Como o Fed Influencia o Mercado de Ações? Assim...
Caros Leitores,
Bolha. Esta se tornou agora a palavra central nos artigos financeiros.
O S&P e o Dow cederam alguns ganhos após atingirem máximas históricas. No entanto, já vimos isso antes – quase vezes demais nos últimos anos; máximas históricas, recuos, máximas históricas, recuos.
A questão já não é sobre qual é o verdadeiro sentimento do investidor, nem os fundamentos das ações, mas sim o que os bancos centrais farão (assim como é o caso com o gold.)
Quanto mais os bancos e o Fed injetarão no mercado de ações para mantê-lo à tona?
Por anos tenho falado sobre como os bancos intervêm diretamente no mercado de títulos e secretamente\
*Digo secretamente porque é contra as políticas do Fed e de outros bancos intervir em tais assuntos.
O envolvimento dos bancos centrais impulsionou os preços das ações a novas máximas históricas em todo o mundo.
Mas, ao contrário do Fed, o banco central do Japan não teve problemas em comprar ações diretamente, geralmente na forma de index ETF’s e REITs.
Como tenho enfatizado muitas vezes antes: Nunca faça apostas de curto prazo contra uma entidade que pode imprimir quantidades ilimitadas de dinheiro. A menos que você esteja vendido na moeda, é claro…
Ainda esta semana, a Bloomberg revelou que o Bank of Japan (BOJ) está se preparando novamente para comprar exchange-traded funds baseados no JPX-Nikkei Index 400\* como uma “opção para aumentar o impacto de um relaxamento sem precedentes e encorajar as companies a usar cash para investment.”
Lembre-se da quantidade massiva e ridícula de estímulo do Japan para impulsionar a inflação para pelo menos 2% – uma façanha difícil, considerando que o country esteve em um estado deflacionário durante a maior parte dos últimos 20 anos.
Em maio, o Japan anunciou que a nationwide consumer inflation rate acelerou para 3,7% em maio, de 3,4% em abril, o aumento mais rápido em 30 anos.
Isso era esperado com a record amount of stimulus lançada no ano passado.
No entanto, core inflation – a preferred gauge do BOJ – deve desacelerar para cerca de 1%.
Isso significa que os Japanese consumers são agora forçados a pagar mais pelas coisas, à medida que sua currency continua a ser devalued, enquanto os wages ainda não aumentaram. Isso levará novamente a uma slow-down no real economic growth.
A única maneira para os citizens do Japan acompanharem é assumir mais risk e investir no stock market (precisamente como o BOJ quer que eles façam).
A reality é simples: o central bank do Japan não terá outra choice senão print more money para atingir sua target de 2%. Isso significa que provavelmente veremos further purchases of stock para impulsionar o market, bem como other forms of stimulus.
Então, enquanto muitos financial journalists continuam a talk about bubbles (uma que concordo que está happening), ela pode not be ready to pop just yet.
Em março do last year, eu disse aos readers para front-run o BOJ e borrow yen para buy Japanese stocks.
O Nikkei, despite a pullback earlier this year, is still up over 20%.
Perhaps its time to front-run o BOJ again.
É Para Onde o Dinheiro Está Indo
O Japan isn’t o only country que has influenced o stock market in order to prop up prices. O U.S. has done o same, only it hasn’t been as open about it.
Since Fed policy dictates that it cannot directly buy stocks, o Fed has found other ways to encourage people to take risks.
Já falei sobre essas strategies many times before.
One of these strategies is to force banks to lend.
O problem, however, is that its difficult for banks to lend to unqualified borrowers. And since a majority of Americans have been terribly affected by the economic crisis, many of them don’t meet the requirements for borrowing.
With so much stimulus, where has all the money gone?
Para as people who meet the requirements: big corporations with cash.
Remember a while back when I talked about the record amount of cash hoarding by big corporations and how they weren’t using it for capital investments (hiring, infrastructure, etc.) because the economy didn’t warrant such actions?
Então, o que you do when you have so much cash, but nowhere to deploy it?
Invest no stock market…simple!
Since spending didn’t make sense for these corporations, as the economy truly didn’t warrant further hiring or sales, these companies decided to buy a record amount of their own stock with their cash pile.
When a company issues a share buyback, the amount of outstanding shares in a company decreases. This leads to a higher Earnings Per Share (EPS), which makes the stock look much more attractive. This, of course, leads to higher share prices.
While this is great for shareholders, its bad for the economy as the cash is no longer put to use to hire new employees or grow the company.
Share buybacks continue at record pace and I expect billions of dollars in transactions over the next few months alone.
But there’s even more to this story than what the face value suggests.
While the headlines tell us of record cash holdings at corporations (giving the illusion sales are great), what they don’t tell us is that US corporate cash holdings is at the lowest level relative to corporate debt.
That’s because banks – as I just mentioned – have had to lend record amounts of money out. And since many consumers no longer qualify to buy houses or take out other loans, the majority of this lending has gone to big corporations.
“Total outstanding commercial and industrial (C & I) lending, which runs the gamut of loans to sectors from energy to healthcare and excludes consumer or real estate loans, rose to a record $1.7tn in May from a post-crisis trough of $1.2tn nearly four years ago, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis.
For the top 25 US commercial banks by assets, C & I lending grew by 10.5 per cent in the quarter to June 25 from the previous quarter, according to annualised weekly data from the Federal Reserve.
This type of lending is an important source of business for the largest US banks, representing about a fifth of all loans made by the likes of Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase and Wells Fargo, according to Citigroup research.”
Aqui está o punchline:
“Much of the corporate lending is going to fund payouts to shareholders, finance acquisitions and fuel the domestic energy boom, bankers say, rather than to support companies’ organic growth.
…A second corporate banking executive at a large regional lender said: “The larger part of the usage in the market right now are loan refinancings where companies are paying dividends back out.” He added: “They’re requesting increased loans or usage under a lien in order to pay a dividend or equity holders of a company. Traditionally banks have been very cautious of that.”
Charles Peabody, a bank analyst at Portales Partners in New York, has warned that while it is hard to extrapolate what is driving commercial and industrial lending, if it is to fund acquisitions or share buybacks it may not indicate a strengthening economy.”
Isso significa que as companies aren’t borrowing money to hire new workers, they’re borrowing record amounts of money just to give away to shareholders.
E, claro, as I mentioned last week, a majority of these shareholders are the richest 5% of Americans who own directly 82% of U.S. publicly traded stocks.
Vá entender.
Até a próxima semana,
Ivan Lo
