Most Popular
1. It’s a New Macro, the Gold Market Knows It, But Dead Men Walking Do Not (yet)- Gary_Tanashian
2.Stock Market Presidential Election Cycle Seasonal Trend Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
3. Bitcoin S&P Pattern - Nadeem_Walayat
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
4.U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - Raymond_Matison
5. How to Profit from the Global Warming ClImate Change Mega Death Trend - Part1 - Nadeem_Walayat
7.Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - Nadeem_Walayat
9.It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - Stephen_McBride
10.Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - Richard_Mills
Last 7 days
Stock Market Brief in Count Down to US Election Result 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Gold Stocks’ Winter Rally 2024 - 3rd Nov 24
Why Countdown to U.S. Recession is Underway - 3rd Nov 24
Stock Market Trend Forecast to Jan 2025 - 2nd Nov 24
President Donald PUMP Forecast to Win US Presidential Election 2024 - 1st Nov 24
At These Levels, Buying Silver Is Like Getting It At $5 In 2003 - 28th Oct 24
Nvidia Numero Uno Selling Shovels in the AI Gold Rush - 28th Oct 24
The Future of Online Casinos - 28th Oct 24
Panic in the Air As Stock Market Correction Delivers Deep Opps in AI Tech Stocks - 27th Oct 24
Stocks, Bitcoin, Crypto's Counting Down to President Donald Pump! - 27th Oct 24
UK Budget 2024 - What to do Before 30th Oct - Pensions and ISA's - 27th Oct 24
7 Days of Crypto Opportunities Starts NOW - 27th Oct 24
The Power Law in Venture Capital: How Visionary Investors Like Yuri Milner Have Shaped the Future - 27th Oct 24
This Points To Significantly Higher Silver Prices - 27th Oct 24
US House Prices Trend Forecast 2024 to 2026 - 11th Oct 24
US Housing Market Analysis - Immigration Drives House Prices Higher - 30th Sep 24
Stock Market October Correction - 30th Sep 24
The Folly of Tariffs and Trade Wars - 30th Sep 24
Gold: 5 principles to help you stay ahead of price turns - 30th Sep 24
The Everything Rally will Spark multi year Bull Market - 30th Sep 24
US FIXED MORTGAGES LIMITING SUPPLY - 23rd Sep 24
US Housing Market Free Equity - 23rd Sep 24
US Rate Cut FOMO In Stock Market Correction Window - 22nd Sep 24
US State Demographics - 22nd Sep 24
Gold and Silver Shine as the Fed Cuts Rates: What’s Next? - 22nd Sep 24
Stock Market Sentiment Speaks:Nothing Can Topple This Market - 22nd Sep 24
US Population Growth Rate - 17th Sep 24
Are Stocks Overheating? - 17th Sep 24
Sentiment Speaks: Silver Is At A Major Turning Point - 17th Sep 24
If The Stock Market Turn Quickly, How Bad Can Things Get? - 17th Sep 24
IMMIGRATION DRIVES HOUSE PRICES HIGHER - 12th Sep 24
Global Debt Bubble - 12th Sep 24
Gold’s Outlook CPI Data - 12th Sep 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Signs of Economic Deflation You Might Not be Able to See Clearly

Economics / Deflation May 14, 2010 - 09:02 AM GMT

By: EWI

Economics

Best Financial Markets Analysis ArticleSigns of Deflation You Might Not be Able to See Clearly

The following market analysis is courtesy of Bob Prechter's Elliott Wave International. Elliott Wave International is currently offering Bob's recent Elliott Wave Theorist, free.


Continuing—and Looming—Deflationary Forces The Fed and the government quite effectively advertise their efforts to inflate the supply of money and credit. But deflationary forces, to most eyes, are invisible. I thought I would point some of them out.

