12 June 2019 11kkjskjskjs12/06/2019 Jefferies European Economic Outlook Can the ECB and the BoE wrestle back control of monetary policy? Whoever replaces Draghi, Contact direction of next steps hangs in the balance GL • In a performance that summed-up his term at the ECB, Draghi David Owen OB delivered something for everyone at the June press conference. The Jefferies International Limited ECB’s overall stance remains cautious, reflecting uncertainties over Managing Director AL the state of the domestic economy, uncomfortably low inflation Chief European Economist and global trade tensions. In response, Draghi reiterated that the +44 207 898 7317 FIXED INCOME ECB has plenty left in its arsenal to support the economy if it [email protected] becomes necessary, including restarting QE and cutting rates. • At the same time, the ECB’s task of setting policy to reflect the needs of the euro area is being made harder by the US Fed’s Marchel Alexandrovich dithering over its direction of travel, and the markets projecting its Jefferies International Limited expectations of imminent rate cuts in the US onto the European Managing Director yield curve (a frustration shared by the Bank of England). Senior European Economist Therefore, it was significant that when all was said and done, the +44 207 898 7344 measures announced in June were less dovish than some had [email protected] expected, with Draghi pushing back against the speculation that the ECB was preparing to take further easing steps. • As the clock ticks down on his time as the ECB President, however, increasingly, attention is turning to life after Mario Draghi. The European Elections didn’t produce the political earthquake some MiFID II had feared, nonetheless, the two main political parties did Click here to make significantly worse than in 2014, and the next step in the process is sure you will to choose who will replace Jean-Claude Juncker as the President of continue to get our the European Commission. The frontrunner for the job under the research! process of Spitzenkandidat is the German politician Manfred Weber. But if he is asked to step aside in the coming weeks in favour of another candidate (as suggested by Emmanuel Macron), European Economics Team then Angela Merkel could focus on the top ECB job and the nomination of Jens Weidmann. European Economics Team David Owen • Bundesbank President Weidmann – who has a reputation as a Jefferies International Limited David Owen policy hawk and someone who in the past has been sceptical Managing Director Jefferies International Limited about the merits of QE and negative interest rates – would be a Chief European Economist Managing Director more controversial appointment than Benoit Coeure, Olli Rehn, or +44 207 898 7317 Chief European Economist Francois Villeroy. However, in terms of the bigger picture, there is [email protected] +44 207 898 7317 too much focus on the individual personalities. Over the coming [email protected] year, no matter who is in charge, the ECB is likely to undertake a Marchel Alexandrovich review of its remit and its policy tools. Understandably, the markets Jefferies International Limited Marchel Alexandrovich will be more anxious if this process is led by Weidmann as opposed Managing Director Jefferies International Limited to some of the other candidates on the radar, but it’s naive to think Senior European Economist Managing Director that the next eight years of ECB presidency will look anything like +44 207 898 7344 Senior European Economist the past eight years. Following years of firefighting, the ECB is [email protected] +44 207 898 7344 hoping to move onto a new phase with emergency policy [email protected] measures starting to be phased out. Please see important disclosure information on pages 65 – 65 Jefferies European Economic Outlook Jefferies Fixed Income 12 June 2019 • At the moment there is widespread scepticism that the ECB would ever be in a position to hike rates or to start unwinding QE. But away from the hysteria surrounding inflation expectations and GLOBAL weak manufacturing PMIs, the ECB is nudging the markets to start focusing on a broader set of economic variables. Inflation dynamics should not be judged narrowly by the latest core inflation print, but by a wider basket of indicators including what’s happening to unemployment and wages, profit margins and the GDP deflator, FIXED INCOME super-core inflation and the weight of HICP items in deflation. Similarly, while manufacturing sector output and global trade matter, what happens to euro area services matters even more. And while the markets are hung up on the US-China trade tensions, alongside, there should be at least some recognition that the EU could see some benefits from associated trade diversion. • As the latest GDP figures showed (0.4% QoQ in Q1), there is more life in the euro area economy than is commonly recognised. Q2 growth is likely to be slower (with