Month: April 2008

Feeding on Fed Funds

Feeding on Fed Funds

Posted on by David Merkel

One of my Finacorp colleagues pointed me to some Fed funds data yesterday, and it made me want to write an article. He pointed out something that looked anomalous about the way Fed funds is trading, namely, that on many days in the last month, that some trades are going on where some banks out there are accepting almost zero for the rate on investing excess reserves.

Let me back up. We talk about Fed funds all the time, but we don’t often stop to talk about what it means. Banks and thrifts have to keep non-interest bearing reserve funds at the Fed. Those funds can be deposited by the depositary institution at the Fed, or, they can borrow the funds from another institution that has excess funds deposited at the Fed. Thus there is an active lending market between banks for reserves deposited at the Fed. The weighted average rate at which these overnight loans get done is called the effective federal funds rate.

The Fed influences where Fed funds trades through open market operations, where they lower the Fed funds rate by increasing the supply of reserves to the system through temporary repurchase transactions, and outright purchases of securities through the creation of new credit, thus expanding its balance sheet (a permanent injection of liquidity). The Fed raises the Fed funds rate by decreasing the supply of reserves to the system through temporary reverse repurchase transactions, and outright purchases of securities which reduces credit, and shrinks the balance sheet of the Fed (a permanent reduction of liquidity — rare).

All the guessing games that go on around FOMC meetings today, revolve around the Fed funds target rate. That’s the rate the the Fed in the short run says that it will try to keep the effective Fed funds rate at, primarily through temporary measures using repurchase and reverse repurchase transactions.

Back to the Present

Since August 1993, the high and low transaction yields for Fed funds each day have been recorded. The following graph shows the high, low, and effective Fed funds rate from then until the present.

As you can see, the difference between the high and low for Fed funds on a given day can be substantial.? Most commonly the big ranges happen near the end of accounting periods, or at minor financial panics, whether for legitimate reasons (LTCM, 9/11), or dubious reasons (Y2K).? In any case, there can be a scramble for overnight fed funds, leading to a very large high rate for the day.? Conversely, there can be a very small low rate for the day when enough institutions have significant excess funds to lend at Fed funds, and few takers at some point during the day.

That range between high and low Fed funds can be quite large, as you can see in the following graph.? In order to show the persistence of the range, to flatten out the influence of disasters, and quarter- and year-ends, I threw in a 22-day moving average, which is meant to approximate the rolling monthly average.

In this present environment, I am most concerned with how low Fed funds trades on a daily basis.? Since that is a noisy figure as well, I applied a 22-day moving average there.

The range for Fed funds trading is high on a monthly average basis, butnot as high as it was at points back in the mid-90s. Short-term interest rates were higher then, so there was more room on the downside for the range to expand, which is not possible today.? What is unusual now is that the low trade for Fed funds is averaging near the levels achieved during the wondrous 1%-1.25% Fed funds rate policy that the Greenspan Fed instituted from late 2002 to mid-2004.

In the midst of a period where liquidity is so scarce, we have a situation where some banks are having a hard time getting a good yield from Fed funds.? To summarize the situation, look at my final graph:

This is a scatterplot to show how the moving averages for low Fed funds varies against the range for Fed funds.? The diagonal line is there for convenience to show where the moving averages for the range and the low would be equal.? Back during the 2002-2004 era, though rates were low, Fed funds traded in a tight band.? In the mid-90s, rates were higher, but we had occasional periods where the range would explode for accounting or crisis reasons.

Now we are in a period where we have a volatile range for Fed funds amid low rates.? This is unusual.? I’m open to new ideas here, but it seems that the liquidity situation in Fed funds is volatile enough that some banks end up snapping at low yields at some point each day.? Just another piece in a difficult policy period for the banks and the Fed.? If I have to speculate, it indicates that some banks are already awash in liquidity, and aren’t sure what to do with it.

The Economics of SFAS 157

The Economics of SFAS 157

Posted on by David Merkel

I’m not crazy about flexible accounting standards because they destroy comparability across companies, with perhaps a gain in accuracy within companies. We’ve had a lot of noise in the blogosphere recently regarding the SEC allowing companies to ignore prices if they are the result of forced sales or tax-loss selling. You might expect me to say that the SEC is nuts again. You would be wrong.

