Repo Mkts and TAF

(an interoffice email)

On 12/21/07, Pat Doyle
wrote:
>
>
>
> It is becoming apparent that the funding pressures for year end are ebbing.
> The ease in pressure has a lot to do with the TAF and coordinated CBK
> interventions. The Fed is getting the cash to the people who need it.
> Discount window borrowings have been slowly climbing as well approx 4.6bb
> now. The Fed statement that they will provide this TAF facility for as long
> as needed is easing concerns amongst banks and providing a reliable source
> of funding for “hard to fund” assets.

Should have done this in August!
>
>
> There is and has been a lot of cash in the markets still looking for a home.
> Balance sheets are slowly cleaning up but balance sheet premiums (repo) will
> remain stubbornly high as long as the level 3 type assets remain on
> dealer/bank balance sheets.
>
>
>
> The current spread between the 1×4 FRA vs. 1×4 OIS is 57bps..

This looks like a good play – seems unlikely LIBOR will be at a wider spread than the discount rate. Load up the truck?

1×2 FRA vs.
> 1×2 OIS is 40bps. Spot 1mos LIBOR VS 1MOS FFs is 4.86 vs. 4.25 or 61bps.
> These spreads still represent continued unwillingness to lend in the
> interbank market and also illustrate a steeper credit curve.
>
>
>
> Turn funding has not changed substantially. While funding appears to be
> stabilizing, balance sheets are still bloated and capital ratios are still
> under pressure therefore balance sheets will remain expensive in repo land.
>
>
>
> From another bank;
>
> Mortgages over the year-end turn traded at 5.25 today, which we still feel
>
> is a good buy here considering the amount of liquidity the fed has been
> dumping
>
> into the system as of late (via the TAF and standard RP operations) and the
>
> expectation that they will continue to do so on Dec 31. Treasuries also
> traded
>
> over the turn traded today at 2.50, the first treasury turn trade we’ve seen
> in
>
> quite some time.
>
>
>
>
>
> Yesterday Tsy GC O/N’s backed up from the low 3s to 3.70. The FED has been
> actively trying to increase the supply of treasuries in the repo markets.
>
>
>
> AGENCY MBS repo has been steadily improving. 1mos OIS vs 1mos AGCY MBS has
> gone from a spreads of 63bps last week to 15bps last night. And spreads to
> 1month LIBOR have widened by 33bps AGCY MBS from L-23 12/13 to L-56 12/20.
> Again LIBOR still showing the unwillingness of banks to lend to each other.
>
>
> -Pat
>
>
>
>
> Patrick D. Doyle Jr.
>
> AVM, L.P. / III Associates
>
> 777 Yamato Road
>
> Suite 300
>
> Boca Raton, Fl. 33431
>
> 561-544-4575
>
>


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Fed finally gets it?

The Fed was finally successful in cutting the fed funds/libor spread with a glorified 28 day repo, after failing to narrow the spread with 100 bp of rate cuts.

Narrowing the ff/libor spread ‘automatically’ lowers various libor based funding rates, probably including jumbo mtg rates, which have been a concern of the Fed as well.

Makes me wonder if they would have cut the ff rate if they had used this ‘facility’ and narrowed the ff/libor spread right away back in August?


Libor rates & spreads: down in GBP & EUR, stable in US

Thanks, Dave, my thought are the Fed will also ‘do what it takes’ which means setting price and letting quantity for term funding float.

The ECB doing 500 billion without ‘monetary consequences’ beyond lowering the term rates should have been no surprise to anyone who understands monetary ops, and confirmation of same for those central bankers who may have needed it demonstrated.


Libor rates; no surprises, most of them are down, especially in longer expiries (3mth+) -see table below-. GBP3m -18bp helped by yesterday’s auction. EUR 3m -4.75bp and probably more tomorrow.

Libor spreads.- In 3mth -spot- rates, sharp declines in EUR (-6bp to 78bp) and GBP (-14bp to 76bp) while the US spread remains fairly stable at 80.3bp (-1bp).

