Wann kommt der Unfall?
John Authers von Bloomberg geht der Frage nach, wann denn der Zinsanstieg zum Unfall in den Finanzmärkten führt, den wir alle schon länger erwarten:
- „If something needs to break before the Federal Reserve relents and bond yields start to fall, what is it going to be? Back in March, it looked as though the backup in bond yields had broken something really important: the regional banking system. Several banks proved to have taken on too much interest-rate risk. Rescues, fire sales, and a Fed program to lend money to keep them liquid ensued.“ – bto: Wir wissen, wie es gewirkt hat. Die Fed hat gerettet und die finanziellen Bedingungen sind faktisch leichter geworden.
- „Credit has continued to flow since then, however, and the corporate credit markets haven’t snapped yet. If that changes, it makes a recession far harder to avoid, and also sharply increases the risk of a major bankruptcy or failure of an institution to trigger a financial crisis. Credit matters. And it does look as though it’s beginning to budge.“ – bto: … bis jetzt.
- „The critical sign of something amiss comes from small caps. They are far more exposed to rising interest rates than larger companies, and the gulf in their performance has now grown quite dramatic. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies has just dropped back below its level from the eve of the pandemic, essentially giving up all its gains since the dawn of the decade.“ – bto: Warum? Weil diese Unternehmen keinen so leichten Zugang zum Kapitalmarkt haben und deshalb deutlich früher höhere Zinsen zahlen müssen.
- „There are many reasons for the large-caps’ outperformance, but credit is possibly the most important. When comparing when debt needs to be renewed for small and large caps in the US and Europe, the following chart from Societe Generale’s quantitative strategist Andrew Lapthorne shows that the US-based large caps of the S&P 500 seem to have locked in great deals. Everyone else faces a credit ‚wall‘ or ‚cliff‘:
Quelle: Bloomberg
- „Small-caps’ share prices suggest credit is getting too tight, and the yields on their bonds are beginning to do the same. The spreads payable for taking on the extra risk of high-yield or ‚junk‘ bonds has remained very tight so far this year, fully repairing the damage from the March bank failures. Spreads are still not extreme by any measure; but they’re rising, and the trend seems to be clearly upward.“ – bto: … und damit die unweigerlichen Probleme.
- „A lot of smaller companies have another very serious problem when it comes to paying their debts: They don’t have any profits. This chart from Lapthorne shows that the proportion of ‚zombie‘ loss-making smaller companies is far higher in the US than Europe.“ – bto: Das hat mich dann doch überrascht.
Quelle: Bloomberg
- „Meanwhile, even the bigger companies of the S&P 500 are beginning to feel some pressure. Treasurers did a good job of locking in low rates when they were available in 2021, but they generally weren’t able to finance themselves for that long. Amounts due to be repaid increase noticeably next year, and then jump to levels that could be really problematic in 2025 and 2026, as illustrated in this chart of the S&P 500.“ – bto: Auch das ist ein ziemlich eindeutiges Warnsignal:
Quelle: Bloomberg
- „For a final sign of trouble in the offing, look to the consumer. Mahmood Noorani, the CEO of Quant Insight of London, shows that total interest payments by US consumers have surged of late as a share of wages and salaries. Again, this could easily contribute to a credit crunch.“ – bto: Definitiv.
Quelle: Bloomberg
„Monetary policy generally works with an 18-month lag, Noorani points out — and it’s now been that long since the Fed started to hike. If credit is at last turning, it’s doing so on cue.“ – bto: Bitte anschnallen!
