Inflation/Deflation

Highlights The fundamental backdrop continues to be mixed, but last week’s key data releases were encouraging on balance: While the U.S. manufacturing ISM survey entered contraction territory, and European manufacturing PMIs remained moribund, the services surveys were quite strong, and services contribute much more to developed economies’ total output. The U.S. economy should be able to grow at trend for the next six to twelve months: Consumption is underpinned by a robust labor market, federal government spending will not flag ahead of the 2020 elections, and state and local revenues are well supported. Investment is unlikely to sabotage the other two pillars of the U.S. economy. The view that inflation is deader than New York Mayor de Blasio’s presidential ambitions is widespread and entrenched: Participating on a panel at an inflation-themed conference last week, we were struck by the conviction that inflation is going nowhere over the next few years. The risk-reward of taking the other side of that debate may be quite attractive. Feature Another week, another mixed set of data releases. Last Tuesday, the bears’ most cherished fantasies seemed to be within reach as the ISM Manufacturing Index slid below the boom-bust line in a print that fell well short of consensus expectations. The S&P 500, which had probed around August’s 2,945 resistance level in the final pre-Labor Day session, quickly shed more than a percentage point in response. The U.S. data confirmed the message from the previous day’s European manufacturing PMIs: global manufacturing remains in a deep funk, and a turnaround is not yet at hand. It’s hard to get a recession without tight monetary policy, and it’s hard to get a bear market without a recession, ... Wednesday’s European services PMI releases gave the bulls a lift. Though manufacturing activity truly stinks (Chart 1), it shows no signs of contaminating the services sector, which is still expanding at a solid clip (Chart 2). The U.S. ISM Non-Manufacturing Index surged in August, beating consensus expectations by the same two-point margin by which manufacturing fell short. U.S. equities were already trading higher on the back of an imminent resumption of U.S.-China negotiations when the series was released Thursday morning, and the combination helped the S&P 500 decisively break through the level that had held it in check for a month (Chart 3). Chart 1Global Manufacturing ##br##Is Ailing ... Chart 2... But The Service Sector Is Expected To Expand Chart 3Breakout Taking a step back from the consistently mixed data, recessions don’t occur when monetary conditions are easy. Equity bear markets rarely occur outside of recessions, so our default position is to remain at least equal weight equities in a balanced portfolio. We estimate that the equilibrium fed funds rate is somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 to 3.25%, so the monetary backdrop remains comfortably accommodative with fed funds at 2.25% and seemingly heading to 2% or lower in the coming months. Our estimate of equilibrium is no more than an estimate, however, so we are reprising our analysis of where consumption, investment and government spending are headed over the next six to twelve months. We remain constructive on the basis of that analysis. The GDP Equation GDP is the sum of consumption, investment, government spending and net exports. Rendered as an equation, GDP = C + I + G + (X-M). Net exports are not terribly meaningful for the comparatively closed U.S. economy, and we take a small fixed trade deficit as a given, so we reduce the equation to GDP = C + I + G. Ex-trade, consumption accounts for two-thirds of output, and fixed investment and government spending for one-sixth each. At four times each of the other components’ weight, consumption is the dominant driver of U.S. activity. Investment is considerably more variable, however, making it more likely to wipe out trend growth from the other drivers (Chart 4). As we showed the first time we performed the (C+I+G) analysis, investment would only have to fall to 0.83 standard deviations below its long-run mean to zero out 2% growth in consumption and government spending.1 Chart 4Investment Is The Wild Card In a normal distribution, events 0.83 or more standard deviations below the mean are expected to occur randomly about 20% of the time. It would take a -1.31-sigma consumption event (probability ≈ 10%) to zero out 2% growth in the rest of the economy. An expansion-killing decline in government spending would be a -1.86-sigma event (probability ≈ 3%). Investment is most likely to be the swing factor tilting the economy in the direction of a recession. Consumption Both retail sales and personal consumption expenditures have accelerated since early April (Chart 