1. Banks Are about 95 Percent Invested in Mortgages

Treasury Holdings As a Percentage of U.S. Chartered Bank Assets

Figure 4, courtesy of Bianco Research, shows that U.S. banks used to be fairly conservative, holding 40 percent of their assets in Treasury securities. This large investment in federal government debt, the basis of our “monetary” “system”, served as a stop-gap against deflation. In 1950, even if mortgages had been wiped out by a factor of 80 percent, banks still would have been 50% solvent and 40% liquid. Today, banks hold federal agency securities (backed mostly by mortgages), mortgage-backed securities (meaning complicated packages of mortgages), plain old mortgages that they financed themselves, and a few business loan contracts. If these mortgages become wiped out by a factor of 80 percent, which in turn would cause many of the business loans to go into default, the banks will be only about 22% solvent and 1% liquid. I believe the coming wipeout will be bigger than that, but let’s be conservative for now. The point is that, unlike Treasuries, IOUs with homes as collateral can fall in dollar value, and such IOUs are pretty much the only paper backing U.S. bank deposits. The potential for deflation here is tremendous.

2. More Mortgages Are Going Under

It has been well publicized recently that commercial real estate has been plunging in value as business tenants walk away from their leases, leaving properties empty. Zisler Capital Partners reports, “Returns were negative for the past five quarters, the longest streak since 1992. Property prices have fallen by 30 percent to 50 percent from their peaks. Much of the debt is likely worth about 50 percent of par, or less.” (Bloomberg, 11/11) Needless to say, the fact that commercial mortgages are plunging in value is stressing banks even further, which in turn restricts their lending. This trend is deflationary.

3. People Are Walking away from Their Homes and Mortgages

Great numbers of people are ceasing to pay their mortgages, even if they have the money to pay them. When people walk away from their mortgages, they are reneging on a promise to pay the interest on the loan. … Refusal to pay interest is deflationary. When banks can’t collect fully on their loan principal, as is the case by law in the above-named states, it is deflationary. Even in states where banks can go after other assets held by borrowers, default is still deflationary if the borrowers are broke. The reason is that, in all these cases, the value of the loan contract falls to the marketable value of the collateral, and a contraction in the value of debt is deflation.

Some people who walk away from their mortgages purposely damage the homes when they leave. New businesses have sprung up to take on the job of cleaning up the houses that former occupants trashed as they left. Angry defaulters are stripping coils out of stoves, pulling electrical wiring out of walls, ripping fixtures out of bathrooms, yanking seats off of toilets, punching holes in walls and leaving rotting food in the fridge. (AP, 8/9) Such actions, and the threat of more such actions, lower the value of the collateral behind mortgage debts, thereby lowering the value of mortgages, which is deflationary.

4. Bank Lending Standards Have Stayed Restrictive

Federal Reserve Survey of Credit Standards

As people default on mortgages, banks are tightening lending standards. Figure 7 shows that banks loosened credit standards from late 2003 through the summer of 2007. By the end of that time, you could borrow money if you were breathing and could operate a ball-point pen. Banks have been tightening credit standards ever since. The rate of tightening peaked in October 2008, but the graph shows that over the past year various banks have either left their new, tighter standards in place or continued to tighten their standards further. Across the board, it is harder to get a loan, and it’s staying that way. Lending restrictions reduce the credit supply. This condition is deflationary.

5. Banks Are Cashing Out of the Credit-Card Business

Total Consumer Credit (Annual Rate Change)

Articles have revealed that banks are doing everything they can to get credit-card debtors to pay off their cards. They are raising penalties and rates, lowering ceilings and otherwise bugging their clients to pay up, one way or another: Transfer your debt to another bank’s card; default; pay us off; we don’t care which. And it’s working. Through September, consumers have paid down credit card balances for 12 months in a row. Figure 8 shows the new trend. The credit-card business was another formerly humming engine of credit that is sputtering. You might call the new program “cash from clunkers,” and it is deflationary.

For more information from Robert Prechter, download a FREE 10-page issue of The Elliott Wave Theorist. It challenges current recovery hype with hard facts, independent analysis, and insightful charts. You'll find out why the worst is NOT over and what you can do to safeguard your financial future.

This article was syndicated by Elliott Wave International. EWI is the world's largest market forecasting firm. Its staff of full-time analysts lead by Chartered Market Technician Robert Prechter provides 24-hour-a-day market analysis to institutional and private investors around the world.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in