Tuesday, November 27, 2012

I know what you thought last year

Beyond everyone’s forecast, European economies are now the biggest sufferers of the US subprime crisis

Exactly one year back The Economist in an article titled ‘At risk of infection’ had written “Economists are most nervous about who or what might sink into America’s property swamp.” While reading that article the Europeans must not have thought that it will be them, who will sink because of an American fault. And that’s where things went wrong. As a result, today all the economic indicators are overwhelmingly pointing to the fact that the European economy is now sinking and shrinking under the spill over effects of the US subprime crisis.

What began as a problem in a single sector, in a single economy (US housing market) has today metastasized into severe dislocations in broader credit and funding market. The crisis has moved beyond the US and subprime market to prime real estates markets, consumer credits and corporate credit markets. Amid such a milieu the spill over of the man made crisis in the global financial market is being governed by the trio comprising – weakening balance sheet, continuing de-leveraging process and the burgeoning challenges of the macroeconomic environment. Says Tine Olsen, Economist, Moody’s Economy, “A year after the subprime shock, the global economy is still suffering, and the end of the credit crisis is nowhere in sight.”

In fact a year after the genesis of the subprime shock, similar features are beginning to emerge in Europe. Be it losses in terms of subprime, ABS (asset backed securities), ABS CDOs (credit default obligation) or Conduits/SIV (special investment vehicle), Europe is only next to US. Signs of a downturn are becoming all the more evident in European housing market. Market prices of property derivatives today are suggestive of an outright home price decline in the UK with a time lag of around two years (wrt US). At a time when the lenders are tightening standards, many borrowers of fixed rates in UK are set to witness a rate increase of 100 to 200 basis points (bps). This will in all certainty add to yet another source of stress in the already stressed market. It is but obvious that with an increased stress (result of the spill over) write offs and repossessions are set to increase.


Source : IIPM Editorial, 2012.

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