It seems the BoE and ECB have taken bolder actions to provide liquidity (see this morning’s message on the ECB LTRO). Let’s see the results of the 1st $20bn TAF later today.

19-Dec
Libor Rate
18-Dec
Libor Rate
Change in
% Points
18-Dec
Libor
17-Dec
Libor
Change in
% Points
USD Overnight 4.34500% 4.40000% -0.05500% 4.40000% 4.41750% -0.01750%
USD 1 Week 4.38875% 4.38625% 0.00250% 4.38625% 4.36375% 0.02250%
USD 3 Month 4.91000% 4.92625% -0.01625% 4.92625% 4.94125% -0.01500%
USD 12 Month 4.41750% 4.47188% -0.05438% 4.47188% 4.51875% -0.04687%
EUR Overnight 3.86125% 3.82750% 0.03375% 3.82750% 3.98875% -0.16125%
EUR 1 Week 4.01000% 4.01625% -0.00625% 4.01625% 4.06625% -0.05000%
EUR 3 Month 4.80125% 4.84875% -0.04750% 4.84875% 4.94688% -0.09813%
EUR 12 Month 4.80250% 4.80750% -0.00500% 4.80750% 4.88313% -0.07563%
GBP Overnight 5.58750% 5.59750% -0.01000% 5.59750% 5.59750% 0.00000%
GBP 1 Week 5.61125% 5.63250% -0.02125% 5.63250% 5.64125% -0.00875%
GBP 3 Month 6.20563% 6.38625% -0.18062% 6.38625% 6.43125% -0.04500%
GBP 12 Month 5.88000% 5.94500% -0.06500% 5.94500% 5.96375% -0.01875%

MBS Repo Markets

Thanks Pat, good report.

Yes, the Fed knows the assets won’t go away, and all they want is to see funding spreads narrow to help insure the banks aren’t forced to sell due to funding issues and thereby distort prices beyond prudent repricing of risk.


TAF auction (20bb) results announcement will come out tomorrow Wednesday 12/19 at 10:30am. Results of the program have had limited impact on repo rates but have reduced Libor rates by 20bps.Turn levels from Bank of America

UST GC= 2.80 / 2.40

AGCY MBS = 5.15

The problem with funding balance sheets hasn’t disappeared. The TAF and The Treasuries TTL programs have simply reduced the cost of funding but have not, and cannot, make an impact on balance sheet size or composition problems. Balance sheets are bloated with ABCP/ CLO / CDO / Enhanced Cash / Structured ABS / etc….

A quick survey of 4 dealers illustrates how balance sheet pressures and the liquidity of balance sheets have affected the bid for repo collateral. Usually dealers across the maturities dealers are within 5bps of each other. Currently the dispersion of bids is very wide.

At the same time we are finding dealers with balance sheet to lend. It’s just the prices of cash vary by dealer and by term and depend on which banks have bought term liquidity and what term they bought it for.

  1w 1m 3m 6m 9m 1y
MS 4.50 4.75 4.55 4.36   4.15
Citi 4.65 5.20 5.05 4.95 4.70 4.55
CSFB 4.45 4.90 4.80 4.70 4.60  
BoA 4.80 5.10 4.65 4.40 4.30 4.20
Ave 4.60 4.99 4.76 4.60 4.53 4.30
Range 0.35 0.45 0.50 0.59 0.40 0.40

The MBS spreads to LIBOR has narrowed as well. Agcy MBS had been trading as much as L-50 for 3m and longer terms. Now we are close to L-20. This seems to be a result of the TAF and CBK liquidity programs providing cheaper funds along the curve and reflects a relative downward move in LIBOR rates as the MBS and OIS markets are essentially unchanged from a week ago.


