ECB warns of financial turmoil.

A toxic mix of recession, soaring inflation, rising funding costs and lower liquidity threatens to trigger financial market turmoil in the eurozone, the European Central Bank has warned. Luis de Guindos, the vice-president, urged banks to take more provisions for bad loans, global regulators to make investment funds hold more liquid assets, and the ECB to be prudent in starting to shrink its €5tn bond stockpile next year. The ECB’s twice-yearly financial stability review said high inflation, a growing likelihood of a recession and rising financing costs «pose increasing challenges» for indebted households, businesses and governments and could produce more bankruptcies and financial market volatility. However, this should be done «with a lot of prudence», de Guindos said.

The ECB said that this year’s turmoil in UK gilt markets and an earlier cash crunch that hit European energy traders had underlined how the region’s financial system was increasingly vulnerable to sharp moves in market prices. It called on global regulators, coordinated by the Financial Stability Board, to accelerate work to address the non-bank financial sector’s vulnerability to liquidity squeezes, similar to one that hit money market funds after the pandemic struck in March 2020. De Guindos said the priority was for investment funds exposed to the risk of rapid and large-scale withdrawals in times of stress to be forced to hold a certain proportion of liquid assets. «The risk remains high that investment funds could, in an adverse scenario, amplify a market correction via procyclical selling behaviour».

«It cannot be the same ‘whatever it takes fiscal policy approach that we have seen during the pandemic,» de Guindos added.

www.sba.tax

Comments

Cloud Bookkeeping

US FED rate rise.

The US Federal Reserve officials have indicated that they plan to resume increasing interest rates to control inflation in the world's biggest economy. During the June meeting, the Federal Open Market Committee reached a consensus to keep interest rates stable for the time being to evaluate whether further tightening of policy would be necessary. However, the majority of the committee anticipates that additional rate increases will be required in the future. The minutes of the meeting have recently been made public. According to the minutes, most participants believed maintaining the federal funds rate at 5 to 5.25 per cent was appropriate or acceptable, despite some individuals wanting to raise the acceleration due to slow progress in cooling inflation. Although Fed forecasts predicted a mild recession starting later in the year, policymakers faced challenges in interpreting data that showed a tight job market and only slight improvements in inflation. Additionally, officials gr...

EU business slide.

S&P Global’s flash eurozone composite purchasing managers’ index, a key gauge of business conditions for the manufacturing and services sector, fell 1 point to 47.1, figures showed yesterday. That is its lowest level since November 2020 and the fourth consecutive month below the crucial 50 mark separating growth from contraction. One of the few bright spots in the survey was that companies in all sectors reported a slight easing of cost pressures, price growth and supply chain constraints. However, prices charged for goods and services still rose at the sixth fastest rate since such data started in 2002. Jobs growth increased marginally from October but remained low compared with the past 18 months. Following a few months of falling price pressure in manufacturing and services, the October print shows an overall stabilisation said Jens Eisenschmidt, chief European economist at Morgan Stanley. However, German businesses, at the hub of Europe’s energy crisis, reported that manu...

Tariffs on UK electric cars.

The European Commission has confirmed that it will continue with its plan to impose tariffs on electric cars exported between the UK and EU starting next year. This is due to the "rules of origin" requirement that mandates EVs traded across the English Channel to have 60% of their battery and 45% of their parts sourced from the EU or UK or face a 10% tariff. A senior Commission official, Richard Szostak, recently informed parliamentarians from the UK and EU that the bloc's battery investment has significantly declined, making the tariffs necessary to encourage domestic production. In 2022, the EU's share of global investment in battery production shrank from 41% to only 2% after the US offered substantial subsidies through its Inflation Reduction Act. Starting in 2024, car manufacturers in the UK will need to have 22% of their sales come from zero-emission vehicles, which means they may need to import EVs from the continent to meet this requirement. If EU carmakers ...

Search This Blog