Random Shots - Above Expectations

The market action of last week repeated a lesson that many a punter appeared to have forgotten. Never run a bearish book into a European summit and especially not one where expectations for a result are as lows as they were going into Friday's meeting. Risk assets went up like a rocket with especially oil releasing heavily oversold momentum and you really could not do much wrong if you were running even moderately net long. 

Above Expectations in Europe

Obviously, the market is buying the rumour and not the fact. In traditional summit fashion we got a lot of road maps and promises but very little concrete effort. Details were exceedingly sketchy and to talk about game changers is premature. We usually do not get game changers from the EU, but merely fudge cakes. Alpha.Sources would however like to remind investors that such fudge cakes may be enough to quell the market's sugar addiction for several weeks.  

Three points are worth making. 

Firstly, the ESM appears to get the ability recapitalise banks directly and the door has also been opened up for the ESM/EFSF to buy peripheral debt without implied seniority. This is a big step in breaking the link between banks and the sovereign. Ireland and Spain in particular will be the beneficiaries of this. Alpha.Sources remain skeptical that the broadcasted notion of no conditionality will hold, but at least in principle there is a now a negotiated result which seems to allow countries to get help for their banks with little or no conditionality on the sovereign and no addition to sovereign debt to GDP. This is a significant step towards risk mutualisation through a banking union and ultimately a fiscal union. Alpha.Sources would note however that without applying haircuts to bondholders of both sovereign and private debt, One link is broken but another one is created between core Europe and the entire European banking system. While such a link may be stronger through the effective backing of the whole eurozone balance the key question is how far Germany and the EU will go. This question is particularly relevant (and binding) as it will inevitably become clear that whatever initial amount of euros ceded to the ESM/EFSF to sprinkle over Europe's barren financial markets, it will almost surely be too low. 

Secondly, the electorate and political establishment in Greece have every right to be perplexed. Greece has thus spent the past 3 months under an effective threat of being kicked out of the eurozone only to watch Spain and Italy get away with what is essentially preferential treatment.  The fact that systemically important entities, sovereign as well as private, are given special treatment in this crisis is nothing new, but it remains a democratic problem in the EU. Like Portugal who remains the only country ever to get fined under the Stability and Growth Pact even as virtually every country violated the rules, Greece may rightfully feel a sense of injustice. 

Alpha.Sources would then venture the claim that a Greek exit is now out of the question in the short run (i.e. in 2012). Even as Germany may still move to extract its pound of flesh from Italy and Spain, there is now little chance that Germany and the EU can play hard ball against Greece in the coming negotiations with the Troika. Greece could obviously still become the whipping boy, but the continuing argument that Greece is special is now so worn that even European politicians must be able to see that they can't use it anymore. On this background, Alpha.Sources can't see the ECB shutting off Greece from the ELA while the ESM/EFSF is loading up on Spanish bank equity as well as non-senior Italian and Spanish sovereign debt.

Thirdly, the modest but clear movement towards official creditors not being considered senior could potentially go a long way to break the doomsday loop by which once a country enters bailout proceedings it will never access the market again. Alpha.Sources emphasizes potentially here however and for now, Alpha.Sources will stick to the main rule that whatever we might constitute normal market access the eurozone periphery is far from it, but there is another silver lining to this. Consequently, in Greece it will alleviate the pressure on the ECB, EU and the IMF as it is clear that the country will need a second write down of its debt which will inevitably involve its official sector creditors. 

As a general conclusion, the summit results implies a very large degree of risk mutualisation which it is unclear that Germany will ultimately go for, but multiple conclusions are not possible at the same time and so far the market and punditry seem to view this, rightly or wrongly, as victory for Hollande, Monti and Rajoy. This also means that the decoupling of Bunds from US treasuries and Gilts as well as the recent steady increase in German CDS is set to continue. This is also why Alpha.Sources believes that unlike the German national team who might have to wait two years and the World Cup to redeem itself, Merkel will get her shot much sooner.

One thing Germany will push for is the fiscal compact rules to be put in motion at a fast track pace and also, if the ESM is to take direct and equal ownership of European banks Alpha.Sources feels certain that this will come with extended EU supervision of the involved banks.

