Interest Rates Part 2 - A Closer Look at Debt

Previously I've discussed the unprecedented situation of across the board low interest rates and high valuations across a variety of financial markets. While equity positions were discussed previously, below I'll look at the interest rates across different types of debt markets.

Treasuries - Rates on US Treasuries have fallen significantly. Current yields stretch between zero (short-term) and <3% (for the 30 year). These are the lowest rates across all maturities in recent history. Acting as the gold standard of collateral, demand for US Treasuries has never been higher.




Retail banking rates - Accurate data on many retail banking rates across the market are surprisingly difficult, but certificate of deposit (CD) rates have fallen to near zero, checking account rates have fallen to zero, and savings account rates are averaging around 0.10%. Commercial banks are simply not vying to expand their deposit base. Even with near zero rates, once costs to attend the customer are taken into account the costs to borrow from many day-to-day customers is too high compared to other options.


 Credit card rates - There's been a general fall in rates but those who actually carry a balance have seen a slight increase in rates lately. This is an interesting pheneomenon. One potential explanation is an improvement in customer segmentation within credit card companies. Other explanations include increasing credit card limits in a play to potentially increase profits and increased demand for credit for consumers with lower ratings. Unfortunately, publicly available data is thin and there are not many recent publications to tease out which factors are having the biggest pull.



 Corporate high quality bonds - This category has been reduced to ultra thin margins. Expected real returns on two year high quality has flipped negative, and a five year bond has to be locked in before placing the investment outside of expected inflation scenarios.

 

High yield corporate debt (aka junk bonds) - High yield debt has been bid down and has tightly followed the performance of the general market. You might also notice that the earnings to price percentages and high yield returns have mirrored each other quite well in the last few years. The junk market has behaved essentially like the stock market under a different name.




Auto loans - Standard FRED auto loan data has shown consistently falling rates for auto loans that hovered between 4-5%. Take out defaults and operating costs, and the return falls to 2-4%. The subprime segment holds a similar story. Some have pointed out that the potential for a subprime autoloan bubble is overblown because of the percentages of loans to subprime is not quite as high as the '06-'07 peak, among other reasons. However, when I talk to those who operate within this industry they point to the non-public data sets showing subprime rates that have essentially never been lower and the volume is similar to the '05-'07 peak. Also, they point to the publicly available data showing an 18% increase in household autoloan debt since the previous peak in '07. Accordingly, when there is a sort of crash investors will be hit far harder, as the cushion is extremely slim. Furthermore, as subprime autoloan financial products have become more standardized and accessible to the general market, similar to mortgage backed securities but on a smaller scale, there is more likely to be more leverage behind the positions held by finance companies.

 

Grey and black market rates - These rates by nature are very difficult to measure. However, what is interesting is that there are some indicators that these rates have NOT fallen in line with the rest of the market. Complex information asymmetry along with barriers to entry (e.g., risks of gaming of regulations, moral reprobation, risks of breaking laws, etc.) set this market apart. Although, again, it is an area that is difficult to measure. I plan on writing more on what we do and don't know on this in the future.

Rates are down across the board. However, thinking of "the interest rate" as a single rate is an oversimplification. The concept of general market access and investment barriers will be expanded on further.

Tablets - The Device of Yesterday's Future

I remember the release of the iPad quite vividly. I was in business school at the time, and the one question that I kept coming back to was, "What does it do?" With the data unfolding that tablet sales have stagnated, this is a worthy question to revisit.

What makes a tablet different from similar devices?
- Loads up faster than a computer
- Data input and data interaction is slower than a PC (typing wpm, transfer of files, raw processing power), but faster than a smartphone
- Bigger than a smartphone, so it's easier for those lacking coordination, older, and farsighted, but not quite so large as to lug around a laptop. However, it's still inconvenient to carry out and about, at least for those who do not carry a decent sized purse.
- Easy finger and camera interaction, slightly superior to the PC and smartphone alternatives
- Much more expensive than a smart phone, but generally slightly cheaper than a PC

Given this, what is the competitive advantage of a tablet?
- As an e-reader for email, newspapers, books, magazines, and web surfing
- As a gaming device
- As a device for those that cannot easily use a smart phone or PC

In effect, a personal tablet is a consumption device, and not a creation device. A smart phone is portable and easier to integrate into people's lives. A PC has both a mouse and a keyboard, which are both "ancient" technologies, but they have withstood the test of time as highly efficient data input devices. A tablet falls in this reverse "baby bear" space where it is okay but not great at data input and processing, but also not as convenient or cost-efficient as a smart phone. However, touch screen technology is spreading quickly across developed and developing markets as a part of the customer experience, including airlines, medicine, grocers, restaurants, and museums.

