One crisis or two?
How you answer that question goes a long way to determining your investment strategy right now.
If the euro crisis and the bank lending crisis in China are all part of the same crisis, you should stay out of all equity markets until the world works through this mess. (Enjoy your vacation. See you in September.)
If, however, the euro crisis and the bank lending crisis in China are coincidentally but not causally related—that is they happen to both be occurring now but one can be solved without a solution to the other—then you should be use the sell-off in emerging markets as a buying opportunity somewhere not too far down the road, late March or April, say–even if the euro crisis continues to unfold.
Here are the two ways to view the cause(s) of the current correction.
View #1: It’s all one crisis. The euro crisis in Europe and the bank lending crisis in China are all part of one big crisis. Both are rooted in the global financial and economic crisis of 2007-2009. European countries such as Greece and Spain are just now paying the price for the debt binge that governments and consumers went on in the run up to that crisis. And these economies are still looking for a way to restore growth and to get budgets back in line. The worry is that either that governments won’t reduce their deficits because they’re afraid to push their economies into recession or that euro governments will cut spending to reduce their deficits and that will economies back into recession.
China is in the same boat, according to the one crisis view, just further down the river. In China thanks to a massive government spending program and an even bigger surge in bank lending, the economy is back on the growth track. But much of that growth is a result of government spending and bank lending. And the worry is that China now faces a choice between cutting stimulus and lending and perhaps killing growth or not cutting stimulus and lending and pushing the economy into runaway inflation.
The common worry is that even though the world hasn’t yet managed to create sustainable economic growth, governments now face no choice but to cut spending and monetary stimulus.
View #2: We’re looking at two different and unrelated crises. Yes, both the euro and the bank lending crisis in China are rooted in the same global financial and economic crisis, but because that crisis played out in very different ways in different parts of the globe, what we’re seeing now in Europe and China are essentially unrelated.
In the euro zone (as in the United Kingdom and the United States) the crisis damaged the structure of financial institutions and governments and undermined faith in the long-term future of many of these economies. In these countries the real estate and stock market booms covered up a massive loss of global competitiveness that has left many of these economies, after the boom and bust, trapped in a growth crisis. With their economies in decline, there’s no way for Greece, Portugal, Spain and other euro crisis countries to grow their way out of their budget crisis.
They don’t have the ability to cut unsustainable levels of spending because it is only that spending that has kept the economy growing even before the crisis.
The countries inside the common euro currency zone also find themselves with an over-valued currency (from their points of view) because of the strength of the German and French economies that prices their already competitively-challenged goods and services out of many markets. And as members of the euro zone they don’t have any ability to devalue their own currency to restore global competitiveness.
China’s financial institutions and markets, on the other hand, came out of the crisis relatively unscathed and on a comparative basis globally stronger. China’s economy never came close to dipping into an actual recession with economic growth dropping to a low of 6.1% in the first quarter of 2009 before beginning a recovery. Rather than facing a decline in global competitiveness, China has continued to gobble market share in many markets. And with its currency under its own control, China used a renewed renminbi-dollar peg to keep its currency undervalued and to generate a rebound in exports.
From this point of view, the current crisis in China is largely internal. It matters to real estate and stock market speculators in China’s domestic markets how tough Beijing makes it to get cheap money because real estate and stock prices depend on access to cheap money. It matters to Chinese exporters and other business how tough Beijing makes it to get cheap loans because a high percentage of state-owned companies are dependent on cheap loans for their profits (since many of these companies use these loans to speculate in the markets themselves) and indeed for their survival (since without new financing many money-losing state-owned companies would have to go under).
But to the Chinese economy as a whole and to those sectors of the global economy that do business with China the issue is uncertainty more than anything else. Will Beijing cool the economy to 10% (from 10.7% growth in the fourth quarter of 2009) or to 9% or to 8.0% (the official target for 2009)? The answer determines how much demand companies outside of China should plan for? (See my January 28 post for why I think the China crisis is much fear about relatively little https://jubakpicks.com/2010/01/28/the-rout-in-global-stocks-is-a-tempest-in-the-teapot-of-chinas-command-economy/ )
Problems in Greece, Portugal, even Spain aren’t going to have much effect on the growth rate of Chinese economy. That growth rate will depend on policies—and policy mistakes–made in Beijing.
In my opinion the two crisis model comes a lot closer to describing the state of the global economy right now.
I see the Chinese government ending much of the uncertainty about economic and fiscal policy in the days and weeks after the March meeting of the National People’s Congress. In roughly the same time frame first quarter GDP figures—and the reaction to them by the government—will tell investors about how much limits on bank lending put in place in January have slowed economic growth. April’s state visit of Chinese leaders to Washington should also, for better or worse, eliminate some uncertainty about exactly how bad the state of China-United States relations are.
Unless Beijing has made a huge policy mistake and tightened loan standards more than it now seems, this time period will put much of what I’m calling the China crisis behind the global economy.
There’s a good chance, however, that the euro crisis will still be unfolding by then. It’s likely to have deepened in a country such as Greece or Spain and to have expanded to include new victims. (I’ve started to hear worries about Belgium and even France.)
Fears that a euro crisis could somehow spread to the rest of the global economy are likely to keep global stock markets in turmoil. But I think in this late March/April time frame it could start to become more and more apparent that the China crisis is ending even as the euro crisis continues and perhaps even deepens.
Putting money into emerging country markets that might be depressed by a euro crisis that really doesn‘t have much to do with them would make sense in this scenario and on this time frame.
The wild card is the United States. Looking around for a mechanism that could turn a euro crisis into a global crisis I keep coming back to the United States. If a euro crisis gets deep enough to focus investor attention to the size of the U.S. budget deficit, if Washington continues its hapless ways and continues to undermine remaining faith (The triumph of hope over experience?) that someday the United States will get its deficit under control, and if the U.S. economy suffers a collapse in growth back below 2% in the first or second quarter, then I think worries about the euro turn into worries about the U.S. economy turn into worries about the global economy.