Libor Settings, Eur, and UK leading the way lower…

Currency TERM Today Monday Friday Thursday Wednesday Tuesday
USD ON 4.40 4.4175 4.3025 4.30 4.34 4.4325
  1M 4.94875 4.965 4.99625 5.0275 5.1025 5.20375
  3M 4.92625 4.94125 4.96625 4.99063 5.057 5.11125
EUR ON 3.8275 3.98875 3.85875 4.04625 4.055 4.05
  1M 4.58813 4.92375 4.93375 4.935 4.945 4.9225
  3M 4.84875 4.94688 4.94688 4.94938 4.9525 4.92688
GBP ON 5.5975 5.5975 5.600 5.60875 5.685 5.7000
  1M 6.49125 6.54125 6.5925 6.60375 6.74625 6.73875
  3M 6.38625 6.43125 6.49625 6.51375 6.62688 6.625

Seems coordinated – move working as expected.

The sizes should be unlimited- it’s about price and not quantity – the size of the operations doesn’t alter net reserve balances.

All they are doing/can do is offering a lower cost option to member banks, not additional funding.

Bank lending is not constrained by reserve availability in any case, just the price of reserves.

Bank lending is constrained by regulation regarding ‘legal’ assets and bank judgement of creditworthiness and willingness to risk shareholder value.

The Fed’s $ lines to the ECB allows the ECB to lower the cost of $ funding for it’s member banks. To the extent they are in the $ libor basket that move serves to help the Fed target $ libor rates.

Regarding the $:

As per previous posts, when a eurozone bank’s $ assets lose value, they are ‘short’ the $, and cover that short by selling euros to buy $.

The ECB also gets short $ if it borrows them to spend. So far that hasn’t been reported. There has been no reported ECB intervention in the fx markets, nor is any expected.

When the ECB borrows $ to lend to eurozone banks it is acting as broker and not getting short $ per se. It is helping the eurozone banks to avoid forced sales/$ losses of $ assets due to funding issues. If the assets go bad via defaults and $ are lost that short will then get covered as above.

‘Borrowing $ to spend’ is ‘getting short the $’ regardless of what entity does it. So the reduction in credit growth due to sub prime borrowers no longer being able to borrow to spend was ‘deflationary’ and eliminated a source of $ weakness.

The non resident sector is, however, going the other way as they are increasing imports from the US and reducing their deflationary practice of selling in the US and not spending their incomes.

Portfolio shifts- both by domestics and foreigners- out of the $ driven by management decision (not trade flows) drive down the currency to the point where buyers are found. The latest shift seems to have moved the $ down to where the the real buyers have come in due to ppp (purchasing power parity) issues, which means that in order to get out of the $ positions the international fund managers had to drive the price down sufficiently to find buyers who wanted $ US to
purchase US domestic production.

These are ‘real buyers’ who are attracted by the low prices of real goods and services created by the portfolio managers dumping their $ holdings. They are selling their euros, pounds, etc. to obtain $US to buy ‘cheap’ real goods, services, real estate, and other $US denominated assets.

Given the tight US fiscal policy and lack of sub prime ‘short sellers’ borrowing to purchase (as above), these buyers can create a bottom for the $ that could be sustained and exacerbated by some of those managers (and super models) who previously went short ‘changing their minds’ and reallocated back to the $US.

Seems US equity managers are vulnerable to getting caught in this prolonged short squeeze as well.

It’s been brought to my attention that over the last several years equity allocations us pension funds- private, state, corporate, etc – have been gravitating to ever larger allocations to non US equities, and are now perhaps 65% non US.

This is probably a result of the under performance of the US sector, and once underway the portfolios are sufficiently large to create a large, macro, ‘bid/offer’ spread. The macro bid side for the trillions that were shifted/reallocated over the last several years was low enough to find buyers for this shift out of both the $ and the US equities to the other currencies. And the shift from $ to real assets also added to agg demand and was an inflationary bias for the $US.

Bottom line – changing portfolio ‘desires’ were accommodated by these portfolios selling at low enough prices to attract ‘real buyers’ which is the macro ‘bid’ side of ‘the market.’