5). A robust labor market should continue to support consumption spending, as our payroll model projects a pickup in hiring (Chart 6, top panel), thanks to more ambitious NFIB hiring plans (Chart 6, second panel) and falling initial unemployment claims (Chart 6, bottom panel). Job openings are at their highest level in the 19-year history of the series, indicating that demand for new employees is high, and an elevated quits rate indicates that employers are paying up to poach workers from each other to satisfy that demand. We reiterate that more Americans will be working at the end of 2019 than at the end of 2018, and that all of them will be getting paid more, on average. A robust labor market will give household incomes a boost, and solid balance sheets will give them leave to spend it. Households don’t have to spend income gains, however. If they choose instead to save them, or divert them to paying down debt, consumption won’t get much of a near-term boost. The state of household balance sheets is also a driver of consumption’s direction, and they’ve improved at the margin since our last review. The savings rate moved sharply higher in the interim (Chart 7, top panel) and household debt as a share of GDP ticked lower (Chart 7, second panel), while the burden of servicing existing debt remains light (Chart 7, bottom panel). Chart 5Consumption Is Healthy Chart 6Hiring Is Poised To ##br##Tick Higher, ... Chart 7... And Households Are In A Position To Spend Bottom Line: Consumption remains well supported and will likely continue to be over a six- to twelve-month horizon. Investment Despite hopes that the reduction in corporate income tax rates and immediate expensing of qualified investments would promote capital expenditures, growth in nonresidential fixed investment has been uninspiring. Looking ahead, surveys of corporate investment intentions are decent coincident indicators of capex, and their monthly releases provide some leading insights into quarterly GDP investment. Capital spending plans in the NFIB small business survey have bounced since early April (Chart 8, top panel), but capex plans in the regional Fed surveys have weakened (Chart 8, bottom panel). Although both surveys have turned down, they remain at fairly elevated levels, suggesting that an investment plunge capable of negating trend growth in consumption and government spending is unlikely. Chart 8Neither Here Nor There Residential investment is less than a quarter of nonresidential investment and therefore typically only has a marginal impact on investment. It remains in a slump, with momentum in starts and permits sputtering (Chart 9, top panel); existing home sales running in place (Chart 9, middle panel); and inventories of homes for sale up since April, albeit still at low levels relative to history (Chart 9, bottom panel). Despite a sharp decline in mortgage rates since the end of last year, housing activity has failed to revive. Conversations with various market participants lead us to believe that zoning restrictions, sparse quantities of affordable land, difficulty in assembling construction crews, and a general idling of smaller developers in the wake of the crisis have all contributed to insufficient supplies of the entry-level and first-move-up homes for which there is ample demand. Chart 9Housing Is Weaker Than It Should Be, But It Doesn't Mean The Economy Is In Trouble Bottom Line: Neither nonresidential nor residential investment appears vulnerable enough to spark a decline in investment that could cause the economy to stall out. Government Spending All systems are go from a fiscal perspective. The federal spending taps will surely be open in a hotly contested presidential election year. State income and sales tax revenues have improved since our last review in April (Chart 10, top two panels), and should be well supported by a strong labor market. Solid home price appreciation will nudge the appraisals underpinning property taxes higher (Chart 10, third panel), supporting municipal tax receipts. Government spending will continue to hold up its end. Chart 10State And Local Revenues Will Hold Up Is Inflation Dead? Chart 11Another Upleg Is Coming We participated in a panel discussion last week at an inflation-linked products conference. The panel included Fed researchers and a veteran inflation-products trader turned investment manager. After a wide-ranging discussion that touched on U.S. economic prospects, the message from the yield curve, the impact of trade tensions and the continuing relevance of the Phillips Curve, each panelist was asked if inflation has already peaked for the cycle. The response was a resounding unanimous yes until we got our turn. The other panelists were not laypeople, traders, bottom-up analysts, or anyone else with only a passing