Una
crisis que corre el riesgo de convertirse en interminable
La
banca vuelve al centro del huracán
Por
L. Doncel
El País, 06/09/11
Miedo a que
vuelva la recesión. Miedo a la bancarrota griega. Miedo a
que Europa se vea obligada a rescatar a más países, y que
esta vez sean de los grandes. Miedo a multas milmillonarias
procedentes de EEUU que acaben de empeorar los balances de
los bancos. Todos estos riesgos se aliaron ayer para pasar
como un ciclón por las Bolsas europeas haciendo que muchos
se acordaran de la pesadilla de hace tan solo un mes. La
diferencia es que ya no es agosto y no cabe la excusa de que
en verano unos pocos inversores pueden poner los mercados
del revés. Ahora va en serio.
El huracán de
la desconfianza pasó por los parqués de toda Europa, que
cayeron en torno al 5%. Los más castigados, el Eurostoxx y
el alemán Dax. La Bolsa española perdió un 4,69%, el
tercer mayor golpe en lo que va de año. El Ibex, como hace
un mes, ronda los 8.000 puntos, el nivel más bajo desde
principios de 2009, cuando parecía que el mundo estaba
viviendo lo peor de la Gran Recesión. Todo cayó ayer a
plomo, pero las que más sufrieron en Europa fueron las
entidades financieras. En Londres, el Royal Bank of Scotland
se dejó un 12%. En Francfort, el farolillo rojo se lo llevó
el Deutsche Bank y en París, Société Générale.
Como ya ocurrió
al principio de esta crisis que corre el riesgo de
convertirse en interminable –en el verano de 2007, cuando
explotaron las hipotecas subprime–, la banca está en el
centro del huracán. Lo está por su elevadísima exposición
a la deuda de los países en peor situación, especialmente
Grecia, pero también Irlanda, Portugal, España e Italia.
Lo está por las dudas sobre su necesidad de recapitalización,
que el fin de semana ha vuelto a poner de relieve la jefa
del Fondo Monetario Internacional, la francesa Christine
Lagarde. Y también lo está por la demanda que la Agencia
Federal de Vivienda de Estados Unidos ha puesto contra 17
entidades por provocar pérdidas en torno a 180.000 millones
de dólares (127.000 millones de euros al cambio actual) al
contribuyente tras vender hipotecas basura a las entidades
semipúblicas Freddie Mac y Fannie Mae.
"Dos
factores determinan el castigo a los bancos. El primero, la
exposición a activos que están perdiendo valor, como la
deuda soberana. Pero es que además su evolución está muy
relacionada con el ciclo económico. Y a medida que la
situación general se agrave, mayor será el deterioro de
esos activos y menor será la capacidad de compensar esas pérdidas
con ingresos complementarios", asegura Alfonso García
Mora, socio director de Analistas Financieros y experto en
banca.
De nuevo, como
ya ocurrió en 2008 y 2009, los problemas de los bancos se
convierten en problemas de todos. Porque la traslación de
sus dificultades a la economía real funciona de forma casi
automática. Y si hasta ahora el sector no ha vuelto a abrir
el grifo de la financiación para empresas y familias,
parece difícil que lo vaya a hacer a corto o medio plazo
con las perspectivas que ahora se entreven.
Soros:
“This
crisis has the potential to be
a lot worse than Lehman
Brothers”
In
Euro Zone, Banking Fear Feeds on Itself
By
Landon Thomas Jr. and Nelson D. Schwartz (*)
New
York Times, September 6, 2011 (**)
Remember
the collapse of Lehman Brothers? Europeans certainly do.
As
Europe struggles to contain its government debt crisis, the
greatest fear is that one of the Continent’s major banks
may fail, setting off a financial panic like the one sparked
by Lehman’s bankruptcy in September 2008.
European
policy makers, determined to avoid such a catastrophe, are
prepared to use hundreds of billions of euros of bailout
money to prevent any major bank from failing.
But
questions continue to mount about the ability of Europe’s
banks to ride out the crisis, as some are having a harder
time securing loans needed for daily operations.