So, in which direction are tablet sales heading? If tablet sales include the varying forms of touch screen technology, then tablets are being incorporated as part of the customer experience across nearly every industry. Tablets will become ever more omnipresent and adopted by corporations. However, if a tablet is considered the traditional Apple/Samsung full functioning product, we may have just reached market maturity with more stable growth rates.

Savings Premium, Piketty, and Inequality

This is a follow up on the previous post. To recap, we are in an unprecedented economic situation. The "premium" on savings has flipped negative in most of the developed world. P/E ratios have skyrocketed. Chasing the little yield there is has opened up economies to systemic financial risks. Pensions are chasing yield on underfunded liabilities. Governments are more leveraged compared to historical averages and are dependent on low rates to remain sustainable. 

In the middle of these nebulous conditions an economics bestseller hits the world declaring that capital returns are greater than economic growth and the capital is sucking up wealth and exacerbating inequality. Thomas Piketty's book Capital in the 21st Century dissects data across countries extending back as far as the data can go, and he sees the existing wealth dominating the world economy because of "r>g."

Are these theories applicable today? Perhaps this is a bit like "always fighting the last war." Before declaring that this is one of the most important books of the century (assuming everything he said is 100% right and we ignore other viewpoints), we should first look at whether the findings are applicable to today and in the near future. First, the savings premium is gone. Second, the new age of billionaires is emerging and they could hardly be called trust fund babies. The information age has empowered the smart and the lucky to capture huge amounts of value.

Of course, the data gathering and insights are a few more bricks added to the home of economic knowledge. However, perhaps 20 years from now we will look back on Picketty's conclusions as a more sophisticated version of Dow 40,000 and other "if we extrapolate this trend out" type of book.

(Disclaimer: I haven't read Capital in the 21st Century, but then again, the vast majority of people that buy the book don't either. However, I've listened to a few hours of interviews with Thomas Piketty over the last year or so. This is my way of saying yes, I am ignorant, but not completely ignorant.)

Atop the Mountain of Global Stock Indices

Trillions and trillions of dollars worth of debt around the world has flipped to negative real rates. Across Europe, Asia, and North America one can expect to buy bonds with negative real returns. Japan's entire yield curve has flipped negative in real terms. The concern is no longer return on capital; it's return of capital, and that's assuming receiving the promised return (no default risk).

Example of Japanese bond yields, from Bloomberg:

Take this into account when thinking through the basic finance model of capital asset pricing model (CAPM). At the most basic level, the investment in the least risky investment portfolio yields a certain "risk-free rate of return." As the right kind of risk is added to the portfolio, expected returns increase. For example (from Wikipedia):


However, at this point (April 2015) the risk-free rate of return is negative. The premium for consuming later versus consuming now is negative. One must assume a risky investment portfolio just in order to not lose principal! In simple language, if you want a very low-risk investment that does not lose money, a year's supply of toilet paper should be an asset to include in your optimized portfolio.

I once read a book by Ken Fisher in which he pointed out that when looking at indices in a stable economic environment, the Earnings-to-Price percentage is more useful conceptually than the Price-to-Earning ratio. Take the P/E ratio today, and flip it into a percentage. Conceptually we can then put stock P/E ratios or forward P/E ratios (forecasted earnings based on today's prices) right into the CAPM model. Take today's 20.87 P/E, and it becomes 4.8% earnings to price.



Today we are looking at risk-free real returns of 0% or lower. When we evaluate the earnings-to-price percentage in the S&P 500, we see a return of 4.8%. As the risk-free rate fell to zero (and QE was added on top of it) around the world, stock market indices skyrocketed. However, arriving at the destination (e.g., S&P's 4.8%), where is there to go? Some will argue that P/E omits the amazing future growth. However, YOY earnings look and are forecasted to continue negative, and that's in an environment where debt cannot be any cheaper. Low bond yields decrease borrowing costs and boost earnings. Lower bond yields also drive stock prices up as the earnings-to-price percentages fall in line to the new returns for risk. From my perspective, we have reached the top of the mountain with no place left to go.

