The European Central Bank or ECB balance sheet is 4.7 trillion Euros or over 40% of Eurozone GDP (July 2019 edition)

Apparently, the European Central Bank (ECB) balance sheet was meant to shrink significantly in 2019. It has shrunk just 0.5% in 2019 until July 5th (as against 5% for the Federal Reserve in the same period).

At 4.67 trillion Euros (or around 41% of Euro area or Eurozone GDP), it doesn’t look like things are going to change quickly.

ECB Balance Sheet until July 2019

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Sweden’s first interest rate hike in seven years would put pressure on the European Central Bank to act

Sweden’s Central Bank, the Riksbank raised interest rates for the first time in seven years on Thursday which might cause further European monetary tightening. Riksbank’s benchmark repo rate was raised 25 bps from -0.5% earlier to -0.25%. It still remains negative though.

Sweden Repo Rate December 2018

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Here’s how the European Central Bank or ECB could unwind or reduce its balance sheet plus what is the new normal for the ECB?

The European Central Bank (ECB) only started its Quantitative Easing (or QE) program in March 2015 in order to fight ultralow inflation in the Eurozone (also called the Euro Area). It somewhat worked by weakening the Euro (€), increasing exports, giving the stock market a boost and drastically lowering financing costs for European governments and corporations. This caused the ECB balance sheet to soar over €4.5 trillion or 45% of Eurozone GDP.

ECB Balance Sheet until November 2018
Data Source: ECB

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Here’s how much the balance sheets of the Bank of Japan, the Swiss National Bank, the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank have grown this century

Central Banks have grown their balance sheets significantly in the past 20 years and almost exponentially since the 2008 financial crisis. Here’s how much the balance sheets of the Bank of Japan, the Swiss National Bank, the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank have grown in the 21st century,

Bank of Japan

Total assets: 540.8036 trillion Yen (JPY) = 4.93 trillion US Dollars (USD)
As of date: May 1, 2018
Asset size as percentage of GDP: 101% of GDP

Interesting information: The Bank of Japan has a target to buy 6 trillion Yen ($54 billion) worth of exchange traded funds a year. It now holds almost 82% of all ETFs in Japan and is indirectly the largest shareholder in many large Japanese companies, almost about half of listed companies in Japan.

Source: Bank of Japan

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This is what is likely to happen when the European Central Bank ends bond buying

The European Central Bank (ECB) announced on Wednesday that it will halve its bond buys to 15 billion Euros (from the current 30 billion Euros) a month from October then shut the programme at the end of the year.

Source: European Central Bank

ECB’s balance sheet has increased by 2 trillion Euros since 2015 when it announced its bond buying programme. 2-year yields for most of the Eurozone countries are currently negative and 10-year yields in most cases are lower than that of the United States. The European Central Bank (ECB) is by far the biggest holder of European bonds and the biggest (almost 90%) buyer of the weaker Eurozone (Italy, Spain, Portugal and Greece) countries debt since 2015. The ECB balance sheet is now over 4.5 trillion Euros, some 45% of Eurozone GDP.

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Here is how much total assets or balance sheets of Central Banks have grown in the 21st century

Central Banks have grown their balance sheet in the past 20 years and almost exponentially since the 2008 financial crisis

Bank of Japan

Total assets: 540.8036 trillion Yen (JPY) = 4.93 trillion US Dollars (USD)
As of date: May 1, 2018
Asset size as percentage of GDP: 101% of GDP

Source: Bank of Japan

Continue reading “Here is how much total assets or balance sheets of Central Banks have grown in the 21st century”

Weekly Overview: Q1 2018 GDP numbers; ECB on QE; US bond yields soar; Other things

Q1 2018 GDP

The US, the UK, France and Spain all reported GDP numbers over the last week.

US real GDP increased at an annual rate of 2.3% in the first quarter of 2018 as per an advance estimate released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Read more about it here.

Personal consumption collapsed, with vehicle sale falling significantly. Business inventories were up significantly too. Total employee compensation (which includes wages and benefits) rose 2.7% over past 12 months, up from 2.4% a year ago and the highest since Q3 2008, while the household savings rate fell to a multi-year low of 3.1%.

Continue reading “Weekly Overview: Q1 2018 GDP numbers; ECB on QE; US bond yields soar; Other things”

Europe’s lost economic decade in charts

  • Parts of the European Union have seen GDP per capita shrink between 2007 and 2017 and the overall compounded annual growth rate for the European Union was just 1.2%
  • GDP growth for the European Union between 2007 and 2017 adjusted for inflation was negative
  • Banks in Greece, Cyprus, Portugal and Italy have a non-performing loan ratio of over 10% a decade on from the financial crisis and have only provisioned around 50% of the losses
  • The European Central Bank (ECB) is by far the biggest holder of European bonds and has a balance sheet of €4.5 trillion or some 45% of the GDP of the Eurozone
  • 18 of the 28 countries that are part of the European Union have seen house prices fall between 2008 and 2017
  • Greece has been the worst affected country, with its stock market down 85% since 2007, GDP per capita down 22% since 2007, house prices down 43% since 2008 and banks in Greece currently have a non-performing loan ratio of 42%
  • Eurozone Debt as % of GDP is gradually falling but is still historically high
  • Since the financial crisis of 2008, economic uncertainty has seen falling fertility rates for the European Union with population now set to fall over the coming decades

Continue reading “Europe’s lost economic decade in charts”

Weekly Overview: ECB sells yet another corporate bond after spotting an error; US Banks report Q1 results; Facebook moves user data from Ireland to the US

ECB sells yet another bond after spotting an error

The European Central Bank (ECB) via Bundesbank has sold yet another bond issued by Telefonica Deutschland a year after it bought it. The bond which was due to mature in 2021 breached an ECB rule that they should not hold bonds that pay a step-up coupon (one that could go up in value if certain conditions are met – in this case if the company was acquired).

This was the fourth time they found an error in 2018 and sold a corporate bond. When this happened a couple of weeks ago, we reported it here and asked how many more errors will the ECB find? Well, it would appear traders have taken notice. The ECB sold this bond just after a sharp fall in the price of the bond, implying traders know what all bonds the ECB has bought in error and is likely to sell. Continue reading “Weekly Overview: ECB sells yet another corporate bond after spotting an error; US Banks report Q1 results; Facebook moves user data from Ireland to the US”

Spotify’s direct listing (and comparison to Netflix); ECB sells bond after spotting an error after 2 years; Nomura to hire fewest graduates in five years as it spends more on robots

Spotify’s direct listing

As reported earlier, Spotify listed directly on the NYSE today at an opening price of $165.90, the stock ended the first day of trading in New York at $149.01, up from the reference price of $132 set yesterday by the NYSE.

Spotify has offered a streaming service since 2008 and has 159 million monthly active users including 71 million paid subscribers globally. It generated €4 billion (about $5billion) in revenues last year, up over 40% from 2016, and a €1.2 billion ($1.5 billion) net loss compared with about €542 million ($664 million) in 2016. The company’s average revenue per user has declined from €6.84 in 2015 to €5.32 in 2017 as it promotes its “Family Plan” which allows several users to share one account. Analyst reckon that Apple Music will overtake Spotify in terms of paid subscribers in under 2 years, yet the company is now valued at $28 billion (5.6 times revenues). Continue reading “Spotify’s direct listing (and comparison to Netflix); ECB sells bond after spotting an error after 2 years; Nomura to hire fewest graduates in five years as it spends more on robots”