I am aware of reasons there are economic for one party to sell, that do not appeal to the bulk of investors, and I have seen forced sales for tax and other reasons. Even with those sales, the market is thin. Almost every transaction is special; trades are by appointment only, unless someone offers a humongous bargain for immediate liquidity. I have seen this in the market myself, and seen management teams struggle with how to price an illiquid bond when tax loss sellers bomb the market at the end of a year

So, when I read facile pieces suggesting that FAS 157 has been gutted, (and here) I just groan. With level 3 assets, the markets must be very thin, not nonexistent. Prices in a thin market rarely represent the net present value of the future cash flows to the average market participant.

Also, one should realize that SFAS 157 merely cleans up the rules for how assets are to be valued under SFAS 133. Calculating “fair value” is often hard, though unscrupulous managements will take advantage of that flexibility. At least we have rules to determine when we use market prices, figures that derive directly from other market prices, and figures where a discounted cash flow analysis, or something like it must be employed.

Was the move of the SEC a big help? A help, yes, but a wee one. Companies could already under SFAS 157 make the argument that the SEC blessed. The SEC simply makes that argument easier.

All that said, I don’t think that SFAS 157 has that much economic impact, compared to the way firms finance themselves. A loss of liquidity does far more damage than volatility in earnings results, unless there are debt covenant violations.

In the end, I am saying that there is an issue here, but it is not a big one. Better that companies in trouble would lower their leverage, and finance long-term, which costs more in the short run but preserves the company to fight another day.

Seven Notes on Equity Investing

Seven Notes on Equity Investing

Posted on by David Merkel

1) A lament for Bill Miller.? Owning Bear Stearns on top of it all is adding insult to injury.? Now, living in Baltimore, I get little bits of gossip, but I won’t go there this evening.? I think Bill Miller’s problems boil down to lack of focus on a margin of safety, which is the main key to being a good value manager.? During the boom periods, he could ignore that and get away with it, but when we are in a bust phase, particularly one that hurts financials.? When financials get hit, all forms of accounting laxity tend to get hit, making the margin of safety more precious.

2) Now perhaps one bright spot here is rising short interest. Short interest is a negative while it is going up, but a positive once it has risen to unsustainable levels.? What is unsustainable is difficult to define, but remember Ben Graham’s dictum, that the market is a voting machine in the short run, and a weighing machine in the long run.? The value of stocks in the long run will reflect the net present value of their free cash flows, not short interest or leverage.

3)? Now, if you want the opposite of Bill Miller in the value space, consider Bob Rodriguez of FPA Capital.? Along with a cadre of other misfit value managers that are willing to invest in unusual long-only portfolios aiming for absolute returns while not falling victim to the long/short hedge fund illusion, he happily soldiers on with a boatload of cash, waiting for attractive opportunities to deploy cash.

4) Retirement.? What a concept amid falling housing and equity prices.? Though we have difficulties at present from the housing overhang, and the unwind of financial leverage, there will be continuing difficulties over the next two decades as assets must be liquidated and taxes raised to support the promises of Medicare, and to a lesser extent, Social Security.? My guess: Medicare gets massively scaled back.

5) I get criticism from both bulls and bears.? I try to be unbiased in my observations, because amid the difficulties, which I have have been writing about for years, there is the possibility that it gets worked out.? When there are problems, major economic actors are not passive; they look for solutions.? That doesn’t mean that they always succeed, but they often do, so it rarely pays to be too bearish.? It also rarely pays to be too bullish, but given the Triumph of the Optimists, that is a harder case to make.

6) Bill Rempel took me to task about a post of mine, and I have a small defense there, and perhaps a larger point.? Almost none of my close friends invest in the market. It doesn’t matter whether we are in boom or bust periods, they just don’t.? These people are by nature highly conservative, and/or, they are not well enough off to be considering investments in equities.? They are not relevant to a post on investing contrarianism, because they are outside the scope of most equity investing.? They are relevant to a discussion of the real economy, and where your wage income might be impacted.

7) To close for the night, then, a note on contrarianism.? When I read journalists, they are typically (but not always) lagging indicators, because they aren’t focused on the topics at hand. They get to the problems late.? But when I think of contrarianism, I don’t look for opinions as much as financial reliance on an idea.? Many opinions are irrelevant, because they don’t reflect positions that have been taken in the markets, the success of which is now being relied upon.? Once there is money on the line, euphoria and regret can do their work in shaping the attitudes of investors, allowing for contrary opinions to be successful against fully invested conventional wisdom.? But without fully invested conventional wisdom, contrarianism has little to fight.

