.

Potencial alcista de las acciones: + 22%


5) Renault. Fabricante de automóviles francés

Vemos potencial de crecimiento significativo en Renault que sigue siendo nuestro Top Pick en el espacio europeo de automóviles Creemos que el mercado ha penalizado injustamente a Renault debido a su exposición en Rusia. Rusia sigue siendo claramente un problema hasta la fecha, pero creemos que los ingresos rusos ya han sufrido su mayor declive.

Potencial alcista de las acciones: +23%


4) UCB. Empresa farmacéutica belga

Seguimos positivos con UCB dado su potente mezcla de crecimiento de los ingresos, apalancamiento del margen y productos en investigación. Sigue siendo nuestra primera selección entre las farmacéuticas europeas con franquicias tan importantes como Vimpat, Cimzia y Neupro y eficiencias operativas que triplicarán el EBITDA (ganancias) en 2018.

Potencial alcista de las acciones: +26%


3) Capgemini. Servicios de TI y consultoría francesa

Capgemini se beneficiará tanto del momentum positivo de los beneficios (creemos que superará en un 10% las estimaciones del mercado) y una expansión de los múltiplos de valoración a medida que continúa su viaje hacia la primera división del sector.

Potencial alcista de las acciones: +28%


2. Repsol. Petrolera española

La compra de Talisman Energy por 12.900 millones de dólares va a transformar tanto la exposición geográfica como la combinación de negocios del grupo. Al hacerlo Repsol está a punto de completar un viaje que comenzó hace casi tres años tras la expropiación de sus activos en Argentina.

Potencial alcista de las acciones: +38%


1) Petrofac. Empresa de servicios petroleros que cotizan en Londres

Petrofac está en camino de conseguir un fuerte crecimiento de las ganancias en el período 2015-17. En un entorno macroeconómico incierto, creemos que la fuerte cartera de pedidos de Petrofac y la alta exposición a empresas petroleras nacionales (NOC) ayudarán a sustentar las previsiones de beneficios.

Potencial alcista de las acciones: +42%


Carlos Montero

Lacartadelabolsa

15:25 Bono EEUU junio. Pauta potencial de bandera bajista
Como señalamos ayer, el cuerpo medio de la vela bajista de la semana pasada frenó un intento de recuperación alcista.

De acuerdo a la pauta, los precios deberían moverse a la baja desde este punto y la primera señal es la pandera bajista potencial que se está creando.

Resistencias 129 129-02 129-12+ 130-01+
Soportes 128-18 128-14 128-05 127-18

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El mercado estadounidense de OPVs se ha enfriado

Miércoles, 1 de Abril del 2015 - 15:50:00

El número de empresas estadounidenses que han salido a bolsa ha disminuido últimamente. "Después de un año récord en el 2014, el mercado de OPVS se redujo drásticamente en el primer trimestre de 2015", dijeron analistas de Renaissance Capital.

El primer trimestre de 2015, que terminó el martes, fue el trimestre más débil para las OPVs desde el primer trimestre de 2013. Mientras que los precios de las acciones están cerca de máximos históricos, la volatilidad del mercado ha ido en aumento, dificultando la salida a bolsa de las empresas.

Renaissance Capital publicó un análisis de los datos de salidas a bolsa desde el primer trimestre de 2015, y encontró que en comparación con el año pasado (cuando hubo 64 OPVs en el primer trimestre del año), las salida a bolsa se redujeron en más del 46%. Igualmente desconcertante para la comunidad bancaria, el valor de sus servicios también cayeron, desde 10.600 millones de dólares en 2014 a apenas 5.400 millones en el primer trimestre de 2015:


Is This What's Causing Today's Market Puke?
Submitted by Tyler D.
03/25/2015

Correlation is not causation but the plunge began just as The SEC voted in favor of high-speed trading firms being registered with FINRA...


