Key Takeaways

*  There was little movement again this week in several key indicators. Euribor-OIS continued to trend downwards, falling 4 bps over last week. Over the same period, the TED spread remained flat. Both of these series have largely renormalized. 

* European and American Bank CDS tightened week over week.

* European sovereign swaps mostly tightened week over week with only Portugal and Ireland widening.

* The MCDX measure of municipal default risk fell 10.6% last week.  

* The 2-10 spread widened significantly week over week, ending 29 basis points higher. A sustained period of widening would be positive for bank margins. 

Financial Risk Monitor Summary

 • Short-term(WoW): Positive / 6 of 12 improved / 0 out of 12 worsened / 6 of 12 unchanged

 • Intermediate-term(WoW): Positive / 7 of 12 improved / 1 out of 12 worsened / 4 of 12 unchanged

 • Long-term(WoW): Negative / 1 of 12 improved / 5 out of 12 worsened / 6 of 12 unchanged

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: WAIT AND WATCH - Summary

1. US Financials CDS Monitor – Swaps tightened for 20 of 27 major domestic financial company reference entities last week.   

Tightened the most WoW: BAC, GS, C

Widened the most WoW: MBI, MMC, CB

Tightened the most MoM: AIG, BAC, PRU

Widened the most/ tightened the least MoM: MBI, AON, MMC

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: WAIT AND WATCH - CDS  US

2. European Financials CDS Monitor – Bank swaps were tighter in Europe last week for 36 of the 40 reference entities. The average tightening was 3.9% and the median tightening was 5.9%.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: WAIT AND WATCH - CDS  EURO

3. European Sovereign CDS – European Sovereign Swaps mostly tightened over last week. German sovereign swaps tightened by 10.5% (-8 bps to 69 ) and Portuguese sovereign swaps widened by 3.9% (49 bps to 1283).

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: WAIT AND WATCH - Sovereign CDS

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: WAIT AND WATCH - Sovereign CDS 2

4. High Yield (YTM) Monitor – High Yield rates were flat last week, ending at 7.01.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: WAIT AND WATCH - High Yield

5. Leveraged Loan Index Monitor – The Leveraged Loan Index rose 3.6 points last week, ending at 1646.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: WAIT AND WATCH - LLI

6. TED Spread Monitor – The TED spread was flat last week, ending the week at 39.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: WAIT AND WATCH - TED

7. Journal of Commerce Commodity Price Index – The JOC index rose 0.5 points, ending the week at -7.65 versus -8.1 the prior week.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: WAIT AND WATCH - JOC

8. Euribor-OIS spread – The Euribor-OIS spread (the difference between the euro interbank lending rate and overnight indexed swaps) measures bank counterparty risk in the Eurozone. The OIS is analogous to the effective Fed Funds rate in the United States.  Banks lending at the OIS do not swap principal, so counterparty risk in the OIS is minimal.  By contrast, the Euribor rate is the rate offered for unsecured interbank lending.  Thus, the spread between the two isolates counterparty risk. The Euribor-OIS spread tightened by 4 bps to 49 bps.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: WAIT AND WATCH - Euribor OIS

9. ECB Liquidity Recourse to the Deposit Facility – The ECB Liquidity Recourse to the Deposit Facility measures banks’ overnight deposits with the ECB.  Taken in conjunction with excess reserves, the ECB deposit facility measures excess liquidity in the Euro banking system.  An increase in this metric shows that banks are borrowing from the ECB.  In other words, the deposit facility measures one element of the ECB response to the crisis.  

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: WAIT AND WATCH - ECB

10. Markit MCDX Index Monitor – The Markit MCDX is a measure of municipal credit default swaps. We believe this index is a useful indicator of pressure in state and local governments. Markit publishes index values daily on six 5-year tenor baskets including 50 reference entities each. Each basket includes a diversified pool of revenue and GO bonds from a broad array of states. We track the 14-V1. Last week spreads tightened, ending the week at 115 bps versus 129 bps the prior week.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: WAIT AND WATCH - MCDX

11. Baltic Dry Index – The Baltic Dry Index measures international shipping rates of dry bulk cargo, mostly commodities used for industrial production. Higher demand for such goods, as manifested in higher shipping rates, indicates economic expansion. Last week the index rose 50 points, ending the week at 874 versus 824 the prior week.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: WAIT AND WATCH - Baltic

12. 2-10 Spread – We track the 2-10 spread as an indicator of bank margin pressure.  Last week the 2-10 spread widened to 193 bps, 23 bps wider than a week ago.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: WAIT AND WATCH - 2 10

Margin Debt - January

We publish NYSE Margin Debt every month when it’s released. NYSE Margin debt hit its post-2007 peak in April of 2011 at $320.7 billion. The chart below shows the S&P 500 overlaid against NYSE margin debt going back to 1997. In this chart both the S&P 500 and margin debt have been inflation adjusted (back to 1990 dollar levels), and we’re showing margin debt levels in standard deviations relative to the mean covering the period 1. While this may sound complicated, the message is really quite simple. First, when margin debt gets to 1.5 standard deviations or greater, as it did last April, that has historically been a signal of extreme risk in the equity market - the last two times it did this the equity market lost half its value in the ensuing period. We flagged this for the first time back in May 2011. The second point is that margin debt trends tend to exhibit high degrees of autocorrelation. In other words, the last few months’ change in margin debt is the best predictor of the change we’ll see in the next few months. This is important because it means that margin debt, which retraced back to +0.55 standard deviations in November, still has a long way to go. We would need to see it approach -0.5 to -1.0 standard deviations before the trend runs its course. There’s plenty of room for short/intermediate term reversals within this broader secular move, as we saw in December and January's print of +0.53 and +0.70 standard deviations.  Overall, however, this setup represents a long-term headwind for the market. One limitation of this series is that it is reported on a lag.  The chart shows data through January.

MONDAY MORNING RISK MONITOR: WAIT AND WATCH - Margin Debt

Joshua Steiner, CFA

Allison Kaptur

Robert Belsky

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