Europe delivers, but investors shudder

The markets slumped even after the European Central Bank moved forcefully.

By Jim J. Jubak Dec 8, 2011 5:24PM
Image: Europe (© Photodisc/SuperStock)Mario Draghi and the European Central Bank Thursday delivered everything investors could have reasonably hoped for -- and still financial markets tumbled. The German DAX Index finished the day down 2% and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index ($INX) closed down 2.1%.

I think that market action amounts to a great big vote of no confidence in the European political leaders that have just begun a summit meeting that wraps up Friday.

At Thursday's meeting in Frankfurt, the European Central Bank cut its benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 1%, extended the term of its credit facility for banks to three years from the current one-year term, and loosened its standards on the kinds of collateral it will accept from banks.

That’s pretty much the entire wish list that investors were looking for from the bank. (Anybody who thinks the bank was going to cut rates by 0.5 percentage points to 0.75% is delusional, I think. Even at the worst of the 2008 global financial crisis, the European Central Bank never went below 1%. This isn’t the Fed, you know.)

If you want to see why the bank moved so forcefully, just take a look at the revised projections for eurozone growth the bank’s economists released Thursday morning. According to the new forecast, growth in the eurozone economy for 2012 will range between a contraction of 0.4% and expansion of 1%. That’s a serious downgrade from the forecast just three months ago that said the low bound was expansion of 0.4% (not contraction but actual growth) and the high bound was expansion of 2.2%. 

The bank’s economists left their forecast for 2011 growth essentially unchanged going from projections of 1.4% to 1.8% growth to projections of 1.5% to 1.7% growth.

Politically, what’s most interesting about the bank’s decision to go for a rate cut and looser collateral and a three-year term is the implication that the economic situation has deteriorated enough to worry even some of the inflation hawks at the bank. Until very recently those inflation hawks -- the German, Austrian, Finnish, and Dutch contingent at the bank -- were arguing that the bank needed to do less because inflation in the EuroZone was running at a 3% annual rate, well above the bank’s target of near but below 2%. 

I’m sure those voices were still heard at Thursday's meeting, but the danger that the eurozone will slip into actual recession in 2012 has muted their opposition -- for the moment.

The new economic projections might produce a similar sense of urgency at the summit of European political leaders that starts today and that is due to end tomorrow with, everyone hopes, a plan to end the euro crisis.

"Might."

But the financial markets sure don’t seem convinced. And with good reason beyond the dismal
record at crisis solving that eurozone leaders have established.

Wednesday, for example, was filled with what seemed to be hardening of positions with the Germans insisting on comprehensive treaty change and the French warning that the eurozone didn’t have time to go down that route. German officials, for example, went out of their way to criticize a suggestion by European Council president Herman Van Rompuy that tighter fiscal discipline could be enforced without treaty change. An unnamed but senior German official disdainfully told the Financial Times that "a number of actors have not understood the seriousness of the situation."

There’s hope that Wednesday's verbiage was just the usual posturing at the beginning of negotiations and that the eurozone's political leaders will have read the forecasts from the economists at the European Central Bank.

But even if it was, the summit faces a huge challenge. Not only do eurozone leaders have to come up with some plan to move the eurozone countries toward closer fiscal integration over the next 12 to 24 months, but they have put forward a credible plan for bridging the gap between the current crisis and that long-term solution.

What the markets fear most today, in my opinion, is that once again the eurozone leaders will come up with their own version of a bridge to nowhere.

At the time of this writing, Jim Jubak didn't own shares of any companies mentioned in this post in personal portfolios. The mutual fund he manages, Jubak Global Equity Fund (JUBAX), may or may not own positions in any stock mentioned. For a full list of the stocks in the fund as of the end of the most recent quarter, see the fund's portfolio here. 



Tags: economyeuropeinterest ratesinvesting strategyinvestmentsJim Jubak
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6Comments
Ice Cold Sangria
Dec 8, 2011 6:35PM
avatar

 

No one here is being fooled.  Another meeting, another summit.  Anything for free donuts.  And another stall while they continue to unload their bonds for pennies on the dollar (if they can get that much).

 

Speaking of unload, be sure your broker understood your instructions correctly and sold your EADS stock for whatever he could get for it.

 

              Okay, how about this?                                           German Chancellor Schwarzenegger!

 

Just sayin'.

 

 

upperdoper
Dec 8, 2011 11:03PM
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Open-mouthed When the good news are/is delivered the hype is over and the traders are gone with the public moneys and comeback another day recreate their schemes and it goesNerd on until they go to their grave. Nerd So then it's just monopoly money after all.
bubblemania
Dec 9, 2011 7:57AM
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nothing really important and structural resolved, the crisis goes on
bubblemania
Dec 9, 2011 7:28AM
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How many decisive meetings it will take? Run to the hills !!! The euro is coming down in a chaotic way.
havasu46
Dec 8, 2011 9:38PM
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I think that market action amounts to a great big vote of no confidence in the European political leaders that have just begun a summit meeting that wraps up Friday.

Smile Over half the people in the markets don't get it. All they know is that someone says "Another Lehmann event" and they run like hell. A lot sold their mutual funds yesterday and today mutual funds sold their stock.
bubblemania
Dec 9, 2011 9:47AM
avatar
Come on, Mr. Jubak, Europe did everything that was expected? The only thing that matters to the market is QE and the purchase of more bonds. They left that untouched and no significant measure was adopted in a meltdown context.
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