Brazil Confidence Plummets To Record Low As Central Bank Admits Currency War Defeat
Submitted by Tyler D.
03/25/2015 - 15:05

Four and a half years after Brazil's FinMin Guido Mantega first re-introduced the world to the term "currency wars," it appears the Brazilians have admitted defeat. Amid what Goldman calls a sharp decline in consumer confidence - to the lowest level in series history - which could also extend the ongoing macroeconomic adjustment processes and therefore delay the recovery of the economy; Brazil's central bank has announced that it will no longer intervene to support the Real via its Dollar-Swap program. In a SNB2.0-esque move, though somewhat anticipated by the market, Brazil enables the devaluation that has occurred to perhaps extend (improving competitiveness) and removing what was becoming a notable fiscal drag. Implicitly, Brazil just followed the Swiss and admitted defeat in the global currency war...


Pay Attention To The Warning Signs
Submitted by Tyler D.
03/25/2015 - 16:32

The negative divergence of the markets from economic strength and momentum are simply warning signs and do not currently suggest becoming grossly underweight equity exposure. However, warning signs exist for a reason, and much like Wyle E. Coyote chasing the Roadrunner, not paying attention to the signs has tended to have rather severe consequences. When the market eventually cracks, the "disposition" effect will trump all the good intentions of "buying and holding" for the long-term. The eventual "panic to sell" will lead to a significant destruction in investment capital and a reversion in investor psychology to extreme negativity. While the basic premise of investing is to "buy low" and "sell high," repeated studies show that there are precious few who do.

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BofA's Modest Proposal For Greece: "A Negative Shock May Be Necessary"
Submitted by Tyler D.
03/25/2015 - 18:00

Either Greece will stop trying to save the failed past and look into the future, treating the crisis and the adjustment program as opportunities to finally implement urgently needed reforms, or the country will be eventually forced to exit the euro, in our view. Economics 101 teaches us that an economy can survive within a monetary union only if it has fiscal policy room and structural flexibility to respond to asymmetric shocks. In our view, Greece had none and has none. We see no solution for Greece within the Eurozone without reforms.


Bank Of Japan's 10 Trillion Equity Portfolio "Not Large" Says Bank Of Japan
Tyler D.
03/25/2015 19:00 -0400

As we’ve discussed twice this month, the world has now officially given up any pretensions that Japan’s elephantine QE program isn’t underwriting the rally in Japanese stocks. Not only is the Bank of Japan buying ETFs, they’re targeting their purchases to (literally) ensure that stocks can’t fall by stepping in when things look weak at the open. Unfortunately, Kuroda looks set to run up against the extremely inconvenient fact that while, in his lunacy, he can print a theoretically unlimited amount of money, the universe of purchasable ETFs is limited and so eventually, the BoJ will own the entire market. Here’s what we said last week:

As it turns out, the central bank may now run into the same inconvenience in its efforts to control the stock market that it encountered on the way to monopolizing the JGB market: there’s only so much out there to buy. Here’s more from Bloomberg:


BOJ held 3.85t yen ($32.0b) of ETFs at end-2014 and plans to boost these holdings by 3t yen per year; at this pace, the current market value of 11.5t yen in ETFs would be entirely bought by BOJ by end-2017, data compiled by Bloomberg show.



You read that correctly — the Bank of Japan will own the entire Japanese ETF market within about 30 months. So with all of the JGBs marked for purchase and with all of the ETFs exhausted, there’s only one place to go next: individual stocks.

So with the plunge protection knob cranked to 11, and with the BoJ looking to prove that its central bank insanity setting can be upped to an unprecedented 12 if necessary, we bring you the following from Nikkei:

The Bank of Japan is emerging as the nation's second-largest stock investor, with its portfolio topping 10 trillion yen ($82.7 billion) in market value this month…



The central bank's portfolio has a book value of around 5.7 trillion yen. But soaring share prices have lifted its market value past the 10 trillion yen mark -- nearly 2% of the tally for all Tokyo Stock Exchange shares.



