Bank of England Warns Pension Funds “You’ve Got Three Days to Wind Up Positions”

UK 10-Year Bonds (GILTs) courtesy of Trading Economics

You Have Three Days

Yahoo!Finance reports BOE’s Bailey Has a Message for Funds.

Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey urged investors to finish winding up positions that they can’t maintain, saying the central bank will halt intervention in the market as planned at the end of this week.

“My message to the funds involved and all the firms is you’ve got three days left now,” Bailey said at an event in Washington on Tuesday. “You’ve got to get this done.”

The Bank earlier on Tuesday expanded the range of its bond-buying program to include inflation-linked debt for the first time to avert what it called a “fire sale” that threatens financial stability. While the central bank has always said its support will end Friday, a lobby group representing UK pension funds had urged Bailey to extend the program at least until the end of the month.

The “essence” of an intervention to support financial stability “is that it is temporary,” Bailey said. “It’s not prolonged.”

Three-Point Synopsis

Market yields on UK “Gilts” surged on the news that Prime Minister Liz Truss’ plan to slash taxes while boosting borrowing. (red arrow 1).

The Bank of England calmed the markets a bit by offering temporary liquidity (red arrow 2).

Then Yesterday, the BOE said it would extend that liquidity to inflation-protected securities called “linkers” 

Today, the BOE redefined temporary as get out of Doge in three days. The market had already sensed the move as yields reacted in advance (red arrow 3).

30-Year Index-Linked Gilt Cash Price

So who wants to step in front of that train?

Bank of England Warns of ‘Material Risk’ to UK Financial Stability

CNBC reports Bank of England intervenes in bond markets again, warns of ‘material risk’ to UK financial stability

  • “Dysfunction in this market, and the prospect of self-reinforcing ‘fire sale’ dynamics pose a material risk to UK financial stability,” the Bank of England warned.
  • The move marks the second expansion of the central bank’s extraordinary rescue package in as many days, after it increased the limit for its daily gilt purchases on Monday ahead of the planned end of the purchase scheme.
  • “The beginning of this week has seen a further significant repricing of UK government debt, particularly index-linked gilts. Dysfunction in this market, and the prospect of self-reinforcing ‘fire sale’ dynamics pose a material risk to UK financial stability,” the bank said in a statement Tuesday.

Pound Dives 

The Guardian Reports Pound falls sharply against dollar after Bank confirms bond-buying end date

The pound has fallen sharply against the dollar after Andrew Bailey warned the Bank of England would not extend its emergency intervention in financial markets beyond this week, after the turmoil sparked by the government’s mini-budget.

Sterling skidded by more than a cent against the dollar to below $1.10 after the Bank’s governor insisted the £65bn scheme to purchase UK government bonds would not be continued beyond the deadline on Friday.

The central bank had started the day by saying it would revamp the scheme’s bond-buying firepower – within the existing timeframe – for a second time in as many days, warning there were still “material risks” in government debt markets affecting UK pension funds.

However, it ended with Bailey saying the intervention must end this week, telling an event organised by the Institute of International Finance in Washington: “We have announced that we will be out by the end of this week. We think the rebalancing must be done.

Timeline 

  • September 6 – Reuters: Liz Truss Vows Tax Cuts After Winning Vote to be Next British PM
  • September 25 – UK Independent: Liz Truss Warned on Tax Cuts 
  • October 1 – BBC: Liz Truss Admits Disruption After Tax Cut Pledges 
  • October 3 Reuters: Truss Forced Into U-turn on Tax After Week of Market Turmoil
  • October 4 – Politico: Donald Trump Praises Liz Truss’ Tax Cuts
  • October 5 – CNBC: Liz Truss Pledges Tax-Cutting Future in Landmark Speech Plagued by Protest and Political Infighting
  • October 11 – The Guardian: Pound Falls Sharply Against Dollar After Bank Confirms Bond-Buying End Date
  • October 11 – CNBC: Bank of England Intervenes in Bond Markets Again, Warns of ‘Material Risk’ to UK Financial Stability

Fire Sale

https://twitter.com/CntrlPimpernel/status/1579910243014017024

What’s It Mean to Pensions?

Global Risk and a Word About Derivatives

Hoot of the Day

Question of the Day

Is anything broken yet?