Unimpressed in Japan

Another seemingly important political result this week was the approval of the increase in Japan's consumption tax, an increase which has been debated consistently for 5 years in Japan. If the final tax bill is passed, the tax rate will increase from the current 5% to 10% in two steps from to 8% in 2014 and 10% in 2015. 

While the consumption tax has long been touted as the first step to put an end to the fiscal train wreck of Japan's public finances Alpha.Sources believes that the measure will ultimately be counter productive. Japan's fiscal problems consequently do not stem from a lack of revenue, but rather from too much spending. Trying to extract more revenues from a domestic economy where aggregate demand is already chronically weak due to an ageing population will only steal consumption from a future which is, in an almost literal sense, not there. 

In this piece written on a similar VAT hike in Germany, yours truly presented a relatively simple economic framework for what it means to increase indirect taxes in the context of a rapidly ageing economy. In a nutshell, the argument is that while there will be a pure statistical effect on inflation readings as a result of the tax hike as well as positive effect on consumption as the purchase of durables is pushed forward, the end result is likely going to be deflationary. 

The following quote, while requiring a little bit of basic microeconomic intuition, presents the argument, 

(...) students of applied microeconomics learn to distinguish between the point of impact and point of incidence of a tax. The former constitues the party who actually levies the tax towards the government whereas the latter denotes the party who actually supports the tax. In the case of a value-added tax (an indirect tax) the point of impact would then be the consumer who (through an intermediary; e.g. a retailer) levies the tax towards the government. However, it is much more interesting in this case to discuss the point of incidence of the tax that is who actually supports the tax. In order for us to do so we need to introduce yet another economic concept, namely supply and demand elasticities of the tax hike. Consequently, the party with the highest relative elasticity (i.e. flexibility) towards the tax will also avoid supporting the lion’s share of the tax increase. What this means in the concrete case of the German tax is of course very difficult to asses. Yet, since for example consumers’ demand elasticity in this case can be operationalized as the relative fraction of disposable income which is consumed and saved (i.e. the MPC and MPS) we might actually be able to sketch a framework which suggests why the VAT hike in fact should not have been expected to rapidly push up inflation in the first place. The point would then be that the consumers’ demand elasticity towards consumption and thus flexibility towards avoiding the tax relative to businesses would be positively correlated with the marginal propensity to save.

In a rapidly ageing society, the attempt to extract tax revenue through consumption taxes fundamentally misunderstands the consumption and saving dynamics in the context of population ageing. 

Still, we should expect higher consumption in Japan and also, ironically, that inflation may nudge its way up close to the 1% mark set as the target for the BOJ. It would be tragic if this prompted the central bank to lay down its guard because the end result would almost surely be more deflation and contraction. 

With that dear reader it seems that just as Italy spearheaded by the enigma that is Balotelli managed to exceed expectations against Germany (only to come crashing down in the final!), so did we also get a number of political results which, at a first glance at least, were above expectations. In Europe, Alpha.Sources harbours a scant hope that the seeds layn may provide a little calm in the coming months however fleeting this might be while in Japan, the sentiment here at this blog is decidedly unimpressed. 

Random Shots - Smoke Screens

First off obviously; Spain and the country's bailout which was announced yesterday. Alpha.Sources is amazed that it has not happened before really. As we have seen so often before when Europe is on the brink of disaster this time with a Greek exit looming and Spanish banks in tatters, a response has been cooked up in the fudge factory. 

Spain asked euro region governments for a bailout worth as much as 100 billion euros ($125 billion) to rescue its banking system as the country became the biggest euro economy so far to seek international aid.“The Spanish government declares its intention of seeking European financing for the recapitalization of the Spanish banks that need it,” Spanish Economy Minister Luis de Guindos told reporters in Madrid today. A statement by euro region finance ministers said the loan amount will “cover estimated capital requirements with an additional safety margin.”

With Greece the immediate danger only a couple of weeks ago, the failure by Bankia seems to suddenly have alerted the eurostriches to the vortex of capital destruction in the Spanish banking system and the inevitable bailout got the fast track rubber stamp. 

Two points are interesting to focus on initially here. 

Firstly, the headline number of €125 billion is big, really big. Only a couple of weeks ago we were hearing numbers of a €20 to €30 billion euros for Spanish banks and this underscores just how expensive this may turn out to be. Consequently, we don't really believe that this is going to be the final number now do we?

