Bank sows debt confusion
IF APRIL is the cruellest month, then August is the most fragile. It’s a month when wars break out, currencies go into freefall and the seeds of financial crises are sown.
In August a decade ago French banks discovered they were unable to raise funds, triggering events that led to the financial crash of 2008.
No wonder there’s a frightening sense of deja vu, with everybody asking whether we are heading for another perfect storm.
It’s true there are worrying signs: investors fear growing high levels of unsecured consumer debt and a car-lending bubble fuelled by easy money and low interest rates. There are jitters too over the future solvency of Provident Financial, but the doorstep lender’s problems appear to be operational rather than systemic, for now.
Yet most pundits do not believe we are heading for another crash.
They are worried about the credit binge and many are urging the Bank of England to tighten monetary policy.
One step would be for the Bank to abandon its £115bn cheap funding scheme for the UK’s retail banks. This was one of Mark Carney’s post-Brexit emergency schemes allowing the high street banks to borrow at 0.25pc to keep lending going to consumers. But Simon Ward, economist at Janus Henderson, argues the scheme is subsidising banks by providing so much easy money, most of it being channelled into riskier unsecured loans rather than mortgages.
More pertinently, Ward says the Bank’s strategy is sending confusing messages to the markets. He’s right.
On one hand, the Bank is pumping cheap liquidity into the system so, de facto, is encouraging the banks to lend more. Yet Carney warns that interest rates will have to rise to help squeeze inflation but the Bank keeps them down. Which is it to be?
Unsurprisingly, the banks have gone for the heroin fix, borrowing £80bn over the last year. The scheme has another six months to go before being switched off, by which time another £35bn is likely to be borrowed.
This could be a good time to disconnect the syringe without endangering consumer and business confidence.
There are signs that consumers are not as stretched as previously thought, despite the hordes of brand new cars on the road.
Revised ONS figures show the average household saved 8.4pc of its income in 2015 – much more than the 6.5pc forecast.
So the doom and gloom about household savings levels has been overdone. In fact, savings have barely changed over the last 12 years.
It’s interesting that the upward revision is due to there being more self-employed people, who have incorporated their businesses and are paying themselves in dividends rather than salaries.
If the unrevised savings ratio for 2016 – which was 5.2pc – is upgraded as much as that for 2015 when the numbers are published in September there will be more rejoicing. If they are good, that would be an appropriate time for the Old Lady to pull in her skirts and stop handing out the drugs.
Wrong to blame Brexit
LAURA Ashley has some nerve in blaming Brexit for its appalling profits performance. The weak pound may well have hit imports costs but this is no excuse for the chain producing such dreadful clothes.
Contrast the constant racks of sales goods in Laura Ashley shops to rivals like Zara, H&M and Cos where people queue to buy their fabulous garments.
I can remember when having a Laura Ashley dress was the bee’s knees. That went out of fashion a long time ago.
Unless Laura Ashley gets an instant makeover, poaches a new design team from Inditex as well as new management, the shares will continue to sink without trace.
WPP’s zero ride
IT’S not often Sir Martin Sorrell shows his bearish side so his warning that WPP’s growth this year will be zero sent the ad giant’s shares tumbling.
If trading is as bad as he suggests, WPP is on track to record the worst growth year since the recession. Sir Martin blamed everyone: big corporates cutting back on marketing and ad spending, the threat of digital rivals and Donald Trump’s failure to get investing in infrastructure.
A case of my lady doth protest too much?