The figure makes the BOJ second only to the Government Pension Investment Fund, whose portfolio boasted a market value of 27 trillion yen as of December's end.



Although the central bank does not disclose details of share-buying operations, it frequently steps into the market and buys 30 billion yen to 40 billion yen worth of stocks when equity prices falter in the morning. Its purchases Tuesday reached 35.2 billion yen, underpinning a market that showed signs of a morning struggle. The bank has carried out 20 such operations so far this year.

So after buying 35 billion yen worth of shares yesterday, the BoJ now owns 2% of the entire market and looks set to square off against GPIF (which, as we noted last week, is set to move aggressively into stocks at the implicit urging of the BoJ and the explicit urging of PM Abe) in a battle to become the single largest holder of Japanese equities. Here’s more:

The stock portfolio's impact on the BOJ's financial health can no longer be ignored.



The bank's net worth is 2.8 trillion yen, while its stock portfolio is worth twice that in book value, or 250% more in market value. Japanese megabank Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group has a net worth of 14 trillion yen, with its stock portfolio amounting to only 5 trillion yen in market value.



The central bank must book losses when stock prices suffer extraordinarily sharp drops, since its financial health could hurt confidence in the Japanese currency.

In other words: the BoJ has no choice but to support the market because if stocks fall, the central bank itself will be in jeopardy. Fortunately, there are still shares out there that the BoJ doesn’t yet own:

"There is ample room for us to buy more shares, but we must keep a vigilant eye on price fluctuation risk," a senior BOJ official says.

While all of this may sound unequivocally insane, the problem, it turns out, is that just as we can’t understand how Snapchat is worth more than Clorox because we don’t understand the meaning of the term “valuation,” the reason we think the BoJ has been buying a large amount of stock is because we don’t understand the meaning of the term “large.” Here’s BoJ governor Kuroda to explain:

* KURODA: BOJ'S ETF PURCHASES AREN'T LARGE

Well that solves that. And what about the idea that these smallish purchases are supporting the market?

* KURODA: STOCKS AREN'T BEING LIFTED BY BOJ'S ETF PURCHASES

So buying stocks doesn’t lift stock prices. Got it. If you want a second opinion, you can also ask FinMin Taro Aso:

* ASO: BOJ'S BOND BUYS NOT AIMED AT BOOSTING STOCK PRICES
* ASO: MANAGEMENT OF PENSION FUNDS ALSO NOT AIMED AT STOCK PRICES

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Lessons From The German Hyperinflation Of The 1920s
Tyler D.
03/25/2015 18:30 -0400

Submitted by Erico Matias Tavares of Sinclair & Co.

Lessons from the German Hyperinflation of the 1920s

The German hyperinflation episode in the early 1920s is often quoted as an example of the dire consequences of excessive money printing – a leading industrial economy succumbing to the dangers of currency debasement promoted by incompetent central bankers.

Alas, the reality is more complex than that, particularly when certain geopolitical and economic constraints of that time are taken into consideration. And as we shall see, we can draw some important lessons from that episode that can help us gauge the effectiveness of our very own currency debasement in the 21st century.

Setting the Stage

Europe radically changed in the aftermath of World War I. Gone were the big empires of Central Europe, and the fragmented states that emerged from them had to cope with a much more modest and uncertain modus operandi. There was a new power emerging farther out in the East, after the Bolsheviks took over Russia, boldly proclaiming that they would not stop there. On the other side of the Atlantic, America demonstrated that it could muster the necessary resources to prevail in a major world conflagration, and that it could become a power to be reckoned with.

Great Britain retained its dominant superpower status, no longer challenged by the once mighty German forces. Because it had security, its major concern henceforth was economic, especially as a countermeasure to the rising Bolshevik threat. France, on the other hand, remained exposed to a resurgent Germany, particularly because the latter had come out of the war with its industrial capability largely intact. Consequently, its concerns were mainly political.