Looking at mortgages alone, the accumulation of negative equity by households may rack up a total tally of more than €250 billion euros and this does not include property developer loans. Spain decided early on to attempt to let time be a healer and assumed that losses could be taken over time without the market catching on. This weekend's events show us that this is not possible and I think that the final number will have German and IMF accountants working over time to figure out just exactly where the money is going to come from. A corollary to this point is the also that the EU badly needs to sort out the firepower for the EFSF and the ESM since the original structure simply won't have to capital to sort out Spain and cannot, in its current form, simply access the market for more.

Secondly, the battle of numbers mentioned above seem initially to have taken the backseat to the discussion of whether in fact Spain has gotten a bailout or simply a very cheap loan by a willing lender.  Finance minister Luis de Guindos plays the part well. 

“The financial support will be directed to the FROB [Spain's Fund for Orderly Bank Restructuring] which will inject it in the financial entities that need it,” said finance minister Luís de Guindos in a press conference this afternoon. “It is a loan with very favorable terms, much more favorable than the market’s. In no way is this a bailout.

Obviously, this is nonsense but we must understand that this is a critical discourse to push for Spain. Every single country that has so far received an EU/IMF bailout is dead in the water either now effectively under permanent stewardship of a troika or simply in some form of default. In this light, Spain has a distinct interest in pushing the story that this is not a bailout, but my feeling is that this weekend may have marked the last time for a long while that the Spanish sovereign has accessed the market on normal market conditions. 

In this sense, yours truly certainly agrees with Edward. If it walks like one and quacks like one and all that. 

“Of course it’s a bailout. What else would you call it? If you can’t finance your debt, and you have to ask someone else to finance it, it’s a bailout. But everybody who’s taken a bailout is dead, and Rajoy doesn’t want to be dead."

Still, while Edward may have the right point here there is a finer point to be made. The higher the EU/IMF bailout efforts reaches up through the pecking order in the peripheral economies the weaker Germany's and the EU's hand becomes. You can just imagine the discussion about conditionality with Spain withRajoy et al simply pointing out the obvious in terms of a complete meltdown of the euro zone economy in the even of an un-managed unravelling of the Spanish banking system. 

The smoke screens will be blown thick and fast from Madrid, but the initial spin is very easy to predict. Spain's problems, we will be told, reside in its banks and therefore the government needs less supervision relative to Greece where the government is the culprit. As Lisa Abend puts it (article linked above), 

Any European and IMF oversight–the latter will not be contributing funds but will be involved in monitoring their use–will be restricted to the financial sector, not the Spanish macroeconomic system as a whole.

This is absolute tripe of course.  One of the main lessons of this crisis is that in the case of a highly risky stock of private debt in the private (banking) sector it is only a matter of time before this liability must be assumed by the sovereign (Ireland is an example here, but Australia and Denmark exhibit similar characteristics).  One would expect Spain to continue playing this implicit card of systemic importance in order to starve off the stigma of bailout. Naturally, this is grossly unfair for Greece which is being submitted to chemotherapy even as there is a 50/50 chance that the treatment itself will kill the patient. This is is especially the case if the ECB/EU end up chucking the country out through a stop of the ECB liquidity life line. 

Reality Creeping up on Japan

Of the deluge of news the past couple of weeks, what caught Alpha.Sources' attention was how the Bank of Japan pushed back against increasing government cries for more monetisation. 

BOJ Deputy Governor Hirohide Yamaguchi said the central bank will not rule out further easing if risks in Europe materialize and exert strong downward pressure on Japan's economy. But he signaled that Japan will likely achieve the BOJ's 1 percent inflation target without further monetary easing steps, saying the bank's stimulus measures in February and April have heightened the chance the economy will resume a recovery.

A sign of the times perhaps that central banks are starting to feel the pressure from the very guardians of their assumed independence to do more, and to do it more aggressively. As always it will be difficult for central banks to do much since ultimately that would involve biting the very hand that feeds them.

Still, it was refreshing to hear the governor Shirakawa rise above the relationship with the ministry of finance to link Japan's chronic deflation problem to the country's ageing population. If only leaders and economists in Europe would listen to this rather than the consensus that has now emerged that a euro breakup and exit is now the inevitable outcome.

