It never rains, it pours. Hot on the heels of the Bradford and Bingley saga, we wake up today to the news that mortgage lending has hit a record low.
Just 58,000 loans were made last month. That compares with 64,000 in March and 113,000 in April 2007. House prices will keep falling. But they’ll take their time — the market is drying up, with many would-be sellers pulling out of deals rather than dropping their prices.
It’s like a massive staring contest between buyers and sellers. Who will blink first? My money’s on the sellers — once they realise prices aren’t recovering any time soon, they’ll bite the bullet and drop them. Just a little bit... Then a little bit more...
So what’s the upshot for the housing market? A ‘soft landing’ or a short, sharp shock? And what about the economy?
Let’s start with housing. Fundamentally, houses are too expensive. But it’s hard to say how far and how fast they’re going to fall.
It all comes down to affordability. In theory, it should be easy to calculate the ‘correct’ level for house prices. How much do people earn, and what multiple of that can they affordably borrow? Run the numbers, and you get an idea of where house prices ‘should’ be.
But here’s where it gets tricky. We can get wage data pretty easily. But many would-be buyers have other capital to draw on. First-time buyers regularly rely on borrowing from parents, for example.
And besides, many current homeowners have demonstrated they’re all too willing to buy at a price considerably above what they can afford. Who’s to say the rest have learned from their mistakes?
Both of these factors make it hard to say exactly how far house prices need to fall to be ‘affordable’. But the good news, from our perspective, is that it doesn’t really matter. We’re confident we know which way they’re going, and that tells us a lot when it comes to where we should (and shouldn’t) invest.
Let’s move onto the wider economy. If house prices are coming down slowly, does that mean a ‘soft landing’ for the economy too? And is this preferable to a short, sharp shock?
Again, I think it’s going to take its sweet time sorting itself out. And here’s the kicker — the longer it takes, the greater the likelihood of a recession. I’ll explain why in just a second.
First, I want to answer the question of which we should be rooting for — the gentle decline or the brutal shock. My terminology is deliberately chosen to reflect the way I suspect the Government will view it.
The argument against a short shock can be summarised in one word — hysteresis. Hysteresis is the economic phenomenon of path dependency. A shock, so the argument goes, sets in train a series of events that can become self-sustaining.
An example would be long-term mass unemployment. If a large number of people are put out of work in one go, not all of them will find alternative employment quickly. Those that don’t will become deskilled, demotivated and will find it harder to get back into work. The shock, therefore, delivers its own persistent structural problem.
I think this argument has a lot of merit. But I still believe facing the inevitable, and quickly, is the preferable course of action. It all comes down to our irascible, temperamental friend Sentiment.
The longer this uncertainty drags on, the more entrenched negative sentiment will become. This will make a recession not only more likely, but more difficult to get out of.
Sadly I reckon this is exactly the scenario we’re facing. A long, drawn out recession. A few false dawns, with everyone, their confidence battered, scurrying for cover again at the first wobble.
The investment lesson is clear. Avoid companies with a high level of exposure to the British consumer. This would include most banks and retailers.
Put your money with firms whose profits aren’t wholly dependent on the spending habits of Mr and Mrs UK.
Because Mr and Mrs UK are about to go into hibernation...
Soros Watch: George warns of oil bubble
Back in 1992, when he was single-handedly forcing the pound out of the Exchange Rate Mechanism, George Soros was Mr Hot Money himself. What a difference sixteen years makes!
Today, oil is around $127 a barrel. And Gorgeous George has bounced into the debate on his Space Hopper of Righteousness. He warns that there is "a bubble in the making" — too many speculators in the oil market.
Soros will tell US lawmakers that oil is not a proper asset class. He says it is desirable to discourage commodity index investing, though not by regulation.
We’re not quite sure what to make of these comments. Cynics that we are, we tend to assume, as a jumping-off point, that investment bigwigs rarely make public comments unless they have a position to talk up.
"Soros is wary that too many speculators on one side of the market will cause a crash," explains birthday boy Theo Casey of Fleet Street Research fame. "Of course, Soros is a past master at sweeping up profits in this kind of crash.
"But I think there’s a difference this time. I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt, and say he’s simply offering advice from the goodness of his heart."
I’m not sure if Theo’s being sarcastic there. And I can’t really ask him outright — it is his birthday.
Brown getting confident over 42 day proposal
Home secretary Jacqui Smith has been doing the rounds of backbenchers. She’s aiming to drum up support for Gordon Brown’s proposal to increase the maximum duration terror suspects can be held without charge to 42 days.
Sadly, it seems to be working. The 42 day proposal is a massive issue; there’s not enough space to go into it here. But it does irritate me that this important debate has been reduced to the level of party politics.
Brown’s government has been pulling U-turns aplenty of late, which is why he’s so desperate to hold his ground on this one. Brown wants to win this so he can stand in front of a camera and say "See? I am strong! I am! I am! I am!"
This whole vote is being portrayed as a test of Brown’s leadership. But it’s far more important and fundamental than that. This debate concerns one of the most basic freedoms we have — the freedom to not be locked up if there’s no evidence to prove we’ve done something wrong.
Let’s hope those backbenchers don’t sacrifice basic freedoms just because they’re trying to save a drowning politician from himself.
It’s hurricane season. Where will oil go next?
Last year the meteorologists got it wrong. Hurricane gurus predicted a more-active-than-normal season. It didn’t happen.
But what about this time round? Well, as Garry White explains in today’s Smart Commodities, in an average season there are 11 storms that are big enough to be given a name. Of those, 6 go on to become hurricanes.
This time, though, we’re looking at between 12 and 16 named storms. And if just one of these is a) big enough and b) hits in the wrong place, it will create a major oil crunch.
Of course, they could be wrong again. But what if they’re not?
In 2005, Hurricane Rita and Hurricane Katrina caused a 93% evacuation of oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.
Now, with oil hitting record highs, any repeat will have an even bigger impact.
Find out what this means for oil investors in today’s FREE edition of Smart Commodities.
Until tomorrow
Ben Traynor
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