Snikt
February 9, 2016·0 comments·adaptive investing
The architecture that broke the world in 2008 is cracking again, but this time the collapse is arriving faster than the triggers that supposedly cause it. Credit spreads are widening sharply while most market participants are still waiting for the catalyst event that feels obvious enough to validate their concern. Something is already broken, and the market is just beginning to price it in.
• Credit protection costs surged 45 basis points in a single month across European financial debt. This speed of movement indicates the system is responding to stress faster than historical patterns would suggest. The usual discovery phase is compressed.
• The vulnerability isn't being hidden anymore, but the market is still acting as if it has time. High-profile figures are already discussing the mechanisms and the risks openly on financial television. Yet the market is only now reflecting the danger that should have been obvious weeks or months ago.
• Deflationary pressures are already active in the system without the major currency event everyone expected to trigger them. The cascade is happening on its own. This suggests the underlying fragility is worse than the publicly discussed narratives assume.
• Financial innovations that seemed benign until they weren't are in place again, with a different name and a different mechanism. Negative interest rates are playing the role that structured credit products played in 2008. The system has replaced one fragility with another.
• The real question isn't whether there will be a financial crisis, but whether the political response will arrive in time to shape it rather than react to it. The deflationary spiral is already unraveling the assumptions that underpin the current policy regime.
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