Another interesting structural force which seems to be at play in Japan is the fact that the trade balance may never swing back into surplus due to the dependence on energy imports. Primarily LNG imports tied to the oil price on long term contracts. Alliance Bernstein estimates in a recent note that of the Y1 trillion increase in imports since April 2010, about Y700 billion has come from LNG imports which has replaced the country's idle nuclear capacity. As such idleness is likely to be structural so will the persistent trade deficit likely become structural. 

We should remember however that Japan still runs a substantial current account surplus as a result of a positive income balance derived from the world's largest positive net foreign asset position. Still, the current account surplus is shrinking fast coming in at only 2% of GDP in 2011 which is the lowest in 12 years. As suhc, despite Mr Shirakawa believing that the BOJ has done enough, the onus on the central bank rises to start monitising government debt less Japan wants to peddle bonds to foreigners in which case reality would instantly catch up the Japan's government finances. 

Deflation Risks Re-Emerge with a Venegance, but Central Banks Prefer Stagflation

Moving on to the market, my dear reader we are at it again. Europe is once again on the brink of disaster with a Greek exit looming and Spain all but certain to seek the inevitable bailout. As so often before, starting up the fudge factory seems to be the most likely outcome , but could this time be different? 

A number of heavy weight columnists have recently (yet again) proclaimed that the end of the world is nigh. Most devastatingly was of course Raoul Pal's End Game presentation which gives investors a mere 6 month to protect themselves before heading for the bunker. 

In addition, Soc Gen's Albert Edwards also recently touched on the growing and most disconcerting disconnect between global stock markets and all time low (and even zero or negative) bond yields in the developed world. 

As 30y German Bund yields slide below 2% and rapidly converge towards Japanese rates, we have a taster of what is to come in the US and UK in the months ahead. We still see US 10y yields even now making new all-time lows falling below 1% as hard landings occur in China and the US. The secular equity valuation bear market began in 2000 and renewed global recession will be the trigger to catalyse the third and hopefully final, gut-wrenching phase of valuation de-rating. Expect the S&P500 to decline decisively below its March 2009, 666 intra-day low. All hope will be crushed.

And in his latest flash comment, Greed and Fear (Chris Wood) also alerts investors to the threat of deflation. 

The consensus monkeys have been proved wrong yet again. A mere three months after talkingheads on the sell side were doing their usual annual first quarter ritual of proclaiming the endof the “secular” bull market in US treasury bonds, the ten-year bond yield made a new all-timelow of 1.45% on Friday. 

(...)

It continues to amaze GREED & fear how most analysts in the West continue to underestimate the deflationary structural forces at play and are always trying to pick the peak of the bond bull market (in price terms) and the commencement of inflation. Still the main reason GREED & fear has so far avoided succumbing to this temptation is that GREED & fear has been observing Japan for more than 20 years. And for GREED & fear, and for anyone else who has been watching Japan for a similar period, the market action in the West since the global financial crisis hit in the summer of 2008 does not surprise. Rather it remains eerily familiar.

Alpha Sources is concerned, as ever, that a wash-out is coming and certainly remains in the structural deflation camp in so far as goes global debt and growth dynamics writ large. It is also the contention here that it remains a widowmaking trade to call the end of the bull market in bonds, that would require much a much more sinster involvement of bond vigilantes from whatever hole they might appear.

However two points are worth noting.

Firstly, G&F's comparison with Japan may only be as good as it goes. While the blueprint is the same and there central banks have woved no to repeat the Japanese experience. The stated intention of central banks remain to print when it doubt. 

Nowhere is this clearer than with Bernanke. The Fed chairman has demonstrably stated his intention not to travel down Japan's road to deflation. Could it be that this commitment in itself will lead us to an alternative outcome? As always, the proof will be in the actual effect of additional monetary and fiscal stimulus where I would note that in past periods of QE in the US, bond yields have increased! Then there is of course the BOE where Mervyn King and his council have been extremely aggressive in their efforts to combat perceived deflation risks. 

Secondly, on the scenario laid out by Albert Edwards,  one has to note that the stock market is essentially just a nominal price and nominal prices can be manipulated by authorities. While Edwards clearly believe that we are heading towards a situation where this is impossible, Alpha.Sources would be weary betting on a fallout in the S&P 500 to the 500s before the Fed's toolbox has been completely exhausted. Negtive interest rate on excess reserves as well as outright unsterilized purchases of financial assets are the likely next steps if things go south from here. 

