Tapering and quantitative tightening will be prominent topics in 2022, so I feel we need a reminder here
Central banks DON'T print money
QE simply forces the private sector to swap away duration intensive, coupon bearing bonds for 0 duration, 0 yielding deposits/reserves
1/9
Central Banks expand their balance sheet by creating reserves and buy bonds from the private sector.
The private sector now has less bonds and more reserves.
That's it, just a swap.
No ''money'' has been created.
Yeh, but what if the CB buys from another entity?
2/9
Same story, one difference
Pension funds and asset managers can't hold reserves, so they now have new bank deposits
Those are still inert, 0 duration, likely 0 yielding assets that don't find their way to the real economy
They find their way in M2 though, be careful...
3/9
M2 is a decent yet imperfect measure of ''real economy'' money - simply stated, it measures bank deposits in the system
Cool, but as we have seen above, not all newly available bank deposits are the same
A pension fund can't do much ''real economy inflationary'' with it
4/9
Also, please stop plotting Central Banks balance sheet charts against asset prices?
Japan started QE decades ago, we've been there already.
Here is the BoJ sheet as % of GDP from 2013 to 2018.
It increased from 30% to 100%!
5/9
And here is the chart of JPY measured in Gold.
According to the theory of ''Central Banks print money'', JPY measured in Gold should have tanked to zero.
It went nowhere.
Why?
6/9
Because the real money printers were not printing.
Commercial banks were not lending to an already overleveraged private sector.
7/9
And the Japanese government was raining in budget deficits year after year.
Notice as even if the outright budget deficits as % of GDP were large, the fiscal impulse (the pace of growth in deficits) was shrinking quick.
The second derivative matters a lot.
8/9
Central Banks balance sheet and excess reserves in the system are very important drivers of asset class performances and risk sentiment.
But as we head into 2022 and everybody will be talking about tapering and QT, please bear this in mind: Central Banks don't print money.
9/9
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
The Fed hiked rates above 5%, and yet the US economy hasn't broken yet.
Here is why.
Thread.
1/
High interest rates are supposed to break something because an overly indebted economy will have to service a mountain of debt at expensive rates and it will have less money for income and spending.
The problem is that people are looking at the ''wrong'' debt.
2/
Private sector debt levels and trends are by far more important than governmment debt
Contrary to the government, the private sector doesn't have the luxury to print money: if you get indebted to your eyeballs and you lose your ability to generate income, the pain is real
3/
One day, the US Dollar will lose its global reserve currency status.
And it's going to be a huge event.
But here is some hard truth about the De-Dollarization.
1/
The big question is ''when''.
And the answer is: most likely not within any tradable horizon!
Here is why an orderly de-dollarization is nothing more than a fairytale.
2/
In a globalized economic system you want to trade with as many partners as possible in a seamless way.
When Brazil exports its commodities and the trade happens in USD, Brazil accumulates USD – it might also use them to buy goods or services it needs from other countries
3/
High interest rates are supposed to break something because an overly indebted economy will have to service a mountain of debt at expensive rates and consumption will slow.
High rates were supposed to break the US because of government debt, but that's not how it works.
2/
Private debt levels instead reveal the true macro fragilities of economies facing higher interest rates.
The private sector doesn't have the luxury to print money: if you get indebted to your eyeballs and you lose your ability to generate income, the pain is real.
3/
Ever wondered what's like to launch a macro hedge fund these days?
Here are the 7 key insights I got so far:
1/
A) If you think it will be hard, you are wrong: it will be harder
In the early steps of launching a hedge fund you are required to be the CEO, CIO, COO, head of investor relations, and so on.
It's really hard work.
2/
B) The package matters
Investors have upped their regulatory/infra requirements, and they understandbly demand you to be fully regulated/compliant/audited and have a solid trading infrastructure with a strong prime broker.
3/