Vielleicht können wir uns auf den nächsten Bail-out nicht verlassen?
Die Grundannahme in den Finanzmärkten ist geprägt von den Erfahrungen der letzten Jahrzehnte: zum einen die Erfahrung, dass die Zinsen im Trend sinken, zum anderen die davon nicht unabhängige Annahme, dass die Notenbanken auf jede Krise mit weiteren Zinssenkungen und Interventionen reagieren werden. Der frühere „Greenspan-Put“ ist schon lange zu einem Notenbanken-Put geworden. Die Frage ist allerdings, ob man sich wirklich darauf verlassen kann. Es könnte umgekehrt auch sein, dass es politisch nicht mehr akzeptabel ist, in diesem Umfang zu intervenieren. Dies auch eine Überlegung in einem Kommentar, der in der FINANCIAL TIMES erschien:
- “Will the dysfunction in the US political system keep the federal government or the Federal Reserve from making emergency fixes in the next financial crisis? Before the 2008 crisis, that would not have been a serious question. Now it is. Bailouts, which are done for the benefit of distant, rich and privileged people, are bad.” – bto: das gilt vor allem, wenn die Begünstigen im Ausland sitzen!
- “The 1987 crash is probably a better precedent than the 2008 crisis for the financial tail risks we face today. At the time, the US was only in the middle of a growth stage, though we did not know that. When US stock indices and the associated futures and options fell more than 20 per cent on October 19 1987, a lot of people believed it was the beginning of another depression. That did not happen.” – bto: was sicherlich mit der Reaktion der Notenbank damals zu tun hat. Der Hinweis auf das gute wirtschaftliche Umfeld zeigt aber auch, dass es unter Umständen ohnehin keine realwirtschaftlichen Konsequenzen gegeben hätte.
- “Decades later, after all the magnetic recording tapes and typed minutes of then-secret meetings have been examined, that outcome appears less preordained than it did in, say, 1989. The interventions by the Fed and banks such as the late Continental Illinois may have been critically important in ensuring that seize-ups in the liquidity of the financial markets did not cause a sharp contraction in the economy.” – bto: also doch das Verhindern einer Abwärtsspirale wie in den 1930ern.
- “The 1987 crash was apparently the result of an array of magic-box investment strategies running into unforeseen political risks. The magic boxes were devised not so much to reap outsized speculative profits, but to limit losses and transaction costs in a risk-modelled and automated manner. (…) To limit market risk, portfolio insurance users would buy index futures in a rising market and sell them in a falling market. What might arguably have been a clever strategy when executed by a few market participants became a systemic disaster when adopted by many. Shares and futures prices chased each other down so rapidly that true price discovery was lost.” – bto: Nun sage keiner, dass wir heute nicht im gleichen Stil agieren, nur um Potenzen aggressiver und zu Spekulations- nicht Absicherungszwecken.
- Today “we have risk parity, volatility targeting and leveraged ETFs, along with the traditional sort of trend-following commodity-trading advisers. (…) There is another component to a prospective giant flash crash today: retail and small institutional investors who believe their index ETFs or large-cap stocks can be sold instantaneously at the push of a customer’s virtual button on their laptop. In effect, many, many people believe they have a free out of the money option to put their equities to the market when they get fretful”. – bto: Das habe ich ja mehrfach thematisiert. Es ist eine Liquiditätsillusion, die bitter enttäuscht werden wird und den möglichen Crash verstärkt.
- “In a future crisis, clearinghouses are more likely to be the centre of financial stress. Some counterparties may have difficulty coming up with ready cash or collateral such as Treasury securities. The latter are likely to be in shorter supply. Anyway, there will be very low prices, then a Fed ‚bailout‘, or, at the very worst, the hasty, no-Congressional-action-required takeover of a clearinghouse by the US government.” – bto: was aber immer erst passieren kann, nachdem die Preise stark gefallen und die Panik entsprechend groß ist.
- “Then a lot of securities prices would bounce back, and some people would make money. But who would get the political profit? The leftwing policy tribe wants the system to keep working, but will demand their pound of intrusive regulatory intervention. Democratic party politicians will campaign for more control over credit and capital allocation.” – bto: Die Systemfrage müsste und würde zurechtgestellt werden, vermutlich jedoch mit der falschen Antwort. Wir brauchen ja keinen Sozialismus, sondern eine Neuordnung des Geldwesens.
- “The rightwing, or, as they would call themselves, economic nationalists, are, in a way, more problematic for Wall Street. When posed with a crash scenario, one of them said, ‚Do you want me to go all Old Testament on you?‘ They do not have a ready plan to oppose a bailout, but they will make the most of the political backlash. Some leftwingers and nationalists use the same phrase: ‚economic hate crimes‘. That does not sound like the gratitude showering Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Fed at the time, after the 1987 bailout.” – bto: und damit das ernsthafte Risiko, dass nichts getan wird oder erst verspätet. Das wäre das Ende des Zyklus aus immer größeren Notenbankinterventionen und damit in der Tat der große Crash. Nicht undenkbar, jedoch noch unwahrscheinlich.