When portfolio desires swing back towards now ‘cheap’ $US assets and these desires accelerate as these assets over perform they only way they can be met in full is to have prices adjust to the ‘macro offered side’ where real goods and services, assets, etc. are reallocated the other direction by that same price discovery process.

more later!


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ABCP working its way down

UPDATE 2-U.S. ABCP market smallest since fall 2005-Fed
Thu Dec 13, 2007 12:58pm EST
By Richard Leong and John Parry

NEW YORK, Dec 13 (Reuters) – The U.S. asset-backed commercial paper market contracted to its smallest level since the fall of 2005, a symptom of ongoing global credit squeeze, Federal Reserve data showed on Thursday.

Asset-backed commercial paper (ABCP) outstanding fell $10.3 billion to $791.0 billion in the latest week from $801.2 billion the previous week, according to the latest Fed data.

Markets working to reprice risk, as hoped for buy the fed, as banks continue to take over lending from the wholesale markets.

This protracted shrinkage in the ABCP sector, which was a key funding source for subprime mortgages, has stemmed from corporate borrowers opting for cheaper financing elsewhere, analysts said.

The yield spread on ABCP has stayed stubbornly wide despite efforts by the Federal Reserve to bring down borrowing costs.

“You have some issuers who are not using (ABCP) conduits as much because of their wide spreads,” said Garrett Sloan, short duration analyst at Wachovia Securities at Charlotte, North Carolina. “You also have people sitting back from the one-month (ABCP) sector.”

Investors are demanding a 0.94 percentage point premium above the one-month London Interbank Offered Rate on one-month floating-rate ABCP. Prior to the credit crunch, they demanded no premium on these short-term debt.

Markets seem to be clearing at the wider spreads.


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GC Tsy changes post announcment

I’m mainly interested in LIBOR over the turn as an indicator or how the new international facility is doing.

Also watching to see when higher oil means higher inflation and higher rates, vs. higher oil currently meaning econ weakness and lower rates. Maybe next week after this weeks inflation numbers are out.

GC has lost some of it’s flight to quality bid on term repos. The market is higher across terms as a result of the treasury announcement. Expectations of future rate cuts have not been priced out of the market I will follow up shortly with an AGCY and MBS runs.

GC TSY Last Night Now Change
O/N 4.60 4.23 -0.37
1wk 4.12 4.12 0
2wk 4.03 3.95 -0.08
3wk 3.7 3.75 0.05
1mo 3.7 3.76 0.06
2mo 3.68 3.74 0.06
3mo 3.63 3.71 0.08
6mo 3.62 3.67 0.05
9mo 3.52 3.56 0.04
1yr 3.42 3.46 0.04

* 1wk – 2wk seasonal add need “window dressing” balance sheets


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Financing desk comments

I’m lost for an explanation as to whey the Fed ignored the year end liquidity issue entirely, after alluding to it in various speeches and allowing the impression that they were going to address it at the meeting persist.

Keep me posted as to how LIBOR is over the turn (as well as fed funds over the turn) late morning after the dust settles, thanks. The NY Fed may have something in mind to bring rates more in line with the Fed’s target rate.


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Fed’s best move

From the Fed’s theoretical framework, their best move is:

♦ Cut the discount rate to 4.5

♦  Leave fed funds at 4.5

♦ Remove the stigma from the window

♦ Allow term window borrowing over the turn

♦ Accept any ‘legal’ bank assets as collateral from member banks in good standing

♦ Allow member banks to fully fund their own siv’s

♦ Do not allow banks to do any new sivs or add to existing siv assets, and let the existing assets run off over time.

This would:

♦ Close the FF/LIBOR spread stress for member banks

♦ Support market functioning

♦ Support portfolio shifts to the $

♦ Temper inflation pressures

♦ Restore confidence in the economy

♦ Regain Fed credibility


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