I am not forecasting armageddon or an immediate 30% global correction, but it is difficult to create a scenario in which earnings will increase at the pace needed or see further decreases in the "earnings-to-price" percentage metric. However, if bond yields were to increase, the cascading effects through the CAPM curve would necessitate a fall in prices unless it was accompanied with increased prospects for earnings growth.

Brazil's Growth Prospects and Barriers II

As promised, below are some highlights and caveats to the MGI report on Brazil's growth prospects and potential that I did not specifically address in my previous post.

First, a few highlights in the report before the caveats.
- The report is actually a follow up on a 2006 MGI paper. Unfortunately, not much has changed. If the paper seems a little recycled/updated it's because most of the underlying improvements necessary for stronger growth still need to happen.
- The Executive Summary is quite long, but it contains all of the essential elements. It seems that the Executive Summary was created by taking the report and cutting out non-essential phrases, data, and the weaker examples. There is not much additional value from reading the report in its entirety unless you are analyzing the supporting data.
- Few of those studying Brazil point out or benchmark the tax revenue compared to other developing countries. Brazil is at the top of the list, showing that there isn't much more room to grow from the government's end to resolve these problems. Furthermore, this tax level should be kept in mind with the fact that deadweight social losses are exponential. For example, an increase in a tax from $1 to $2 on a certain good does more than twice the damage to the economy than the initial $1 tax.
- Brazil's demographics is another point that few tie to economic performance. However, as I've stated in a previous post, even fewer notice how quickly and drastic the Brazilian birth rate fell and the potential for a demographic "hard landing."
- Tax revenue from the commodity boom was essentially all spent on income redistribution instead of investment, which could have further increased productivity. This is a delicate point to bring up, and the authors do so superbly in a fashion that is both accurate and diplomatic. One potential comparison on this subject would be to Venezuela and oil rig maintenance. Venezuela expanded social benefits instead of keeping its oil rigs well maintained and in order. Because of this policy, oil output unnecessarily fell, which hurt productivity and social benefits in the future. While Brazil's case is far more complex than this, the same lesson could potentially be applied.
- Brazil has many significant and counterproductive protectionist policies. Reducing protectionist policies anywhere is extremely difficult. There is a painful transition period, a lot of money is at stake, and those with money at stake are few and have eloquent lobbyists. The report does not touch on this area, which is understandable considering the size of the issue and the report's focus on high-level items.
- Due to demographics and "generosity," Brazil's pension system is going to spiral out of control far worse than many developed nations if reforms are not made. This is not a near-term critical issue, but MGI does a favor by pointing it out at this juncture and highlighting the impact.
- This anecdote from the introduction is one of the most concise and illuminating points of data to address Brazil's underlying productivity and potential GDP growth in the report. "Mexican auto plants churn out twice as many vehicles per worker as  Brazilian plants, even though a much higher share of their output consists of mid-size and large vehicles, while Brazil's plants typically produce 85 percent of small cars."
- Other illustrative anecdotes were used very effectively, such as the length of rail laid in Brazil amounts to about 10% of that in the United States, even though the two countries are similarly sized.
- There are fewer economic policies as painfully obviously bad as preventing (tariffs+quotas) the importation of food and then creating a commission to limit the planting and harvest of said food. It's a policy that definitely is not unique to Brazil, but the scale was quite large. The report brings up briefly, but in an appropriate fashion, the economic advancements that have arisen from removing some of the worst policies that caused "own goals" on the economy.