The French believed that the peace of Eastern Europe was a primary concern of the states of Western Europe and that Germany should never be allowed to reassert itself eastwards; the British saw the two sides of Europe as separated, particularly because the eternal squabbles of Eastern Europeans could drag yet again the major Western powers into another regional conflict, very much like 1914. France believed that Germany could only be made to keep the peace by duress; Britain believed that Germany could be persuaded to keep the peace by concessions.

While it was not known then, these divergent views would eventually set the stage for Germany’s hyperinflation episode.

German Reparations

War reparations became a major factor of contention between Western European countries. The French in particular were quite unhappy with results of the Treaty of Versailles, and sought redress at every opportunity.

The preliminary payments were supposed to amount to a total of 20 billion marks by May 1921, but the recipients contended that only about 8 billion of this had been paid. As a result, Germany received a number of demands and ultimatums from the victors, including the threat of occupation of the Ruhr earlier that year.

Under significant pressure, the Germans eventually agreed to issue bonds totaling 132 billion marks as the total reparation bill. Of these, 82 billion were set aside and forgotten. The remaining 50 billion would be paid in annual installments of 2 billion marks plus a share of German exports.

However, Germany would only be required to pay these obligations if two conditions prevailed: first, that it had a fiscal surplus, so that the government had additional resources beyond what was required to meet its current obligations; second, that it had a positive foreign trade balance, enabling the country to accumulate enough gold or foreign currencies to settle the reparations.

As it turned out, neither of these conditions existed throughout the entire 1920s, and as such Germany was never in a position to pay any reparations. Money printing ended being the result, although the real drivers of that policy did not lay in the reparations alone.

Inflation Breaks Out

Far from it in fact. The failure to obtain a fiscal surplus was solely the responsibility of the German government, which refused to reduce its own expenditures and the standards of living of its people, or to tax them enough to yield such a surplus.

Germany’s creditors shared the blame for its failure to obtain a favorable balance of trade. While the Germans made little or no effort to reduce their purchases abroad, which would have also curtailed their standard of living, they adamantly refused to allow a free flow of German goods into their countries on the premise that this would undermine their own industries.

Once again, the interpretation of these failures was colored by the geopolitical inclination of the creditor in question. The British saw them as evidence of Germany’s inability to pay, while the French believed that they simply did not want to pay. Actually, both were correct.

Had Germany been allowed to export freely, it probably could have produced enough goods and services to service a meaningful portion of the reparations, as indicated by its comparatively higher per capita income levels as the decade progressed. With this option not on the table, the German government ran successive budget deficits, instead of implementing painful tax increases and budget cuts (“austerity” in today’s lingo). The funding vehicle: central bank lending (the equivalent of our “quantitative easing”).

Therefore, it was not necessarily the reparations per se that sparked a significant rise in the inflation rate, but rather the policies of the German government intended to circumvent them. The restriction to the free flow of German goods to creditors’ markets substantially compounded the problem – a point which is often underappreciated in understanding the reasons behind the acceleration of inflation during that initial phase.

And accelerated it did. While the par value of the German mark to the British pound was at around 20, it fell from 305 in August 1921 and then to 1,020 by November that year.

But the worst was yet to come.

Germany Loses the Ruhr

The effects of inflation were felt very unequally across German society. Those whose property was in real wealth, either in land or industrial plants, gained from the inflation as it increased the value of their properties and wiped away their debts. It was the middle class (as always) that was getting ruined.

In July 1922, Germany demanded a moratorium on all cash payments of reparations for the next thirty months. Although the British were willing to yield at least to part of this, the French argued that the Germans had made no real effort to pay their debts and that, accordingly, such moratorium would only be acceptable to them if accompanied by adequate guarantees.