But, as always, Edwards is on to something. As stock markets ran up in the aftermath of the ECB's LTRO yields stayed pinned to the floor. When and how aggressively would yields catch up to the stock market? Well, it seems now that we know the answer to this question; the market may just be about to catch up with falling bond yields even if the latter remains severly oversold in the short run. 

We are now in a situation where developed government bond markets still considered safe are pricing in a calamity, but it is important for investors to understand that such apparent grave "expectations" are amplified by the very nature of post crisis financial markets where government bond markets across the European periphery are considered nothing but a very risky equity investment (due to the implied subordination to an ever growing size of the institutional (ECB and IMF) sector involvement in this market). 

In this sense, there is a considerable fundamental mispricing mechanism being operated at the current juncture where normal discounted cash flow valuation analysis cannot be used to explain why anyone would want to pile into government bonds. Or put differently, there are many reasons to hold government bonds and the discounted return from holding to maturity is not necessarily one of them. Liquidity and preservation of the face value of capital are much more important in the current climate even to such an extent that investors are willing to pay a premium for the return of their capital at a later date (negative interest rates). 

In the US for example, it is not clear to Alpha.Sources for example that inflation expectations in the US are pricing in stagflation rather than deflation. This makes sense if we believe in Bernanke's commitment. Of two evils, the Fed appears to prefer stagflation over deflation and it will make sure that faced with such a binary menu, the former is what materialises. 

In the short run, the stark drop in US payrolls may give direction with equities likely to correct downwards towards what the bond market has been telling us for a while rather than the other way around. But ultimately and while Alpha.Sources is weary of the threat of deflation, it is important to show significant respect the playbooks of central banks. Evidence has taught us not to underestimate the ruthlessness by which central bankers are ready to provide inflationary stimulus and as such Alpha.Sources will be hesitant to claim, unlike in the case of Spanish politicians, that they are blowing smoke screens. 

Global Monetary Relief from Asia

The ECB and BOE have shown their intent with their recent aggressive balance sheet expansions and the Fed is trying hard to keep the door open for more QE even as the data in the US continues to defy the general global slowdown. 

In Asia however sticky inflation in India, a desire to nail property developers to the wall in China and a belief in a post earthquake recovery in Japan have kept the big Asian central banks from providing additional easing. Even in Australia where the economy has been teetering on the brink of a recession for 6 months, the central bank has refrained from any decisive moves. 

In three out of the four cases above however things may slowly be about to change. 

In India, the central bank recently opened the door for considerable easing in 2012 as headline inflation comes in. The market has already heavily discounted such a move with Indian equities up about 25% since mid December 2011 and some big ticket single names such as Tata Motors up more than 50%. 

Quote Bloomberg

Reserve Bank of India Deputy Governor Subir Gokarn said the monetary authority will cut interest rates once it’s confident inflation will keep slowing.“The stance now is that we have reached the peak and any further action will be toward easing,” Gokarn, 52, said in an interview at his office while discussing the rupee, the government’s budget deficit and bond repurchases. The central bank isn’t concerned about the currency’s record monthly advance in January “because in a sense it’s a correction,” following last year’s 16 percent decline, he said. Emerging-markets have stepped up efforts to shield growth from the impact of Europe’s debt crisis, with Brazil, Russia and the Philippines cutting rates in recent months.

The road is not entirely clear for easing by the RBI where two issues may still derail the central bank's intention to start an easing cycle.

Firstly, the government's budget deficit continues to increase and while borrowing to invest in infrastructure etc in India is certainly worthwhile, monetary policy may still have to lean against excessively and essentially structural deficit spending by the government. This is particularly the case as supply side constraints may mean that such deficit spending adds substantially to inflation. 

Secondly, the INR may be subject to substantial weakening on a resurgence in global volatility. The Fed's USD swap lines as well as the the ECB's efforts to backstop the European banking system have so far calmed things down. Nevertheless, should another period of strong and sudden INR weakness ensue, it means the RBI would not be able to reduce the yield difference to the rest of the world in any meaningful way.

In China, the economy is now visibly slowing. Foreign exchange reserve accumulation have ground to a halt and M1 growth is negative on the year. Even if the desire to cool down excessive credit growth and nailing property developers to the wall might still constitute top priorties, the balance is shifting towards easing.

