Global Economic Outlook 2019

Global Economic Outlook 2019

Daniel Lacalle 11/01/2019 8

For 2019, the key factors that we need to think about are what is going to be the outlook on three levels: monetary, macro, and earnings. Watch my entire interview at Real Vision here.

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In general, considering where expectations are right now, we are still in a stealth downgrade mode, Industrial production, and ISMs are slowly descending from the  high levels while rising global debt is also an important factor.

Monetary factors are also very important. If we look at the way in which most investors are positioned right now, the vast majority of us are expecting that the improvement for next year is going to come from central banks not doing what they have said that they will do, which, in general, is a pretty dangerous position to take.

However, even if they did ease, and I believe that they will definitely slow down the pace of
normalization, we need to understand that the placebo effect of central bank policy on markets has stopped working as a tool to expand multiples and asset valuations. We have seen it in Japan and in Europe. Despite ongoing easing, it does not transfer into further multiple expansion and financial asset inflation. It only helps yields remain low. It only helps valuations remain where they are.

On earnings, the problem that I see continues to be in the next two years’ estimates because I continue to believe that those have not come down enough. You still see in
consensus expectations double-digit EPS growth. That is very, very, very unlikely.

In an environment in which central banks continue to be accommodative, but macro and earnings are not supportive, cycles become very short. So we need to be a lot more active.

The Chinese, Japanese and Eurozone slowdown are all happening in the middle of massive stimuli and deficit spending. We cannot fool ourselves and say that the markets and macro disappointments this year are due to trade wars or the normalization of the Federal Reserve. Those are subterfuges that we use to avoid reality. And the reality is debt saturation. More debt generates less growth and higher risk.

Central banks care a lot about asset prices. The Central Bank of Japan would not be buying equities if they didn’t care about asset prices. Buying equities has absolutely nothing to do with inflation or with unemployment or economic growth. It’s because they care about asset price inflation. However, the Federal Reserve finds itself in a position in which if they care only about asset prices, they don’t build enough tools into a change of cycle. And therefore, they might end up creating a larger problem than the temporary effect on markets. If they revert the policy, they will give a message to markets that they know something that we don’t know, and that that something is truly bad.

The ECB knows that there is no real demand for sovereign bonds at these yields, not even close. We would need to think of double the current levels of sovereign bond yields for marginal investors (not forced buyers) to think of purchasing eurozone sovereign bonds

The eurozone countries have saved themselves about 1 trillion euros in interest expenses. Not bad, but they’ve spent it all. And very few countries in the eurozone are ready for an increase of 10% or 20% of their borrowing costs.

The eurozone is unable to disguise through monetary policy its structural problems, aging of the population, overcapacity, low productivity growth, and at the same time, an extraordinarily high level of unemployment. Those factors are all added to an elevated debt and government spending.

The eurozone has convinced itself that the entire problem was the alleged austerity. There’s no austerity at 40% public spending to GDP. So the solution that they are looking at is further and higher government spending. And government spending is not going to drive productivity growth, improvement in the economy, and the structural changes that the eurozone desperately needs. It’s very likely that the eurozone continues to do what Japan did in the late ’80s. Spend its way to stagnation.

The US economy, with all of its challenges, is much more robust than the European economy. In the eurozone 80% of the real economy is financed by banks, so the contagion effect of financial woes is very high. In the US it is less than 40%. Throughout the years of QE in the United States, the Federal Reserve was never 100% of the demand for sovereign bonds in the market. So it always kept an eye on the secondary market. Even though it was influencing aggressively the yields of sovereign bonds, it is also true that there was always a secondary market moving around. That is not the case in the eurozone. In the eurozone, the European Central Bank is 100% of the demand for sovereign bonds for the majority of the net financing needs of the eurozone countries. As such, there is absolutely no way of understanding where will marginal investors want to buy Portuguese, Spanish or Italian bonds.

My concern is that the way in which governments and central banks are positioned right now, they have no tools to address a much deeper slowdown.

China’ is already caught in a liquidity trap. China has been posting weakening numbers quarter on quarter for more than two years. I think that China made a mistake when the policy of addressing the increasing debt and the so-called change of model from an industrially intensive to a consumer-driven model was stopped.

Consider this. If you have an economy that is growing at 6.5% healthily with low inflation and low unemployment you do not devalue your currency stealthily and implement a massive stimulus and liquidity injection. It does not add up. China will likely slow down in the middle of a massive stimulus because it has surpassed its debt saturation limit as well.

A version of this article first appeared here

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  • Andy Doyle

    The moment the markets become 'real' cities begin to burn. Maybe if we fully understood the implications of a global depression we too would want to continue the manipulation. Just to postpone that awful reckoning if for only one more day. The world is about to become a dark place. I say let's continue this blissful illusion as long as possible. I can continue to purchase real assets in the meantime.

  • John Kelly

    Get your crash helmet ready. Central banks are driving like drunkards!

  • Chris Seymour

    Every country in the world should plan a bank run. Enough is enough, we need to stand together. Cut off the snakes (Rothschild) head, hit the system where it hurts, the money supply, cut off the money supply, we the people control our destiny

  • Timo Koopman

    Looks like the beginning of the end

  • Patrick Adkins

    We are heading towards a recession........

  • George Freiberg

    This week has been unreal.

  • Patrick Ponce

    How do you navigate through the coming turbulence?

  • Jim

    This article seems overly negative towards Europe. Don't forget that unlike the US and China, overall debt levels in the Eurozone have been dropping for years and are now significantly less than in the US. A big part of the Eurozone economic malais was caused by a broad deleveraging while the US and China expanded on more debt spending.

    The article also mentions high unemployment in the EU but this is deceiving since it's mainly due to the higher labour participation rate when compared to the US which has many more people disconnected from the labour market. As a result the employment rate is 72% in the EU and only 61% in the US.

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Daniel Lacalle

Global Economy Expert

Daniel Lacalle is one the most influential economists in the world. He is Chief Economist at Tressis SV, Fund Manager at Adriza International Opportunities, Member of the advisory board of the Rafael del Pino foundation, Commissioner of the Community of Madrid in London, President of Instituto Mises Hispano and Professor at IE Business School, London School of Economics, IEB and UNED. Mr. Lacalle has presented and given keynote speeches at the most prestigious forums globally including the Federal Reserve in Houston, the Heritage Foundation in Washington, London School of EconomicsFunds Society Forum in Miami, World Economic ForumForecast Summit in Peru, Mining Show in Dubai, Our Crowd in Jerusalem, Nordea Investor Summit in Oslo, and many others. Mr Lacalle has more than 24 years of experience in the energy and finance sectors, including experience in North Africa, Latin America and the Middle East. He is currently a fund manager overseeing equities, bonds and commodities. He was voted Top 3 Generalist and Number 1 Pan-European Buyside Individual in Oil & Gas in Thomson Reuters’ Extel Survey in 2011, the leading survey among companies and financial institutions. He is also author of the best-selling books: “Life In The Financial Markets” (Wiley, 2014), translated to Portuguese and Spanish ; The Energy World Is Flat” (Wiley, 2014, with Diego Parrilla), translated to Portuguese and Chinese ; “Escape from the Central Bank Trap” (2017, BEP), translated to Spanish. Mr Lacalle also contributes at CNBCWorld Economic ForumEpoch TimesMises InstituteHedgeyeZero HedgeFocus Economics, Seeking Alpha, El EspañolThe Commentator, and The Wall Street Journal. He holds a PhD in Economics, CIIA financial analyst title, with a post graduate degree in IESE and a master’s degree in economic investigation (UCV).

   
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