interest in macroeconomics. They were experts, and we were struck by the conviction with which they dismissed the possibility that inflation could yet break out in the current cycle. Judging by the shrinking scale of the annual conference (this year’s edition was half the size of the previous two years’), the idea that inflation is dead for the foreseeable future has found a wide following. We do not think that inflation, and bond yields, will go anywhere in the immediate future, but it is far from assured that they will remain moribund for the rest of the expansion (Chart 11). Taking the other side looks attractive to us, given the preponderance of inflation-is-dead opinions. It is not terribly surprising that wide output gaps opened following an especially job-destructive downturn. With economic capacity considerably ahead of aggregate demand across the major economies, inflation had little chance of taking hold at an economy-wide level. The picture is changing, however, with the IMF estimating that the U.S. output gap closed in 2017 and in the advanced economies as a whole sometime last year (Chart 12). Goods inflation is primarily a global phenomenon, and with the IMF estimating that output gaps persist in Australia, Canada, Japan and the U.K., international slack can still mitigate domestic price pressures, though new tariff barriers would bind inflation more closely to domestic conditions. Services inflation, which is much more domestically driven, could begin to perk up now that unemployment is below NAIRU in the Eurozone as well as the U.S. (Chart 13). Finally, while central banks are hardly omnipotent, Milton Friedman’s always-and-everywhere admonition leaves little doubt that the monetary authorities can boost inflation expectations if they really want to. Chart 12Demand Has Caught Up To Capacity Chart 13Mind The Gap Investment Implications The investing backdrop is hardly ideal. Spreads are tight, stocks aren’t cheap, the two largest standalone economies are trying to inflect pain on each other, the U.K. can’t agree on how to get divorced from the EU, and the fate of the longest U.S. expansion on record is in doubt. The risks are well known, however, and save-haven assets have gotten pretty crowded. While the danger that shaky confidence could become self-fulfilling is real, our base case is that the expansion will trundle along, allowing stocks to rise as the worst-case scenarios fail to come to pass. It is at least possible that rumors of inflation’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. We continue to recommend that investors remain at least equal weight equities in balanced portfolios and at least equal weight spread product within bond allocations. We enthusiastically endorse our bond colleagues’ overweight TIPS recommendation. When nearly everyone agrees that a particular outcome cannot happen, it is often worth carving out some space in a portfolio in the event it actually does.   Doug Peta, CFA Chief U.S. Investment Strategist dougp@bcaresearch.com   Footnotes 1 Please see Table 1 of the April 8, 2019 U.S. Investment Strategy Weekly Report, “If We Were Wrong,” available at usis.bcaresearch.com

Special Report

Feature BCA Research (aka The Bank Credit Analyst) published its first report in 1949, a remarkable 70 years ago. This probably makes us the longest-running independent investment research firm in the world. As we age, it is normal to occasionally reflect on how the world has changed over the course of our lives. It is an interesting exercise in the case of BCA. We need to start with a little history. The Bank Credit Analyst began life as a small-circulation newsletter produced by Hamilton Bolton, a Montreal-based money manager. He had been sending out investment commentary to his clients for some time and was encouraged to start catering to a wider audience. Bolton was a visionary because he was one of the few market analysts at that time to understand the importance of money and credit in driving economic and market cycles. In those days, banks were the dominant financial intermediary, so an analysis of flows through the banking system provided accurate and leading signals about economic and market trends. That is why he named his new service “The Bank Credit Analyst”. Bolton developed a series of monetary-based indicators that allowed him to make some great market calls. He passed away in 1967, but his valuable contribution to financial research was acknowledged in 1987 when the CFA Institute posthumously awarded him the prestigious “Outstanding Contribution to Investment Research Award”.1 Hamilton Bolton was a product of his times in that his worldview was influenced heavily by having lived through the Great Depression. Like many of his generation, he had a strong aversion to excessive debt