the Bundesbank pencilling a small decline in German GDP on the quarter), so perceptions will get worse before they get better. And when it comes to market developments, one troubling parallel is how events unfolded after the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and Russian default of 1998, when confidence about recovery also evaporated, bond yields fell, and policy rates were cut. Our strong call at the time was that the economy would continue to sail on through. This is precisely what happened, but of course the policy easing helped stoke the excesses that directly led to the TMT bubble bursting. • In the UK, all attention remains on the corrosiveness of Brexit. Having disposed of Theresa May, the Conservative party is in the process of electing a new leader and by end-July the county should have a new Prime Minister. What will not change, however, is the Parliamentary arithmetic, with the majority of MPs opposed to a No Deal Brexit, or in fact to any form of Brexit presented to them in the run up to the original 29 March departure date. • Will the new Prime Minister be able to renegotiate a deal with the EU and steer his/her version of Brexit through Parliament before 31 October? Extremely unlikely, with another extension almost inevitable, although the decision could come very late in the day, with the Parliament potentially on the brink of a no-confidence vote in the government. As this mess unfolds, the calls for another referendum and a new General Election will grow even louder, although neither would be expected to produce a decisive outcome, with the electorate as divided (and in some ways arguably more) now, as in 2016 or in 2017. Against this backdrop, the BoE will be on standby to adjust policy in either direction; but if an orderly Brexit can somehow be delivered or, more likely, Brexit is delayed into next year, the MPC has a bias to tighten policy and, as in summer 2017, could surprise the markets with its resolve. 2 Please see important disclosure information on pages 65 – 65 Jefferies European Economic Outlook Jefferies Fixed Income 12 June 2019 Market underestimating risk of rate rises Economic fundamentals still point to EU GDP growth surprising on the GLOBAL upside, despite increasing concerns that, along with rising trade tensions, Europe’s recovery is rolling over. Real GDP printed a solid 0.4% in the first quarter (1.6% annualized), up from 0.1% in Q3 2018 and the 0.2% of Q4 2018, underpinned by the on-going strength of fixed capital formation (including the hard to measure, investment in intellectual property), and FIXED INCOME on-going resilience of consumption. Employment printed 0.3% again in the euro area, as well as in Germany. Compensation per employee paused for breath in Q1, but the ECB’s measure of negotiated wages is also now growing over 2%, up decisively from two years ago, and the labour market continues to tighten. Consumption and Investment in euro area Euro area Gross Fixed Capital Formation 10 12 8 10 6 8 4 6 2 0 4 -2 2 -4 0 -6 -2 -8 -10 -4 99 00 01 02 03 04 05 06 07 08 09 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 2017 2018 2019 Year-on-Year % Total Quarter-on-Quarter annualised % Quarter-on-Quarter annualised % Inv estment in Intellectual Property exc Ireland & Netherlands Q-on-Q annualised % Source: Thomson Reuters Datastream Source: Thomson Reuters Datastream Indeed, compensation per employee in Germany posted over a 3% rise in the year to the first quarter, effectively the fastest growth in wages in the euro area’s largest economy since EMU commenced. Compensation per employee in Germany was growing at a slightly faster rate in the mid- 1990s. But that was before labour market reforms kicked in, when the German unemployment rate was almost 8.5%. Now we have German wage growth of over 3% again, but with an unemployment rate of only 3.2% (below 2% in some regions). And, as with the rest of the euro area we have a recovery that is much more based around the service sector, and domestic demand. Moreover, although one should be careful pushing the argument too far, Germany and the EU more generally could benefit from trade diversion, away from China-US, and more towards the EU-China and EU-US. Unemployment and wages in Germany since 1995 4.5 4 Compensation per Employee YoY % Mid-1990s before labour market 3.5 reforms kicked in Q1 2019 Q3 2018 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 2.5 3.5 4.5 5.5 6.5 7.5 8.5 9.5 10.5 11.5 -0.5 Unemployment rate % Source: ECB, Eurostat and Jefferies -1 3 Please see important disclosure information on pages 65 – 65 Jefferies European Economic Outlook Jefferies Fixed Income 12 June 2019 The flip-side of rising wages, has been a squeeze in profit margins, as measured here by the ratio of the gross operating surplus (pre-tax trading profits) of non-financial corporations to the gross value added (effectively GLOBAL turnover) of the same universe of companies.