Monday, June 18, 2012

The U.S. continues to avoid Eurozone contagion




The Greeks yesterday voted to keep trying to fix their problem, but there remains much to be done and markets were understandably unimpressed. Still, I note some encouraging signs. As the charts above show, there has been virtually no contagion effect of the Eurozone crisis on the U.S. Conditions remain tenuous in the Eurozone, with swap spreads still uncomfortably high (though not extremely so), but systemic risk in the U.S. is remarkably normal. The Eurozone crisis has been brewing for over two years, and although U.S. markets have had their confidence shaken a few times, in the end the U.S. economy has continued along its path of slow improvement while the Eurozone economies have for the most part slipped into recession; the S&P 500 has climbed irregularly higher, while the Euro Stoxx index has slipped irregularly downward.


This next chart tells the same story but with a different twist. It compares the ratio of the Vix index (a measure of fear) to the 10-yr Treasury yield (a measure of the market's confidence in the U.S. growth outlook) with the yield on Spanish 2-yr bonds (a measure of the near-term likelihood of a Spanish default). This shows how rising tensions in the Eurozone have tended to coincide with bouts of increased fear and despair in the U.S. Interestingly, over the past year the Vix/10-yr ratio has tended to lead the Spanish 2-yr yield, and so the recent decline in the Vix/10-yr ratio could be telling us that the worst of the Eurozone crisis has passed and that Spanish yields could once again decline in the next several months. In any event, I note that despite today's record-setting high in Spanish 10-yr yields (reflecting acute investor distress over the prospect of an eventual Spanish default), the Vix/10-yr ratio today is only about half as high as it was late last September, when the Eurozone was on the verge of its second panic attack. Message: the Eurozone is really taking a hit, but the U.S. remains largely insulated.

With markets here still dominated by fear (e.g., PE ratios significantly below average, the 10-yr yield close to record lows, and $6.3 trillion sitting in banks savings accounts earning almost nothing), the longer the U.S. economy avoids a calamity, the more likely it is that risk assets rise. That is a plausible explanation for why U.S. equities and commodity prices have moved up this month even as Eurozone yields and fears have increased. Conditions in the U.S. are far from terrific, but in comparison to the Eurozone they are pretty good.

4 comments:

  1. Have you seen the 2 year Swiss bond yield??? Negative .33%....incredible

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  2. Personally, I don’t think it is a fear of bad things to come so much as a belief that good things are unlikely to come.

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  3. The ECB has a single mandate: To control inflation.

    Not working out.

    Greece Spain, perhaps Italy should drop out of Eurozone, and aggressively boost their money supplies, to lower their exchange rates, and boost exports and tourism.

    Yes,they should fix their welfare states, but regardless, they should boost their money supplies.

    Asphyxiating a fattie does not get them into shape.

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  4. Hi Benjamin, should the US bailout California via monetary expansion, or should the US abandon California to its own devices (?) -- if the US decides not to bailout California, should California then secede from the US and print its own money (?) -- herein lies the problem with monetary expansion in Europe -- for the record, we Pennsylvanians are not interested in helping California -- while I was an early advocate of monetary expansion in the US, austerity has its benefits -- keep your eyes on California by the way...

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