growth, and was highly sensitive to any buildup of financial imbalances that could tip the economy back into a severe downturn. In fact, widespread fears of renewed depression did not really fade until the late 1950s. That psychology helps explain why policymakers were complicit in allowing inflation to take hold in the 1960s because there is a common tendency to fight the last war. As long as depression/deflation is seen as the primary threat, then there will be complacency about inflation risks. Does This Sound Familiar? Let’s look at some of the conditions that existed in 1949, when The Bank Credit Analyst started publication. The U.S. long-term Treasury yield had been capped at 2.5% since April 1942. At the request of the Treasury Department, the Fed had given up control of the money supply by buying whatever bonds were needed to keep yields below 2.5%, in order to support the financing of war-inflated budget deficits. The level of federal debt was down from its wartime peak of 106% of GDP, but was still at a historically high 77.5%. The European and Japanese economies were in a complete mess, having been devastated during the war. As already noted, fears of renewed deflation and depression were prevalent. Inflation was tame with the U.S. personal consumption deflator declining by 0.8% in 1949 and rising by only 1.2% in 1950. There was considerable geopolitical upheaval. Most notably, the Cold War intensified as Russia extended its control over East Europe and other countries. Mao Zedong founded the People’s Republic of China in October 1949 after his communist forces defeated the Kuomintang led by Chiang Kai-shek. There were serious border clashes between North and South Korea in August 1949, a prelude to the North’s invasion in June 1950. It does not require a huge stretch of the imagination to see some parallels with the current environment. We currently are having (or have had): Massive central bank purchases of government debt (i.e. quantitative easing) and the explicit pegging of bond yields by the Bank of Japan. A huge increase in government debt levels, albeit not because of war-related spending. In a remarkable coincidence, U.S. federal debt reached 77.8% of GDP in fiscal 2018, almost exactly the same level as in 1949. The European and Japanese economies are moribund. However, unlike in 1949, this reflects structural forces, not war-related devastation. There are widespread fears about the long-run economic growth outlook, well captured by the secular stagnation thesis, promoted by Larry Summers. Central bankers are concerned that inflation is too low. Geopolitical concerns abound. These include U.S.-China tensions, Brexit, Korea (again), rising populism and Russia’s more aggressive stance on the world stage. In the end, the fears of 70 years ago that the world might slip back into depression proved unfounded. The 1950s and 1960s, for the most part, turned out to be golden decades for consumers, businesses and equity investors. Unfortunately, this does not mean that we can look forward to a repeat experience in the decades ahead, because we must now turn to the major differences between the present and the past. The Past Worked Out Just Fine The conditions for an economic boom in the 1950s and 1960s could hardly have been better. The U.S. armed forces employed more than 12 million men and women at the end of WWII, 7.6 million of whom were stationed overseas. After the war, these people were desperate to get back to a normal life, with civilian jobs, marriage and children. The inevitable result was a population boom and a surge in growth as pent-up demand for housing and consumer goods was unleashed. It was all aided by the 1944 G.I. Bill that provided low-cost mortgages and many other benefits. The improvement in economic growth boosted government tax receipts and, coupled with a drop in defense spending, this kept fiscal finances in check. During the 1950s and 1960s, the federal deficit averaged less than 1% of GDP and debt had fallen to less than 30% of GDP by 1969. This occurred despite a surge in federal infrastructure spending, helped by the Federal Highway Act of 1956 that authorized the construction of an interstate highway system. Meanwhile, the economy did not appear to be impeded by tax rates that were far above current levels. The reconstruction of the European economies was a monumental task that was beyond the financing capabilities of those shattered countries. However, between 1948 and 1951, the U.S. European Recovery Program (The Marshall Plan) transferred $100 billion in 2018 dollars to aid the recovery effort and this helped Europe get back on its feet. There also was a huge amount of U.S. aid to support the rebuilding of Japan. Economic growth in Japan averaged almost 9% a year in the 1950s and more than 