Next, my caveats in recommending the report:
- Even though it's been just over a year, the points related to "strong currency" are out of date. The Brazilian real has depreciated 30-40% over this time period.
- The authors use the fact that Brazil has the seventh largest FDI in the world as an indicator of openness in the financial sector. Brazil has the fifth largest population in the world, an extraordinarily low savings rate, high real interest rates, and a history of underinvestment. FDI, in theory, should be much higher. In a world of negative real interest rates, Brazil is offering 8% real returns. Why aren't foreign investors piling in? The answer is that the barriers for foreigners to invest are significant, especially for certain industries and financial structures. Financial openness to enable the limited purchase of some publicly traded shares and bonds is not the same as opening the economy to the capital infusions that innovate and improve the underpinnings of economic performance.
- There are a lot of suggestions, but there is very little sense of priority and impact. As I pointed out in the previous post, the problems are interrelated. However, many of the recommendation are either too vague or they would do little to resolve the big ticket items that need to happen to achieve 4% GDP real growth. For example, improving public sector efficiency could help, but many countries have succeeded well despite public sector inefficiency. Also, in a country where the government controls so much, exactly what falls under the umbrella of public sector efficiency? The report isn't clear. Public sector efficiency could refer to schools, medicine, zoning, permits, customs, police, safety, unions, etc.
- Improving tourism could help a little, but the highest impact / lowest hanging fruit wasn't mentioned in the report. Half of the world's high-spending international tourists are essentially blocked out of the market for a visa. Compare the maps showing the countries that need tourist visas to visit Peru and Brazil. Travelers from Japan, the USA, Australia, and Canada have to go through the bureaucratic visa process to visit Brazil, but not Peru, Argentina, Chile, or a host of other countries in the region. This obstacle alone is usually sufficient to exclude Brazil as a potential tourist destination. If Brazil wants to maintain a sense of reciprocity for moral reasons or leverage, the Brazilian government can emulate the Argentinian reciprocity fee by charging a fee to those from the United States and other countries.
- Embraer is not a great case study. Embraer was a success, but the Brazilian aerospace firm was a result of many contributing factors, favorable timing, and a bit of luck. While lessons such as "remove tariffs so the industry can become an integral part of a supply chain" are more universally applicable, many aspects of the case study seem to encourage industrial policy that picks winners and losers and sound like more of the same government micromanaging that has yielded few benefits. In some parts of the report this seems to be encouraged, while in others this seems to be discouraged, such as the example of the negative impacts of the BNDES development bank. The problem is not a lack of trying to create another Embraer. The problem is that these attempts are performed with favoritism instead of reform and liberalism.
- There are other cases where a large number of words are used to recommend micromanaging marginally effective incentive programs. Brazil is far enough back on the curve that political capital should be focused on the steps that are politically feasible and can move the needle.
- The report's commentary on getting stricter on regulatory compliance to reduce the informal sector is misplaced. Complexity already  makes regulatory compliance nearly impossible, putting businesses—especially small and medium sized enterprises—at the mercy and fairness of the regulator. The marginal cost of adding a regulator in the current environment is likely negative. The improvements first must come in regulatory structure and reform. Once that is in effect, the budget and activities of regulators could be tweaked.

Overall, the report is a great snapshot and it is my go-to resource when those in my network reach out to better understand Brazil's medium-term prospects.

Brazil's Growth Prospects and Barriers I

A friend of mine reached out to me regarding Brazil's prospects and potential growth going forward. Instead of the usual, "I just want a few interesting and relevant pieces of information," he was actually looking for a deeper dive on structural problems and opportunities. My eventual suggestion to him was to refer to the MGI's "Brazil's Path to Inclusive Growth" report, albeit with caveats.

In this post I will restructure the key points in a framework that I believe is more straightforward. In the follow-up post I'll list out more explicitly the caveats to my "very highly recommended" for my friend.

Brazil needs a dramatic increase productivity in order to increase the growth rate. The report classifies the three principal problem areas to improve productivity in order to achieve consistent 4% GDP growth as "Inadequate infrastructure, a heavy tax and regulatory burden, and a shortage of workforce skills." I have altered it slightly to trade barriers, human capital, and access to capital. While I believe the tax and regulatory burden are a significant drag, eliminating just the trade barrier portion would be sufficient to allow the economy to jump forward, despite the taxes and regulatory burden in other areas. Also, access to capital is addressed in the report, but I believe the overall impact to productivity should be emphasized further.