This meant that the creditors should take possession of various forests, mines and factories of western Germany, as well as the German customs, to obtain incomes which could be applied to reparations. As such, in January 1923, the Reparations Commission voted 3 to 1 (with Britain opposing France, Belgium, and Italy) that Germany was in default of its payments. Armed forces of the three nations began to occupy the Ruhr two days later.

This area was vitally important for the German economy. With 10% of the population, it produced 80% of the country’s coal, iron and steel and generated 70% of its freight traffic. As a result, Germany retaliated, declaring a general strike in the area, ceasing all reparations payments and adopting a program of passive resistance. As a result, more paper money had to be printed to support the strikers.

By the end of 1923, the output of the area was brought down to one-third its capacity. At this point the German mark had all but collapsed, going from 80,000 marks to the pound in January 1923 to 20 billion by December 1923.

And here’s another important point to bear in mind: it was the curtailment of Germany’s productive capacity, sustained with even more money printing, which sealed the demise of its currency.

Resolution

Resistance in the Ruhr put a great strain on Germany, both economically and financially, and a great psychological strain on the French and Belgians. At the same time that the German mark was being ruined, the occupying countries were not obtaining the reparations they desired.

Accordingly, a compromise was reached by which Germany accepted another plan for reparations (the Dawes Plan) and the Ruhr was evacuated.

The victors in this episode were the British, who had demonstrated that the French could not use force successfully without British approval. This would have important geopolitical consequences in the years that followed.

But there were other victors as well: the radical political parties in Germany, feeding on the resulting humiliation and frustration felt by large parts of the population. The most radical of them would rise to power within a decade.

Lessons for Today

This episode illustrates less obvious yet crucially important points on the dynamics of money printing, particularly when interplayed with productive capacity and free markets. Abundant paper credit might be a necessary condition to generate high inflation rates, but in today’s world it is far from being a sufficient condition.

In an open economy, inflation can manifest itself as a sustained increase in prices and/or a deterioration in the balance of trade. Regarding the latter, in the days of the gold standard, the resulting outflows of gold would function as a self-correcting mechanism: the central bank would have to raise rates to reverse those outflows and cool off the internal demand which created the imbalance in the first place.

Today we have fiat currencies, driven by differentials in interest rates, inflation expectations, risk premiums, credit creation and so forth, so those imbalances can persist for longer. And there’s one vital improvement relative to the 1920s (in fact all the way up to the late 1970s): virtually limitless production capacity.

Over the past few decades capitalism and globalization made possible the rapid assembly of production capacity anywhere in the world – by entrepreneurs and, in some very important cases, central planners (read: China). Supply can thus rapidly rise to absorb increases in demand, dampening any lasting effects on price.

Global markets have become very efficient in spotting price arbitrage opportunities and eliminating them through the free movement of capital and goods. The result: an inherently deflationary system for Western economies, particularly when coupled with high debt loads that can curtail the sustainability of pickups in demand.

Don’t believe us? Just look at the evolution of China’s foreign exchange reserves during the last quantitative easing program by the US Federal Reserve.


Monthly Foreign Exchange Reserves in China (USD bn (LHS), yoy% (RHS)): Sep 12-Dec 14
Source: PBOC, J Capital.

Those newly minted US dollars went to China in search of yield and cheaper goods and services, as evidenced by the rise and fall of the latter’s growth in foreign exchange reserves almost in sync with the Fed’s money printing. Any wonder why inflation remains subdued in the US?

As long as global markets remain open and free, Western policymakers will have a hard time creating lasting inflation. Of course there is a number that might do it. But some developments could make this a near certainty, as we have seen from Germany’s episode: a big deflationary shock could bankrupt and take out large portions of industrial capacity; water constraints and evolving weather patterns could limit food production; energy might become much more expensive at some point; capitalism can be dismantled; free trade could be severely restricted (more Russian sanctions anyone?).

And if we get there under these circumstances, our central bankers may discover that they have as many unpalatable choices as their German peers in the early 1920s.