10% in the 1960s. In Germany, the comparable figures were 7.7% and 4.2%. The growth of the world economy also was boosted by steady reductions in tariffs during the 1950s and 60s. The most notable was the Kennedy Round of 1964-67 that achieved a 38% weighted average drop in tariffs. Protectionism was in strong retreat in the decades after WWII. Finally, a word on the markets. At the end of 1949, the S&P 500 was trading at seven times trailing earnings while the dividend yield was at 6¾%. The market’s earnings yield of 14% compared to a 2.2% yield on 30-year Treasuries. In other words, stocks were incredibly cheap. Moreover, when the 1951 Treasury-Federal Reserve Accord ended the bond peg, yields inevitably rose steadily over the subsequent years, making bonds a poor investment. In the 1950s, U.S. equities delivered real compound returns of 16.6% a year compared to -3.3% for 30-year bonds. In the 1960s, the annualized real returns were a still-respectable 5.3% for stocks and -1.4% for bonds. In sum, the two decades after the launch of the BCA were a very favorable time and it was largely due to a very depressed starting point. However, the current environment is very different to that of 70 years ago. It’s a Different Picture Now Perhaps the most important difference with the past is the demographic outlook. In contrast to the post-WWII baby boom, the U.S. and most other developed economies face bleak population dynamics. Almost all developed economies – and many emerging ones – have seen the birth rate drop below replacement levels with the result that population growth has slowed dramatically. In many cases, populations are in actual decline – especially in the important working-age segment. That deprives economic growth of its main driver. The annual potential growth of U.S. real GDP averaged 4% in the 1950s and 4.3% in the 1960s. Potential growth in the next decade will average only 1.8% a year, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). And it will be even lower in Europe and Japan. As far as pent-up demand is concerned, the picture also is very different. While the consumer industry works hard to develop new must-have goods and services, the reality is that demand is satiated for a lot of products. For example, in 2017, there were 259 million registered private and commercial autos and trucks in the U.S. compared to only 225 million licensed drivers. In 1950, the number of licensed drivers (62 million) far exceeded the number of registered vehicles (48 million). And it is hard to believe that the ownership penetration of most consumer durables has much upside. Turning to government finances, the current environment of bloated deficits and debt significantly constrains the room for fiscal stimulus. Yes, there is constant talk of the need for more infrastructure spending, but this has proven very difficult to implement without offsetting cuts in other spending or measures to boost revenues. The U.S. is saddled with unprecedented peacetime fiscal deficits and the CBO projects that federal debt will approach 100% of GDP within ten years, even without factoring in another recession. The comparison between the free trade era of the 1950s and 60s and the current situation speaks for itself. It is unclear at this stage just how far the move toward protectionism will go, but one thing seems clear. The rush toward globalization that followed the breakup of the Soviet Union and the entry of China into the global trading system is in retreat. This shows up not only in rising tariffs, but also in declining cross-border direct investment flows and increased antipathy to large-scale international migration. The irony is that the developed world needs more immigration to offset the weak growth in resident populations. What about the markets? The stock market certainly is not cheap, the way it was 70 years ago, with the S&P 500 trading at more than 18 times trailing operating earnings. Low interest rates are providing support, but future returns are likely to be in low single figures in a world where economic growth is moderate and there is little scope for profit margins and/or multiples to expand. Prospects for bonds do look somewhat similar to the situation in the early 1950s. Then, there was only one way for yields to go once the Fed’s peg ended. Today, yields will only fall sustainably if the economy sinks into a protracted downturn. We will get another recession in the next few years and yields could certainly hit new lows at that point. But the resulting policy response – both fiscal and monetary – seems almost certain to lead to higher inflation down the road. That would not bode well for the bond outlook, as was the case between the second half of the 1960s and the early 1980s. Concluding Thoughts Hamilton Bolton was fortunate to