By Rich Miller - Nov 7, 2011 5:40 PM GMT+0700
Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Binay Chandgothia, a Hong Kong-based fund manager at Principal Global Investors, talks about global financial markets and his investment strategy. Chandgothia also discusses the Group of 20 summit and Europe's sovereign debt crisis. He speaks with Susan Li on Bloomberg Television's "First Up." (Source: Bloomberg)
Nov. 7 (Bloomberg) -- Robert Minikin, a senior foreign-exchange strategist at Standard Chartered Plc in Hong Kong, talks about the potential for intervention by the Chinese government in the European sovereign-debt crisis and the outlook for the yuan. Minikin also discusses the Group of 20 nations' summit last week. He speaks with Rishaad Salamat on Bloomberg Television's "One the Move Asia." (Source: Bloomberg)
The global economy is showing signs of withstanding a European recession triggered by the debt debacle in Greece.
The U.S. unemployment rate fell to 9 percent last month, the lowest since April, from 9.1 percent in September, the Labor Department reported Nov. 4. Chinese manufacturing continued to expand in October, based on an index compiled by the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing. Even in Japan, the world’s third-largest economy, growth is coming to life: Gross domestic product climbed last quarter for the first time in a year, rising 6 percent according to the median estimate of analysts polled by Bloomberg News.
“Barring Italy turning into Greece, we’ll have a slowdown in the world economy, but a manageable one,” said Jim O’Neill, chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management in London.
The cool-down will bring with it “some not-to-be-dismissed benefits, particularly in easing inflationary pressures,” he added. That easing will boost the spending power of American consumers and give officials in China and other emerging markets room to loosen fiscal and monetary policy.
The ability of the U.S. to avoid a contraction means the dollar probably will appreciate against the European currency, UBS Investment Bank Chief Economist Larry Hatheway and his team in London wrote in an Oct. 28 report. They see the euro falling to $1.25 by the end of next year from $1.3792 at 5:57 p.m. in New York Nov. 4 as global growth slows to 3.1 percent in 2012 from 3.2 percent this year.
Rising Equities
The U.S. stock market also will benefit, David R. Kotok, chairman and chief investment officer of Cumberland Advisors in Vineland, New Jersey, said in a Nov. 1 note to clients. He forecast the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will finish the year at 1,350, compared with 1,253.23 at 4 p.m. on Nov. 4. percent in German trading.
“The bear is going into hibernation for the winter, and the surprise will be to the upside,” Kotok said.
He is “fully invested” in the U.S. markets and “very underweight” in Europe, he told Ken Prewitt and Tom Keene on Bloomberg Radio’s “Bloomberg Surveillance” Nov. 1.
U.S. stock futures fell today, indicating the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index will extend last week’s decline. S&P 500 futures expiring in December declined 1.3 percent to 1,235 at 10:27 a.m. in London. The euro fell 0.6 percent against the dollar to $1.3715, after dropping 2.5 percent last week.
Recession Risk
European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said Nov. 3 that the region is heading toward a “mild recession” after policy makers cut their benchmark interest rate by a quarter percentage point to 1.25 percent.
The euro area’s gross domestic product will shrink at a 0.5 percent to 1 percent annual rate this quarter and next before recovering in the second half of 2012, according to Allen Sinai, president of Decision Economics in New York.
Europe’s malaise already is taking its toll on the rest of the world economy. South Korea’s exports increased at the slowest pace in two years last month, partly because of the European debt crisis, and may slow further in the fourth quarter, according to the Ministry of Knowledge Economy.
LG Electronics Inc. (066570), the world’s third-largest maker of mobile phones, reported Oct. 26 that it lost 414 billion won ($373 million) in the three months ended September, as earnings dropped at its flat-panel unit. The Seoul-based company had a profit of 7.6 billion won in the 2010 third quarter.
Mid-Year Shock
Banks in emerging markets also feel the pinch as European counterparts seek to increase their capital base by cutting back on international loans. A survey of banks in developing countries released Oct. 21 by the Institute of International Finance found that their “funding conditions in international markets have deteriorated significantly.”
Still, the world economy as a whole has proved to be resilient after the mid-year shock to confidence from the crisis in Europe and squabble in the U.S. over raising the Treasury debt ceiling, said David Hensley, director of global economic coordination at JPMorgan Chase & Co. in New York.
Purchasing managers at manufacturing companies throughout the world reported that business improved in October. The aggregate index increased to 50 last month from 49.8 in September; results above 50 indicate expansion.