Federal Office for Oversight of Leverage [FOOL]

Federal Office for Oversight of Leverage [FOOL]

Posted on by David Merkel

I want to go back to an article that I wrote early in the history of this blog, when nobody read me except a few RealMoney diehard fans — Regulating Systemic Risk From Hedge Funds.? It was a critique of the ?Agreement Among PWG And U.S. Agency Principals On Principles And Guidelines Regarding Private Pools Of Capital.?? Yes, the “shadowy” President?s Working Group on Financial Markets.? Some will call it the “Plunge Protection Team.”? Well, if they are that, they are certainly not playing up to their billing.? As an aside, I tend not to believe in conspiracy theories, because most bad plans of our government don’t require them.? As Chuck Colson pointed out regarding the Nixon Administration and Watergate leaks — he felt that information tightness in the Nixon White House was so effective, that if a conspiracy could work, it would have worked there.? (Since it didn’t work, and the information leaked out, it had a surprising effect on Colson’s life, as he concluded that the disciples of Jesus (Y’Shua) could not have conspired to steal the dead body, hide it, and fake a resurrection.? But that’s another story.)?? Suffice it to say that I don’t think the government intervenes in the major financial markets of our country — there would be too many accounting entries to hide, and someone would have a real incentive to leak the information, or write a book about it.

Going back to my article, I tried to point out the difficulty of gathering data and analyzing it.? It was also somewhat prescient as I said, “Let me put it another way: if the government wants to reduce systemic risk, let them create risk-based capital regulations for investment banks, and let them increase the capital requirements on loans to hedge funds and investment banks. Or, let the Fed change the margin requirements on stocks. These are simple things that are within their power to do now. In my opinion, they won?t do them; they are friends with too many people who benefit from the current setup. If they won?t use their existing powers, why would they ask for new ones?

We will have to wait for the next blowup for the Federal Government to get serious about systemic risk. They might not do it even then. Upshot: be aware of the companies that you own, and their exposure to systemic risk. You are your own best defender against systemic risk.”

There is another reason why they would not act then, as I had pointed out at RealMoney over the years.? Bureaucrats are resistant to offering changes where if thy would get harmed if the changes led to a market panic.? Once the market panic starts, they can move with greater freedom, because no one will be able to tell whether changes imposed during the panic intensified the panic or not.

So, color me skeptical on efforts to monitor and control systemic risk.? It would be very hard to do effectively, and there are too many powerful interests against it.? Also, it would be difficult to get the gross exposure data necessary for inhibiting crisis, because many financial instruments would have to be split in two or more pieces.

As to the articles I have read on Treasury Secretary Paulson’s plan, they divide into credulous (one, two), mixed, and skeptical/hostile (one, two).? Let me simply observe that any plan for the control of systemic risk has to overcome:

  • Political opposition
  • Lack of effective data
  • Lack of an effective model
  • Lack of willingness to implement the conclusions generated by the staff/modeling
  • Inter- and Intra-agency disagreements
  • Data and action lags

If it is already difficult for the Fed to implement contracyclical monetary policy, just imagine how difficult it will be for them to deal with a problem that is far more tricky because of its multivariate nature.? Imagine them trying to analyze the effects from currencies, commodities, operating businesses, credit, ABS, RMBS, CMBS, equity-related businesses, counterparty risk, etc.? This is not trivial, and Paulson I suspect knows it all too well, which has led him to make a modest proposal that will likely not be effective, but will likely run out the shot clock for the Bush administration, leaving the issue for the next President to deal with.

The Fed is not by nature an activist institution, and it would have to become far more activist in order to effectively regulate the bulk of all financial institutions in the US.? I don’t see it happening.

As an aside, I am ambivalent about Federal regulation of insurance, and this RealMoney article of mine still expresses my views adequately.? Still, it would make sense to hand over oversight of financially sensitive insurers, such as the financial guarantee insurers and the mortgage insurers to the Feds, together with whoever oversees the ratings agencies.? An integrated solution is preferable.? (I still like my proposed name for the new regulator, “Federal Insurance Bureau” [FIB… well, it can’t be the FBI].

As for some of the fog that a regulator of investment banks would exist in, consider these two articles on hedge fund distress.? What affects the hedge funds, affects the investment banks.? They are symbiotic.

As a joke, given that it is the first of April, if we do get a regulator for overall financial solvency and systemic risk, I believe it should be called the Federal Office for Oversight of Leverage [FOOL].? After all, I think it is taking on a fool’s bargain.

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