Chinese Interest Rates
Are Spiking Again, And Jim Chanos Thinks We're Witnessing A
'Bit Of A Banking Crisis'
While the Fed's decision to taper back its monthly asset purchase
program to $75 billion has received a lot of attention, many have
overlooked the news out of China.
The seven-day repurchase rate was up to a six-month high of 7.6%
in Shanghai on Friday. It closed at 7.06% on Thursday. The
People's Bank of China [PBoC] injected money through short-term
liquidity operations on Thursday.
We already saw a severe credit crunch in China back in June, and
some are worried that we're going to see a repeat of that.
Hedge fund manager Jim Chanos described this week's run up in
money market rates as "a bit of a banking crisis," in a CNBC
interview.
Patrick Chovanec of Silvercrest Asset Management tweeted that
China's banks have "huge off balance sheet cash obligations like
wealth management products that come due and they "rely on
continued injections of new cash to stay liquid, otherwise they
default."
But why are rates rising now? China's move to let the market
determine interest rates and not conduct reverse repos have
weighed on liquidity. "One theory which could quickly attract
audience for its simplicity is that the omnipotent PBoC
intentionally guided interbank rates higher to force banks and
their clients to deleverage," writes Bank of America's Ting Lu.
"The People's Bank of China [PBoC] knew that the bottom-up
interest rate liberalization pushed up short-end rates and bond
yields, so even Shibor rose, credit growth remains high (such as
the case in November). If the PBoC wants to contain credit growth,
it’s forced to allow interbank rates to rise."
Ting characterizes this as some confusion on the part of the
central bank and writes that "with its limited predictability of
flows and its insensitivity to market reactions, the PBoC finds it
much more likely than before to make operation mistakes."
Many argue that the central bank's efforts to impose discipline
haven't been fruitful. "With its limited predictability of flows
and its insensitivity to market reactions, the PBoC finds it much
more likely than before to make operation mistakes," writes Ting.
The Shanghai Composite is down 1.65%.