This post originated at MishTalk.Com

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65 Comments
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Counter
Counter
3 years ago
Last week news timed to market level. I look for “news” events at key levels. Also it was nice of them to allow underfunded pensions to use leverage near the highs.
The Fed’s mistakes created a threat to financial stability – and ‘there’s no ladder out of this hole,’ Mohamed El-Erian warns
No mistakes, they new exactly what would happen
Counter
Counter
3 years ago
Reply to  Counter
The bond volatility MOVE index is soaring, approaching 2008 levels. At 155.57, 2020 high 109.57, 2008 high 214
Bam_Man
Bam_Man
3 years ago
“Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly.”
Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
3 years ago
That a prolonged period of near-zero interest rates would cause structural economic problems was patently obvious to anyone who understands the time value of money. As always, the low hanging fruit theory is in effect.
Do not think that the US is immune to the problems confronting Britain, EU, Japan, etc. The US is higher up the tree, and may likely rot before it falls to the ground.
The other possibility is Wall Street worms are already at work, gnawing from the inside. Which bank will be the first to break, keeping in mind,…
“There is a swathe of derivative markets that use Sovereign debt as their underlying collateral.
Volatility breeds massive default risk on small margins.”
That, in the proverbial nutshell, is the issue–a market measured in quadrillions.
Salmo Trutta
Salmo Trutta
3 years ago
What will break the markets is a remuneration rate above money market rates (wholesale funding rates), aka, the 2019 repo spike (payment on interbank demand deposits higher than 1yr treasury bill). I.e., a monetary policy error. Banks are not intermediary financial institutions.
Salmo Trutta
Salmo Trutta
3 years ago
Reply to  Salmo Trutta
Bill Mitchell has a good read on asset and liability mismatches.
The last week in Britain demonstrates key MMT propositions – Bill Mitchell – Modern Monetary Theory (economicoutlook.net)
KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
Europe seems doomed. Out biggest ally. Not only are they broke and in desperate need of cheap energy. They’re also being flooded with non productive refugees whose culture, if allowed to prosper, will make them a 3rd world area. If Europe goes down, where does that leave the US? I guess we’ll still ally with Australia, Japan, Canada, and South Korea. But, I can easily see the Asian countries and Australia pivoting toward Asia.
Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
3 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn
How is ‘broke and in desperate need of cheap energy’ and ‘being flooded with non productive refugees’ different from the USA? FYI, I define broke as living beyond your means, aka perpetual Federal deficits.
billybobjr
billybobjr
3 years ago
The west is in the everything needs a bailout or stimulus and the frequency and size of these will increase with time till something breaks.
Like dominoes lined up if one is allowed to fall a thousand go down because the one is allowed to fall . They can’t take that risk.
Its the debt that western governments politicians have accumulated over the last several decades that is causing these events.
Basically unearned money pushes out earned money and causes the distortions . Eventually there will be no where to hide.
Eventually the music will stop and there will be very few chairs to sit in . It is the negligence of these governments that
have created this over time . They will blame everyone and everything but themselves . Simply it is the inability of governments
to tell the people NO and that hard choices have to be made at the individual level and the collective level because we
can’t afford all the things we think we want or we are going to have to sacrifice some things to get other things .
Sunriver
Sunriver
3 years ago
Question of the day.
How is it that Gold AND Silver have been range bound for years?
If the theory is that strong confidence in central banks is causing this, when does the confidence end?
PapaDave
PapaDave
3 years ago
Reply to  Sunriver

Can’t speak to silver. But gold is a dead asset. Its the only commodity we explore for, dig up, refine, make coins and bars, and then bury them back underground in vaults, without ever using it (other than a little bit of jewelry and electronics).