The data suggest that the risks of a synchronized global contraction “continue to diminish,” Neal Soss, chief economist at Credit Suisse Holdings in New York and his colleague Henry Mo, wrote in a Nov. 2 report.
Car Sales Rebound
“At the moment, we don’t see recessionary situations as we assess the markets,” Rich Kramer, chief executive officer of Akron, Ohio-based Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. (GT), told analysts on an Oct. 28 conference call. Third-quarter net income of $161 million topped the analysts’ estimates; the largest U.S. tire maker reported a loss of $20 million a year earlier.
Sales of cars and light-duty trucks rose 7.5 percent last month from a year ago to a 13.3 million seasonally adjusted annual rate, the most since February, according to Autodata Corp. in Woodcliff Lake, New Jersey.
After cutting back on saving and increasing spending, consumers should get a boost this quarter from falling inflation, Hensley said. He sees consumer prices rising at an annualized pace of just 0.5 percent in the final three months of the year, down from 3.1 percent in July-September.
The average price for unleaded gasoline fell almost 20 cents in September to $3.43 a gallon and held near there last month, according to AAA, the nation’s largest motoring group.
Disposable Income
U.S. households also are benefiting from smaller debt payments, thanks to record low interest rates from the Federal Reserve and their own efforts to put their finances in better shape, Sinai said. As a share of disposable income, those payments fell to an almost 17-year low of 11.09 percent in the second quarter from a peak of 13.96 percent in 2007, based on Fed data.
The course of consumer spending next year hinges on the U.S. Congress. A 2 percent cut in workers’ payroll taxes is set to expire at the end of this year. President Barack Obama has proposed extending and adding to it as part of his $447 billion jobs plan. Lawmakers have yet to act on the proposal.
Ebbing inflation also will be welcome news in China and other emerging markets, where policy makers have been struggling to contain price pressures.
“From the truly global perspective, the most important thing for me is not the next development in Europe, barring a breakdown in Italy, but what happens to Chinese inflation,” O’Neill said. The country’s central bank raised borrowing costs five times and boosted lenders’ reserve requirements nine times in the past 13 months.
Policy Easing
Chinese inflation may moderate to less than 5 percent in November and December, compared with a three-year high of 6.5 percent in July, said Zhu Jianfang, the most accurate forecaster of the data in Bloomberg News surveys during the past two years.
“Food and global oil prices have peaked, and that means inflation will fall,” said Zhu, a Beijing-based economist at Citic Securities Co. Ltd. “The decline will leave more room for policy easing, such as looser credit, to help sustain growth.”
Manufacturing in China expanded last month, albeit at a slower pace. The Purchasing Managers’ Index fell to 50.4 in October from 51.2 in September, the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing said Nov. 1.
Interest-Rate Cuts
Some central banks already are easing policy. Brazil cut interest rates for the second time this year on Oct. 19, lowering the benchmark Selic rate to 11.5 percent. Bank Indonesia reduced its key rate by 25 basis points to 6.5 percent on Oct. 11, paving the way for the biggest monthly gain in the country’s sovereign-bond market since March.
Asian policy makers “have a lot of room” to cut interest rates and expand fiscal policy, said Robert Subbaraman, chief economist for Asia excluding Japan at Nomura Holdings Inc. in Hong Kong. “Asia’s public debt-to-GDP ratio is among the lowest of all the regions.”
In Japan, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda is proposing a third extra budget that the Cabinet Office estimates will increase GDP by about 1.7 percent. The budget, which will pay for rebuilding after the March earthquake, also will create about 600,000 jobs, the office said Oct. 28.
‘Well Timed’
The effort “is well timed,” said Cameron Umetsu, senior economist at UBS Securities Japan in Tokyo. “It helps to cushion some of the pain, and in that sense lends a certain degree of independence to the Japanese recovery.”
Sinai sees global growth holding roughly steady next year at just under 3 percent, adding his forecast that the world recovery will stay on track assumes Europe will contain the contagion from Greece’s debt crisis.
There are precedents for the world economy’s ability to hold up in the face of a European recession. Perhaps the most relevant, according to economists at the Washington-based Institute of International Finance, is the early 1990s, when a European Monetary System crisis drove the area into recession without derailing a U.S. recovery.
“In my 30 years in the business, Europe’s never been the locomotive” of the global economy, O’Neill said. “The contagion from Europe to the U.S. and China as the two key engines of the world is being exaggerated.”
To contact the reporter on this story: Richard Miller in Washington at rmiller28@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Chris Wellisz at cwellisz@bloomberg.net
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