launch his new investment service ahead of a powerful economic revival and an almost two-decade bull market in stocks. He did not live long enough to witness the inflation upturn and volatile economic environment of the 1970s and 1980s, but BCA’s monetary focus allowed it to prosper during that period. Under the leadership of Tony Boeckh, the company’s then owner and Editor-in-Chief, BCA was strident in warning investors about the buildup of inflationary pressures and the dangers this posed for markets. During this time, BCA also developed the concept of the Debt Supercycle which helped investors understand the complex forces driving policy and the economic/market cycles. If Bolton was alive today, he would be horrified at the state of the world. He would not be able to understand how investors could be so complacent in the face of record government deficits and debt and by what he would regard as the reckless behavior of central banks. At the same time, he would be able to identify with the renewed focus on weak growth and deflation risks. The bottom line is that he would be advising investors to be extremely cautious. Investors currently are semi-obsessed with the timing of the next recession as that would be the signal to significantly downgrade risk assets. The official BCA stance is that a recession is not imminent and this creates a window for stocks to outperform. This matters for those investors who need to be concerned with relative performance. It is painful to sit on the sidelines if markets keep rising and you underperform your peers. However, for those more concerned with absolute performance, and that was true of most investors in Bolton’s time, the upside potential currently seems unattractive relative to the downside risks. Unfortunately, economists have a poor track record of forecasting recessions and bear markets thus often come as a complete surprise. Yes, low interest rates provide a floor under stocks, with the dividend yield comfortably above the 10-year Treasury yield. But rates are low for a reason: the economy and thus corporate earnings face major downside risks. Against this background, I would tend to side with what I imagine Bolton would say: this is a time to focus on capital preservation rather than taking risks to maximize returns. Let me try to end on a more positive note. As noted earlier, the long-term outlook turned out much better than Bolton probably anticipated 70 years ago. What could make that true this time around? Some things cannot be changed, at least over the next decade: adverse demographic trends, high ownership of consumer goods, and high levels of government debt. Geopolitical developments could go either way – for the better or worse – so I will make no predictions there. The one savior would be a marked revival in productivity because, ultimately, that is the only real source of rising living standards. Technology is changing rapidly and there are lots of exciting innovations. But to make a significant and lasting difference it will require more than developments such as autonomous vehicles or 3-D printing. We will need a new General Purpose Technology (GPT) that has a profound impact on the way economies and societies are structured. Previous examples include the steam engine, electricity and of course the internet. Perhaps Artificial Intelligence will do the trick, but that does not seem likely to be a near-term cure. Chart 1Then (1949) And Now (2019) In closing, we can be sure of one thing. The world changed in ways Hamilton Bolton could not have conceived and that also will be true for us today. BCA will endeavor to evolve with the times as it has done over the past 70 years and we look forward to keep helping our clients prosper in a complex and ever-changing world. 1949 – A Very Momentous Year Hamilton Bolton launches The Bank Credit Analyst The Peoples Republic of China, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) are founded Indonesia gains independence from the Netherlands The civil war in Greece ends NATO is established The Geneva Convention is agreed The Soviet Union detonates its first atomic bomb Apartheid becomes official policy in South Africa Alfred Jones creates the first hedge fund The first non-stop circumnavigation of the world by an aircraft occurs The first commercial jet airliner, the De Havilland Comet, has its maiden flight EDSAC – the first practicable stored-program computer runs its first program at Cambridge University Products introduced that year included Lego, the 45 rpm record, the first Porsche car and the Xerox photocopier. George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984 is published People born include Ivana Trump, Jeremy Corbyn, Benjamin Netanyahu, Meryl Streep and Bruce Springsteen 2019 – Not So Much Chaotic politics in the U.K., Italy and many other countries Trade wars   Martin H. Barnes, Senior Vice President Economic Advisor mbarnes@bcaresearch.com Footnotes 1 Previously known as the Nicholas Molodovsky Award  