Three principal areas to change for productivity improvements necessary to drive economic growth:

- Trade barriers: The MGI nails this point. Every year Brazil's economic isolation hampers growth. The sooner interconnectivity increases, the sooner the productivity will increase and 4% real GDP growth target can be consistently achieved. An appropriate understanding of the full level of trade barriers should be approached from a process perspective. The proper question is "What is the full throughput, time, and cost to push goods through the road, rail, and port system?" (I've touched on Brazil's infrastructure, especially maximum throughput, previously in this post with some English source data points.)
The speed, maximum throughput, and cost of Brazilian port and rail have remained far behind in the world of high-speed just-in-time global standards. Take the example of a firm that receives resources from another country, improves them, then sends the more advanced or finished product to a different country. First, the boat must arrive at port. Depending on the volume and the day, the queue into port could take a week. Second, the boat docks and the goods are unloaded. Because customs and inspection do not work 24 hours a day, this can take another week. Third, the import duties must be paid. Because these taxes are not always transparent and the process is complicated, a third party might be necessary to sort out the paperwork. Fourth, the limited dock space slows this process somewhat compared to best-in-class ports in other countries. Fifth, the rail cars travel slowly, spending an extra day before reaching the stop nearest to the factory. Sixth, because the rail network is limited the nearest rail point is over 200 km away from your ideal point of operations. Seventh, poor road conditions delay and add costs to the transportation. After improving the product at your factory, inverse the order of steps above. For these reasons, it is extremely rare for an intermediate production goods to be made in Brazil. Other significant advantages would need to exist in order to make up for these weaknesses. However, we will see below that these advantages have not yet materialized.

- Human capital - Human capital optimizes the use of physical capital and labor. To understand Brazil's limitation of human capital, it is important to focus on three key areas--education, foreign language skills, and presence of foreign workers.
First, on education and skills, I have written a post previously based on an OECD report of Brazil's educational achievements. In summary, top-notch education within Brazil is both expensive and scarce. Quantity and quality of graduates is below that of developing market peers. One interesting piece to note on in education is IT skill development. Due to trade barriers and tariffs, electronics have been very expensive and outside the reach of the vast majority of the population until just recently. Because of this, one notices the lack of intuitive IT skills from Brazilian employees. Brazilians did not grow up exploring and fiddling with these devices, and it shows everywhere from typing skills to understanding system capabilities and limitations. 
Second, few people outside of Brazil speak Portuguese. Language is extremely important in determining trade partners.* English is the standard for international commerce. However, as noted in the MGI report and elsewhere, Brazil lags in language proficiency, especially English. Although English is technically a part of the public school curriculum, the rigor of the public school courses must increase in order for students to at least reach a basic level of reading and writing. 
Third, foreign-born individuals make up less than 1% of the workforce. Immigration from a variety of countries can improve economic performance and diversity. However, Brazil's level of immigration is both very low and skews toward countries with lower socioeconomic conditions than Brazil, such as Bolivia and Haiti. Many of the skills lacking in Brazil's workforce could be developed through cross training by greatly simplifying, streamlining, and liberating immigration when there is an employer sponsor. Currently, if a company would like to improve the quality of the workforce by bringing in a specialist from another country for more than three months, the company must justify that a Brazilian with equivalent skills could not be found, all of the bureaucratic process of employee rights and work papers must be developed, and the employee cannot be paid more than a Brazilian counterpart in a similar position. Furthermore, this process is not merely a formality, and requests are rejected for reasons such as, "not enough relevant experience," as if the company does not know what they are doing when it plans to spend large sums of money in order for this cross-training to occur.
 

- Access to capital - Brazil lacks access to the full benefits of the modern financial sector. Savings rates are low, and government policies further discourage saving. Real interest rates are high and burdensome, especially for capital intensive and small businesses. Many small- and medium-sized enterprises are denied capital altogether, as the limited capital available is sucked up by larger, more established firms. Foreign direct investment (FDI) is regulated and limited, especially in the areas where it is most needed. Simply put, until either regulations and costs on FDI are loosened or savings rates rise, capital available for investment will be limited, and a portion of the increasing compounding economic growth will be left on the table.

As the fifth most populous country in the world and the fifth largest country in the world, Brazil has a great deal of potential. However, productivity determines economic growth, and Brazil has some deep issues regarding productivity growth. Fortunately, other countries in similar situations have overcome similar challenges, and the level of optimism in and about Brazil will change as these structural improvements occur.

* See Language Barrier Index and similar subjects on macroeconomic trade. I am now on the more limited side of the economic journal paywall, but this is a fairly well established subject.