Dividendo do BCP escala no “ranking” dos mais atrativos da banca europeia

[Karamba]

A Europa está sempre atrasada cerca de 1 ano nos ciclos econímicos relativamente à economia americana. SE a economia americana estiver neste momento em fase de bottoming, na europa essa fase deveria acontecer dentro de 1 ano.

Previsivelmente as taxas de juro, continuarão muito baixas, sendo que o mercado começa a descontar a 1ª subida (pequena) nas fed funds só para o final de 2003. Na europa, só depois.
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Eric Chaney (Morgan Stanley-Europa)

Economic growth has come to a standstill in the last quarter of this year in the euro area. It will contract in the first three months of the New Year. The European Central Bank, which now focuses on risks to growth, will cut the refinancing rate by another 50 basis points. These are the tough conclusions we came to, looking very carefully at all the data and information we have in hand.

Bad news on the production and demand sides

Since the last time we froze our growth forecasts, in late November, most of the news from the real economy has been disappointing. Despite a very favourable base effect, the German Ifo index declined in both November and December, where, at 87.1, it was more than one point below the September level (88.2). French consumer spending took a surprising 1.7% dip in November, and Italian consumer confidence dropped three points in December. For the manufacturing sector alone, the entry point into the fourth quarter is particularly weak. Basing our calculations on national data, we believed that manufacturing production would contract by 1% in Q4, if there was no improvement in November-December, which, unfortunately, seems to have been the case. Consequently, we are cutting our Q4 GDP growth estimate from 0.2% (quarterly rate, non-annualised) to 0%.

GDP to contract in the first quarter of 2003

Looking forward, the economic outlook is unlikely to improve any time soon, in our view. Confronted with rising budget imbalances, especially with regards to welfare funds, governments are raising taxes. Germany had already decided to increase social security contributions -- payroll taxes -- now France is following suit. A last-minute agreement between unions and employers will result into a 0.6 p.p. rise in the unemployment insurance contribution, a levy that, alone, could slice one or two tenths from French GDP growth in the first quarter. At this stage, we expect the euro zone GDP to contract by 0.1% in Q1.

Full year (2003) GDP forecast cut from 1.4% to 1.0%

Recessions, even "mini recessions" as we think the current GDP growth pattern in Europe should be called, always come to an end and this one will not be an exception, in our opinion. However, we do not see growth picking up before late 2003, once some major uncertainties on Iraq and fiscal policies are removed. Then, as companies are running almost at "zero-stock," the cyclical rebound could be surprisingly strong. Even with that, the winter mini-recession we are now pricing in would not allow average GDP growth to be higher than 1% in 2003, we believe.

Euroland hit by uncertainties and lack of confidence

External factors cannot be invoked to explain the European stagnation. Indeed, the bad news came from the inside. First, Germany, the largest European economy, has not yet reversed the course of its decline. If anything, the unreasonable wage demands expressed by some unions will make things even worse. Second, governments are now paying for their lack of forward-looking vision during the good years of the business cycle. Managing fiscal policies was easy in 1998-2000, but now that growth is weak, they, once again, have to implement tighter fiscal policies. The Maastricht Treaty and the Stability Pact are not the main things responsible for that situation. Back in 1993, when there was no Stability and Growth Pact, fiscal policies also took a pro-cyclical direction, for the same reasons as today: governments simply have not enough leeway to let automatic stabilisers play. Added to the major uncertainties created by the eventuality of a war in Iraq, the hesitations surrounding economic policy options in the euro zone are extremely damaging for both business and consumer confidence, we believe.

ECB to take out further insurance against rising recession risk

With growth prospects likely to deteriorate significantly over the next couple of months, we now see the ECB lowering interest rates again in the first half of 2003. Recall the ECB's freshly released staff macro projections look for 2003 calendar-year GDP growth between 1.1 - 2.1%. Thus, our downwardly revised forecast of 1.0% for 2003 is not only significantly below the 1.6% mid-point of the ECB forecast, but even below the lower boundary of the ECB band. Given that the ECB Council is very focused on the potential downside risks to growth, the Bank will want to take out further insurance against the risk of a full-blown recession, as and when the incoming economic data continue to deteriorate over the next few months. The question in how much and when?

Toward new lows for ECB rates in the first quarter

In our view, another 50 basis points rate cut in the first quarter is the most likely outcome. We would expect this to come in one go rather than in installments of 25 bp, consistent with what we interpret as a shift towards a "go-for-growth" strategy initiated by the 50 bp rate cut in early December (see J. Fels & E. Bartsch, "ECB Goes for Growth", EuroTower Insights, 6 December 2002.) This would take the refi rate down to a new low of 2.25% by the spring. Even lower lows are conceivable in the case of a war in Iraq that would seriously hit consumer and business confidence. With money and bond markets not yet fully priced for a 50 bp cut, and with geopolitical risk on the rise, we can easily envisage bond yields dropping toward 4% or below in the course of the next few months.

Ironically, while the debate on an eventual double dip is being extinguished in the US, it is in the heart of industrial Europe that the double dip may eventually occur. We hope this will be a wake-up call for European governments and that they will not look for outside scapegoats for their misfortunes, as is too often the case.