A thousand years from now it will still be sitting in those vaults, doing nothing. Yet there will always be people who worship at golds altar. Its one of the most ridiculous things we do.
Its a waste of time and merely ties up otherwise productive capital.
MarkraD
MarkraD
3 years ago
Reply to  PapaDave
“…one of the most ridiculous things we do.”
Bitcoin
PapaDave
PapaDave
3 years ago
Reply to  MarkraD
Agree.
prumbly
prumbly
3 years ago
Reply to  PapaDave
Similarly TV, cinema, theater, sports, art, religion, literature, computer games etc are all a waste of time and tie up otherwise productive capital.
“A thousand years from now it will still be sitting in those vaults, doing nothing”. That’s the beauty of it. Who will still want to own Bitcoin or the USD in a thousand years? Gold is eternal.
PapaDave
PapaDave
3 years ago
Reply to  prumbly
And how does that help you now?
Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago
Reply to  prumbly
These things keep the moron masses placated. Civilization collapses when the stupid get bored.
Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
3 years ago
Reply to  prumbly
Strangely, some of those things you list as ‘waste of time and tie up otherwise productive capital’ have in the past been what define a culture, and are among our most treasured things.
What PapaDave decries in ignorance: “A thousand years from now it (gold) will still be sitting in those vaults, doing nothing…” is, in fact, clear evidence that gold has VALUE through the centuries. If it did not have value, it would have been replaced long ago by something that did have value. Gold might not be ‘eternal’, but at this point in time, it is the next best thing.
Unfortunately, he fails to understand basic logic and human behavior because his mind is closed .
Winn
Winn
3 years ago
Reply to  Captain Ahab
True, gold as money its valuable. You can’t fake and limited.
Paper currency as money you can print as much as you like.
Finally there is crisis.
A Dose of Reality 5
A Dose of Reality 5
3 years ago
Swap some 30 yr US Bonds for some Gilts? Perhaps in times past, before QT.
When will our brothers accross the pond go from pounds to dollars? Sort of like when Yucca mountain will open up to nuclear waste. You can choose to take action early and have a say in terms or have action forced upon you later.
Something is very close to broken.
MPO45
MPO45
3 years ago
When do all the Brexit benefits kick in? I thought being detached from the EU would mean the UK would turn into the land of milk and honey, free of all that onerous regulations the country would fly! Or is the theory that it would be much worse if the UK were still in the EU?
Looks like kicking out all those immigrants is causing revenue loss. Gee, who would have thought.
MarkraD
MarkraD
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45
Brexit was one of Russia’s IRA social media influencing successes, a cautionary tale for America and NATO.
An economic downturn is where the EU gives its members strength, this is where the U.K. will feel the pains, sad to say.
prumbly
prumbly
3 years ago
Reply to  MarkraD
Love the way Russia gets blamed for everything liberals don’t like. Trump, Brexit, inflation, economic collapse, etc
CA2020
CA2020
3 years ago
Reply to  prumbly
Love how Conservatives/Commie’s love Russia and Putin now.
KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
Reply to  CA2020
Perfect example.
Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45
Has the fat lady sung yet? No, I didn’t think so. Some of us here, suspect this is only the beginning of the beginning.
dtj
dtj
3 years ago
3 more days. Or else. We mean it this time. Just kidding! We’ll bail you out next week, and the week after that and on to infinity.
PapaDave
PapaDave
3 years ago

This is why individuals should not rely on government pensions, and should work hard to become independently wealthy. Then if you get a govt pension, its a bonus.I find it odd that so many here never seem to talk about their investments and becoming financially independent. Instead, they just want to complain about the government.