Special Report

Feature Feature ChartNo 'Secular Stagnation' In Japan! Bond yields have plummeted to all-time lows and inflation has continued to undershoot the 2 percent target which central bankers tell us is ‘price stability’. This configuration has led to renewed fears that the European and global economies are entering a so-called ‘secular stagnation’. We strongly disagree with this line of thinking. Near-zero bond yields and inflation are categorically not portents of a long-term drought in economic progress. Quite the opposite. Chart I-2Japan Has Experienced Near-Zero Inflation For Decades Japan has experienced near-zero bond yields and inflation for decades (Chart I-2). Yet since the late 1990s, the growth in Japan’s real GDP per head has outperformed every other major economy1 (Feature Chart). Granted, the Japanese government has been running persistent deficits, but this is to counterbalance private sector de-levering. Total indebtedness as a share of GDP has not been rising. In the post credit boom era, Japan’s economic progress has come entirely from productivity improvements. The ability to learn, experiment, and innovate boosts the quality and/or quantity of output from a fixed set of inputs. Unlike the unsustainable growth that is fuelled by credit booms and asset bubbles, real growth that comes from productivity improvements marks genuine and sustainable economic progress. In Europe, Switzerland tells a similar tale. Swiss bond yields and inflation have been near zero for decades, but they have not defined a secular stagnation. Real GDP per head and living standards have steadily advanced, even from an already high base. In the post credit boom era, Japan’s economic progress has come entirely from productivity improvements.  But the best counterexample comes from economic history. At the height of the British Empire in 1914, British consumer prices were little different to where they stood at the end of the English Civil War in 1651 – meaning that Britain experienced near-zero inflation and low bond yields for almost three centuries (Chart I-3). Did these define a secular stagnation? No, quite the opposite. For Britain, this was a golden epoch in which it emerged as the world’s preeminent economy. Chart I-3Britain Experienced Near-Zero Inflation For Centuries The Real Reason For Near-Zero Inflation And Bond Yields The fear-mongering about a secular stagnation misses the real reason for today’s sub-2 percent inflation and record low bond yields. Central banks have wrongly defined price stability. Central banks have wrongly defined price stability because they think of it in terms of the economics and mathematics in which they have expertise. Their models tell them that they can nail inflation to one decimal place – two point zero. But price stability has as much to do with biology and psychology. Biologists will tell you that the human brain cannot distinguish inflation rates between -1 and 2 percent, a range we indistinguishably perceive as ‘price stability’. If biology teaches us that we cannot distinguish between -1 and 2 percent inflation, then central banks have a huge problem. It is impossible for a central bank to change our inflation expectations within that range, because the entire range just feels the same to us. Therefore, our behaviour in terms of wage demands and willingness to borrow will also stay unchanged. And if our economic behaviour is unchanged, what is the transmission mechanism to fine tune inflation within the -1 to 2 percent range? Central banks have wrongly defined price stability.  Therefore, price stability is actually like a ‘quantum state’. You’re in the state or you’re out of the state, but once you’re in the state you cannot then fine tune inflation to an arbitrary number like two point zero. In fact, average inflation over, say, five years will gravitate to the mid-point of the price stability state, 0.5 percent, which is a long way below the central bank’s arbitrary target of 2 percent (Chart I-4). This forces the central bank into drastic and prolonged monetary policy easing – which depresses bond yields (Chart I-5). Chart I-4Central Banks Have Wrongly Defined Price Stability... Chart I-5...Forcing Them To Depress Bond Yields Monetary Policies Will Ultimately Converge As structural credit booms have sequentially ended, economies have one by one entered the state of price stability. First it was Japan; then it was Switzerland; more recently it has been the euro area and the United States. It follows that the 5-year annualised inflation rates have also sequentially tumbled to the mid-point of the price stability state, around 0.5 percent. By which point, inflation is so far below the misplaced 2 percent target, that the central bank’s drastic and prolonged monetary policy easing has depressed the 5-year bond yield to near zero. Japan reached this point in the late 1990s, Switzerland in the early 2010s, and the euro area in the late 2010s. Begging the question: why has the 5-year inflation rate in the U.S. not tumbled towards 0.5 percent too?  