And then, what are now two unrelated crises, in my opinion, would merge into one big global mess again.
Or am I mistaken, and this is just another part of what has always gone before? Am I crazy, or are we living through times, that we have NOT seen before ?
So, Jim. . .
In this market, and over the next 8 years, do you believe that “trend” investing will still work, or will we be forever subject to bubbles, debt problems, easy money and the problems they engender? i.e. crashes, corrections and finiancial mismanagement? A trend hardly has a chance !(Unless you make shorting a considerable part of your investment stratagy.)
Have you ever thought of giving up out of disgust of what the stock markets have become a reflection of?
OK, so I was being to Naive. . . (You may know this guy, and I thought I was pessimistic. . .)
“Growth won’t dig US out of this hole”
http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/JubaksJournal/growth-wont-dig-us-out-of-this-hole.aspx
And the second part to my post-
I think once the debt issues have been addressed, once the EU (And its partners) have a plan, and IF the US can address some of our issues, the markets will return to climbing the normal wall of worry (I don’t think these current problems can be considered normal market worries, In my opinion these are somewhat extra-normal.)
I think after some extraordinarily scary times (5-15 months or so) we may end up in a place where Jims “finding the trends” start to vastly outperform the markets once again. I just think for the next several months (5-15) we are in for a very ugly roller coaster ride where (Those of us who have followed Jim for a long time, and have holdings that are still very profitable) may have a very hard time holding on…. But at least we can expect that at long last (Maybe?) we will see some action and leadership toward addressing some of the systemic problems that have rocked the markets for 14+ years.
Or am I being too naïve?
I read the financial magazines each Sunday at the bookstore, they implied that if/when UK defaults on it’s debt, that is a signal that USA is next.
As for US markets, my guru says we are very near a bottom, and we will see a jump up very soon.
Then, a leg back down. He says do not invest long term, unless we see a break above the previous highs.
-Javos
Heard several sources today mention UK debt. As Jim mentioned a while ago, once people start talking UK, the US debt is just a whisper away…
When that happens the “euro crisis” will look like the good old days. I think we are looking at 8 – 18 months of constant, very troubling, news that could take us below 18 month lows….
Its almost certain that at least one of the “PIGS” will default on debt, and the “Euro” system will be hamstrung on how to deal. And the markets will continue to drop.
Its almost exactly 10 years ago that the results of the .com years came home to roost, almost 3 years from the top of the housing enduced boom, and the third time down through 10K in 10 years, on the back of the “world debt” crises.
I think we are looking at somewhere around DOW 8600-9100 before the fear subsides, and everybody believes things are cheap enough to risk getting back in.
And thats before we start talking about the long term US debt problem.
The “euro crisis” is a distraction. We have our own crisis right here in our own back yard…its called consumer leverage (home mortgages, credit card, auto loans, home equity, etc.), pension leverage, municipality leverage, and now public debt leverage, all in the face of declining assets values, unemployment, and boomer demographics. We haven’t addressed our own balance sheets, and until we do, Europe is just a distraction.
Mr. Jubak,
I have been purchasing your stock recommendations for a few months now. In light of the current crisis and drop in the DOW, do you still stand by your target prices? Or, are all bets off? It’s too late to sell some of the stocks now without taking a big loss.
It seems that what we have is a golbal debt crisis don’t we .. ? Two ways out, print up more debt, and push the problem further out, or, face it now, and let the global economy and the markets crash.
From my reading China ( our last hope ) is an economy running on borrowed money. One article article said china’s troubles were 1000 times worse than Dunbai.
x
I look out, and the global markets are going down, gold is dropping with the markets, and the debt laden dollar is going up ! !!!!!
When the dollar crashes, I’d suspect we will see a debt free global currancy, as the stability standard, and the national curriences will be allowed to inflate their debts away. And that will be the path way out.
Jim,
One of the best articles I have read in awhile. I think the key point you touch on is the loss of competitive advantage that was uncovered by the real estate bust. We have a huge amount of worker’s that went to these trades but with work dry we will be forced to retrain…..
Some other areas where we are sorely lagging are our country as a whole international business skills as well. This is allowing some of these other countries get a leg up.
I don’t think the Euro crisis and China’s tightening are related to each other and to the US. First of all, China’s tightening is necessary to avoid overheating. I think China should get its GDP under 10%. Second, Euro zone’s current problem is caused by the spending appetite of these member countries over long period time. Euro zone’s social programs are too generous and beyond their mean. Their social programs have cost their global competitiveness. They need to cut spending and bring the deficit down, if they want to be competitive. Meanwhile, US is recovering particularly judging by major indicators. However, I do think US will have low growth and low profit over quite some time because of pending higher taxes, more government mandates, etc.
I disagree with the notion that the current recovery is only because of government stimulus, therefore when the stimulus is pulled, so is the growth. Stimulus is supposed to do just that, give economy a starter. Once it started, stimulus shall be pulled which is normal. What’s supprise or depressed about it?
I believe that this is all the same mess (Not just coming in the future, but in past, current, and future), but it can play out differently and at different rates in different countries, so where you invest your money matters. But like being on a whip if you aren’t careful everyone is going to be snapped.
No single Country in EU can print Euro. This mess is a blessing for exporter Countries right now.
Jim,
You have just explained why the European mess is bigger than I had considered. I hadn’t really thought about the euro/export angle before. Thank you.
I for one believe thats exactly what we’ll get, “one big global mess”
Good article Jim. Whether or not the Europe debt and Chinas growth issues are closely related, the market psychology will likely link them closely.