MPO45
MPO45
3 years ago
Reply to  PapaDave
Agree and in America when the republicans take control and cut social security and medicare it will become abundantly apparent that government won’t save anyone.
I loaded up on another $20k 4, 8, and 13 week T-bills this week. I also bought back my OXY Oct 21 $65 strike calls back. Will sell them again when oil spikes again, maybe later this week. PPI numbers out tomorrow then CPI. Selling naked puts and covered calls on OXY has made me add another railcar to the money train. Choo! Choo!
PapaDave
PapaDave
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45
Excellent! Take advantage of the volatility. Today I was buying back some of the oils I sold last week.
Earning season starts at the end of Oct for the oils. I’m expecting continued spectacular results.
Every day over $80 WTI is a fantastic day.
KidHorn
KidHorn
3 years ago
Reply to  PapaDave
Are you logging in under different accounts and praising your posts under different names?
PapaDave
PapaDave
3 years ago
Reply to  KidHorn
Absolutely! I have three different logins. PapaDave, RonJ and KidHorn.
hmk
hmk
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45
Quit spouting that bs crap about republicans cutting ss and medicare. Seriously get a grip.
PapaDave
PapaDave
3 years ago
Reply to  hmk
He isn’t going to. Why don’t you just hit the ignore button on him? Then you would never see it. That’s what I do so I don’t have to see the people who complain 24/7 and never offer any investment suggestions.
Personally, I very much like MPO’s posts because so many of them include practical investment discussions.
By the way, I thought Republicans platforms always include cuts to healthcare.
hmk
hmk
3 years ago
Reply to  PapaDave
They thought about repealing Obama care but couldn’t get it off the ground when they had control of all three branches under the first two years of Trump. I wish they would of repealed it, my insurance premiums doubled and my coverage when to a 15k deductible from practically nothing. Worst program ever for those not getting “free ” Obamacare. Single payer is inevitable after they keep screwing around with healthcare and make everything worse. Typical US response; they will eventually do the right thing after screwing everything up trying and failing.
PapaDave
PapaDave
3 years ago
Reply to  hmk
The US will never go single payer. Too much money to be made by vested interests. And yes, the current system is only going to get more expensive.
As always, my solution is to invest wisely, become financially secure, and be able to afford your
health care premiums.
Because you can’t change it.
Zardoz
Zardoz
3 years ago
Reply to  hmk
The republicans keep saying they’ll do it. Are they lying, or unelectable?
MarkraD
MarkraD
3 years ago
Reply to  PapaDave
I have had quite a few enlightening exchanges over the years here, one of very few comment sections where you have a better chance of agreeably disagreeing.
I used to post here under a different name before Mish’s forum move, lost my password.
I have also gleaned a few decent trade ideas here, and yes, a few Russian trolls grace our presence as well.
One interesting idea you might try, I occasionally read Zerohedge commentors when they post market or economics “news”, it’s a great place to glean contrarian advice, they guaranteeably try to talk market dips down because “western central planning is failing” or “the deep state is stealing your money”…etc.
The point is that successful traders aren’t willing to share their secrets, but bad players will intentionally give you the wrong advice and there is a VAST amount of bad trading advice on the internet
I 2020 they were fear mongering that Putin was going to keep oil prices low for infinity, it was obvious what they were doing so I bought oil stocks at $12 a barrel. I’m fairly certain that site is Russian controlled, by default they give bad or misleading advice to Americans and Europeans.
PapaDave
PapaDave
3 years ago
Reply to  MarkraD
I cannot stomach reading zero hedge. I do not know who is behind it (Russian or whatever). And I simply don’t have the extra time anyway. But thank you for the suggestion.
I follow quite a few legitimate investors on twitter. Learned about Eric Nuttall from someone here. Amrita Sen, Helima Croft, OilPrice.com, Josh Young, etc
MarkraD
MarkraD
3 years ago
Reply to  PapaDave
Zerohedge’s founder is the son of a retired KGB agent, he was banned for insider trading in the U.S.
I’ve heard speculation they work for Yevgeny Prigozhin, the Wagner group/IRA guy.
The oil bet I made in 2020 was well worth navigating the noxious comments, and, it felt pretty good knowing I beat Putin’s manipulation game.
They also invested a lot of time bashing TSLA & Elon Musk over the years, that was a great bet too.
Mark Hulbert from Marketwatch has a theory based on the idea that assumes 50% of all advice is honest, and of the honest ones, 50% are unintentionally wrong, which leaves only 1/3rd of all advice as correct, he takes consensus and assumes the opposite, his “formula” is humorously effective.
Sites like Zerohedge gives you an edge on that theory, knowing their advice is more likely intentionally bad, especially when it meshes with their anti-west agenda.
I generally make my own plays, sourcing things like AAII sentiment and known garbage sites like ZH help me aggregate a more well rounded estimate for the market.
PapaDave
PapaDave
3 years ago
Reply to  MarkraD

Good to know. And a good strategy. Thanks.