The answer is that actually, it has. On a like-for-like basis, 5-year inflation rates are way below the 2 percent target in all the major jurisdictions. You see, the Americans measure inflation differently to the Europeans. In the U.S., the consumer price basket includes owner-occupied housing costs at a substantial weighting, while in Europe it is completely excluded. Using the same definition of inflation as in Europe, the U.S. 5-year inflation rate is not at 1.5 percent, it is at a feeble 0.6 percent (Chart I-6). Chart I-6On a Like-For-Like Basis, U.S. 5-Year Inflation Is A Feeble 0.6 Percent Crucially, on a like-for-like basis, 5-year inflation rates are way below the 2 percent target in all the major jurisdictions: the U.S., euro area, and Japan. This leads us to believe that the current chasm in monetary policies is unsustainable. Even including owner-occupied housing in the consumer price basket, as the U.S. does, the long run boost to annual inflation is only about 0.2 percent (Chart I-7). Meaning that it is only a matter of time before U.S. structural inflation and bond yields converge with those in the euro area. Chart I-7Owner-Occupied Housing Boosts Inflation, But In The Long Run By Only 0.2 Percent In the meantime, the chasm between monetary policies has become a major geopolitical risk. This is because it has depressed the euro versus the dollar by at least 10 percent – based on the ECB’s own competitiveness indicators. The exchange rate distortion stemming from polarised monetary policies is the culprit for the euro area’s huge trade surplus with the United States (Chart I-8). On this point, President Trump is spot on to complain that the Fed’s policy stance relative to other central banks is severely handicapping U.S. manufacturers. As the president tries to counter this handicap with tariffs, real or threatened, the Fed is being forced to lean against the risks to growth and inflation. Chart I-8Blame Polarised Monetary Policies For The Euro Area’s Huge Trade Surplus With The U.S. What Does All Of This Mean? One way or another, the dollar will come under structural pressure in the coming years as the current chasm in monetary policies proves to be unjustified. However, in the near term, we prefer to express this not via the euro, but via the yen. The corollary is that U.S bond yields will eventually converge with their European counterparts. But to reiterate, a world with near-zero inflation is categorically not a portent of secular stagnation. It is just the true state of price stability as the human brain perceives it, rather than the over-precise two point zero that central banks have arbitrarily picked. In turn, ultra-low bond yields stem from the monetary policy response to this massive undershoot of true price stability from central bank defined price stability.   All of this raises a fascinating question: if bond yields are lower than is truly required, why hasn’t it created a new inflation? The answer is that it has, but the new inflation is not in the real economy. The reason is that the world has just been through a structural credit boom, remains heavily indebted, and is still unwinding some of the credit excesses. In this world, as Japan has illustrated in recent decades, productivity growth must drive economic progress. Instead, the new inflation is in equity and other risk-asset prices. At ultra-low bond yields the prospect of bond capital gains diminishes versus potential losses, making bonds as risky as equities. This removes the need for an excess return on equities and other risk-assets versus bonds, meaning that the valuation of risk-assets inflates exponentially (Chart I-9). So long as bond yields remain depressed, this new inflation in risk-asset valuations is well justified and supported.2  But be very careful if the global 10-year bond yield rises above 2 percent.3   Dhaval Joshi, Chief European Investment Strategist dhaval@bcaresearch.com Footnotes 1 Based on real GDP per working age (15-64) population, but also broadly true for real GDP per total population. 2 Please see the European Investment Strategy Weekly Report “Risk: The Great Misunderstanding Of Finance”, October 25 2018, available at eis.bcaresearch.com. 3 The global 10-year bond yield is the simple average of 10-year government bond yields in the U.S., euro area (or France as a proxy), and China.