Quote Bloomberg

China is seen making more cuts to banks’ reserve requirements to fuel lending and sustain economic growth as the housing market cools and Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis weighs on exports.The proportion of cash that lenders must set aside will fall half a percentage point from Feb. 24, the central bank said Feb. 18 on its website. Standard Chartered Plc forecasts at least three more reductions this year, while HSBC Holdings Plc (HSBA) sees a minimum of two.

So far, Chinese authorities seem content to use the reserve requirement ratio (RRR) as the main tool to provide easing. This makes sense in a command market economy where the government can be fairly sure to control the supply side of credit through loan quotas. I think however that the calls for no interest rate cuts until mid 2012 may turn out to be wrong if China is about to slow to the extent that our leading indicators show. Property prices have fallen (or failed to rise) for some time now in China and as growth slows further, the authorities may rightfully begin to argue that their near term objectives have been achieved. 

Perhaps the most interesting development this week however came in Japan where the BOJ apparently got my memo as they restarted QE.

Quote Bloomberg

Japan’s central bank unexpectedly added 10 trillion yen ($128 billion) to an asset-purchase program and set an inflation goal after an economic slide fueled criticism it has been slower to act than counterparts.An asset fund increased to 30 trillion yen, with a credit lending program staying at 35 trillion yen, the Bank of Japan said in Tokyo today. The BOJ also said that it will target 1 percent inflation “for the time being.” 

This decision appears to have gone completely under the radar, but I think it is very significant. Two points are particularly important to emphasize. Firstly, the entire 10 trillion yen added to the asset purchase program has been earmarked to JGBs which signals the BOJ's willingness (or the MOF's orders) that budget deficits in Japan are now to be directly monetised to a much higher degree than has earlier been the case. Secondly, the BOJ has now committed itself to an inflation target (1%) and will use balance sheet expansion to reach this goal.

This is textbook QE and should be bearish for the Yen and bullish for the Nikkei, but things may not be so simple of course. Chris Wood adds to the discussion in the latest version of Greed and Fear [1]. 

The second point is whether the latest news is a signal to short the yen. On the face of it, it should be. But the issue is whether the BoJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa is going to follow the previous examples of his conduct of unorthodox monetary policy; whereby he raises thequantity of the so-called asset purchase programme but does not exactly accelerate the pace ofthe buying to fulfil the programme. Thus, the Bank of Japan has so far purchased ¥10.3tn of assets since the latest programme was first announced on 28 October 2010, amounting to only 52% of the previous target of ¥20tn set in October 2011.

In other words, how serious is this inflation target and over what horizon does the BOJ intend to reach it? Only time will tell, but given the persistence of deflation in Japan I would argue that any semi-serious adherence to this inflation target would require substantial balance sheet expansion by the BOJ. 

As Chris Wood aptly puts it, the move by the BOJ is merely the latest evidence of the bull market in central bank balance sheet expansion and more importantly, relative central bank balance sheet. In a world where export driven growth is seen as everyone as the way out of debt purgatory you need expand and print more than your peers. On this, I also slightly disagree with Chris that Japan does not need a weaker JPY. My own analysis suggest that corporate margins in Japan are very sensitive to changes in the Yen. But that is a discussion for another time. For now, I will agree with Chris that we have seen the beginning of a sea change in Japan, but we need to see the BOJ backing up intentions.

Ultimately though, the most significant piece of news from Asia last week was the indication from both Japan and China that they would stand ready to offer their full support for the euro zone. The idea is simple; China and Japan would use the IMF as conduit to create the only real bazooka (apart from ECB monitisation).

Quote Bloomberg (my emphasis)

Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi said his nation and China will work together to help Europe solve its debt crisis through the International Monetary Fund.Europe needs a bigger so-called firewall of added funding to contain the crisis, even as Greece shows some improvement in solving its financial woes, Azumi told reporters in Beijing yesterday after meeting Chinese Vice Premier Wang Qishan. Azumi, who met Chinese Finance Minister Xiu Xuren during his visit, also said he asked China to make its currency more flexible.“We shared the view that Europe needs to make more efforts to create a bigger firewall,” Azumi said. “We also agreed to act together as the IMF will probably ask the U.S., Japan and China” to help boost its lending capacity.

This would indeed be global monetary relief from Asia. 

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[1] - I cannot reproduce the whole piece, only select quotes.