RonJ
RonJ
3 years ago
Reply to  MarkraD
Zero Hedge: “As we warned three weeks ago…” garbage indeed.
MarkraD
MarkraD
3 years ago
Reply to  RonJ
Zero Hedge has successfully predicted 50 of the last two market declines.
FromBrussels2
FromBrussels2
3 years ago
Oh but, the US of A will bail out its faithful accomplice in geopolitical crime, won t it ? If you can print 60 bln, and ticking, for a corrupt(thank gowd) nazi, pirate nest, you can print at least 600 bln for a ‘real’ friend, can t you ?? Another solution of course is to keep on provoking Russia, forcing it to retaliate in a hitherto unseen manner , then bankrupt western governments can finally blame their disastrous demise on ….Putin… Who else ?…. The future looks nice with a utterly criminal nation(US) on the one hand and a bunch of idiots on the other hand (EU) ! Don t it ?
Bam_Man
Bam_Man
3 years ago
Reply to  FromBrussels2
I’ll post this quote again for you my friend.
“To be an enemy of the United States can be dangerous. To be its friend is fatal.”
— Henry Kissinger
Dean2020
Dean2020
3 years ago
Just wait until housing prices crater and unemployment spikes. Central planners around the world are being rendered powerless. Protect your assets and grab some popcorn.
Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
3 years ago
Reply to  Dean2020
Buckshot, not popcorn.
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
“It’s not the pension funds that are the issue, nor even the grossly overleveraged LDI markets.
There is a swathe of derivative markets that use Sovereign debt as their underlying collateral.
Volatility breeds massive default risk on small margins”
This is the heart of the matter. The OTC swap market is the trillions of exposure they are talking about however by nature the total swaps net to zero from a macro view. Unfortunately from a micro view for every winner there is a loser and that is the problem. The Bank of England is telling them to unwind your swaps now because the Bank will no longer cover for you. It is a return to sanity in my opinion.
Mish
Mish
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
Agree
MarkraD
MarkraD
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
Interesting, level headed, nonincendiary interpretation.
TexasTim65
TexasTim65
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
The fact the pensions are doing this (over leverage) in the first place is because rates were so low for so long that they had no safe yields and would have been unable to pay out long term due to drawdowns being too fast. So they leveraged up to meet payouts.
Plenty of US pensions doing the same here including public ones like CALPERS.
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  TexasTim65
Very true. The need for yield and performance pushes them into higher risk. Most managers know this danger but if they don’t do it they will be fired and replaced by someone who will take on the risk. Ultimately the fault lies not in the stars but in the pensioners themselves who collectively demand more money in their pockets and don’t care where it comes from or how much risk is taken on.
Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
3 years ago
Reply to  TexasTim65
The real problem was negative real rates–inflation ran rampant through the capital markets, however, it did not affect the Fed until it got into the CPI.
MPO45
MPO45
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
I wonder who those insurance underwriters are that guarantee all this debt/default? A prudent investor would be looking at possibly shorting these companies but I would’t know anything about that…..(quiet profiting). Perhaps someone can look at which insurance companies were bailed out during the last fiasco.
MarkraD
MarkraD
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45
Reminds me of AIG & CDS’s.
MPO45
MPO45
3 years ago
Reply to  MarkraD
Indeed. A prudent investor would be taking a look at all the PUT option contracts on AIG and perhaps find that January 2024 have unusual volume of puts but don’t ask me cause I’m not one to gossip.
MarkraD
MarkraD
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45
Piqued, so I peeked, interesting
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45
AIG now is nothing like AIG in 2008.
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  MarkraD
AIG’s basic insurance business was well-run and nicely profitable. The problem was that a small team of unregulated swap traders in London used AIG’s balance sheet as collateral to buy way too much paper that gave a good return in good times but rapidly turned toxic in bad times. There were insurance companies that were prudent and were ready to buy parts of AIG’s businesses but then the government bailed out AIG. The prudent insurance companies then felt screwed because they were careful and AIG not and AIG comes out on top not because they were good but because they were too big to fail.
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  MPO45
To do that you would have to target the institutions who took the losing side of the Gilt swaps and not only that but the ones who have the “toxic” high-leveraged swaps. The vast majority of swaps are vanilla but a few are really kinky so you have to find the companies whose traders are heavily into kinky paper and whose risk managers are lousy and have no power to police them. They don’t have to be financial institutions either, just dumb with a big balance sheet and we have a wealth of companies like that.
hmk
hmk
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
What I don’t understand how this is even legal for a pension fund? I could see hedge funds etc doing this but pension funds I thought were legal bound to conservative non leveraged investments.
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  hmk
It depends on the pension fund’s bylaws. Pension funds are considered sophisticated investors by securities law and are assumed to be run by people who know their business. Generally companies do not like their pension funds to blow up so they should monitor what their pension fund is investing in. That is the theory. In practice it can be very difficult for management to understand what is really going on especially if your people are using exotic swaps to hedge their positions.
Captain Ahab
Captain Ahab
3 years ago
Reply to  Doug78
Hey, we AGREE!!!!! I commented on the derivative issue above. The swaps are a nightmare.
However, a ‘return to sanity’ might not happen when Wall Street starts to teeter.
Doug78
Doug78
3 years ago
Reply to  Captain Ahab
When anything starts to teeter it is common sense to get off.
Six000mileyear
Six000mileyear
3 years ago
Given the urgency of the marching orders, the condition is beyond placing a band aid over a gaping wound.
worleyeoe
worleyeoe
3 years ago
Coming to America soon. Hooray!

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