American
financial institutions, seeking to inoculate themselves from
the growing risks, are increasingly wary of making new
short-term loans in some cases and are pulling back from
doing business with their European counterparts – moves
that could exacerbate the funding problems of European banks.
Similar
withdrawals, on a much larger scale, forced Lehman into
bankruptcy, as banks, hedge funds and others took steps to
shield their own interests even though it helped set in
motion the broader market crisis.
Turmoil
in Europe could quickly spread across the Atlantic because
of the intertwined nature of the global financial system. In
addition, it could further damage the already struggling
economies elsewhere.
“This
crisis has the potential to be a lot worse than Lehman
Brothers,” said George Soros, the hedge fund investor,
citing the lack of an authoritative pan-European body to
handle a banking crisis of this severity. “That is why the
problem is so serious. You need a crisis to create the
political will for Europe to create such an authority, but
there is still no understanding as to what the authority
will do.”
The
growing nervousness was reflected in financial markets
Tuesday, with stocks in the United States and Europe falling
1 percent and European bank stocks falling 5 percent or more
after steep drops in recent weeks.
European
bank shares are now at their lowest point since March 2009,
when the global banking system was still shaky following
Lehman’s collapse.
Investors
also continued to seek the safety of United States Treasury
bonds, as yields on 10-year bonds briefly touched 1.90
percent, the lowest ever, before closing at 1.98 percent.
Adding
to the anxiety, several immediate challenges face European
officials as they try to calm markets worried about the debt
crisis spreading.
In
the coming weeks, the 17 countries of the euro currency zone
each could agree to a July deal brokered to bail out Greece
again and possibly the region’s ailing banks. Along with
getting unanimity, more immediate obstacles could trip up
the agreement.
On
Wednesday, Germany’s top court upheld the legality of
Berlin’s rescue packages, but said any future bailouts for
debt-stricken euro zone countries must be approved by a
parliamentary panel. On Thursday, officials in Finland are
to express their conditions for approving the deal, and
other countries may follow with their own demands to ensure
their loans will be paid back.
Though
they have not succeeded in calming the markets, European
leaders have taken a series of steps to avert a Lehman-like
failure. New credit lines have been opened by the European
Central Bank for institutions that need funds, while the
proposed Greek bailout would provide loans to countries that
need to recapitalize their banks. In addition, the central
bank has been buying up bonds from Italy and Spain, among
other countries, to keep interest rates from spiking. Many
of these have been bought from European banks, effectively
allowing them to shed troubled assets for cash.
While
the problems in smaller countries like Greece and Ireland
are not new, in recent weeks the concerns have spread to
banking giants in countries like Germany and France that are
crucial to the functioning of the global financial system
and are closely linked with their American counterparts.
What is more, worries have surfaced about the outlook for
Italy, whose debt dwarfs that of other smaller troubled
borrowers like Greece.
“It
seems like the banking sector globally is being hurt on
multiple fronts,” said Philip Finch, a bank strategist
with UBS in London. “It’s definitely getting worse.”
In
Europe, the worry is that government bonds owned by European
banks could fall sharply in value if economically distressed
countries cannot pay back their loans. That would saddle the
most exposed banks with huge losses.
As
a result, banks are reluctant to lend money to one another
and are hoarding cash. “If sentiment continues to
deteriorate, ultimately we’ll see a deposit run,” Mr.
Finch said. “I’m extremely worried about that.”
Mr.
Finch said European banks needed to raise at least 150
billion euros in new capital, even if they do not experience
large losses on sovereign debt. With stock prices so low,
though, that is difficult to do, and any new offerings of
company stock would dilute the value of existing shares.
American money
market funds, long a reliable financing source for capital
starved European banks, have sharply cut back on their
exposure – starting in Spain and Italy but now also France
– making it harder for European banks to loan dollars.
The
10 biggest money market funds in the United States cut their
exposure to European banks by a further 9 percent in July,
or $30 billion, after a reduction of 20 percent in June, the
Institute of International Finance said in a report issued
Monday.
“U.S.
investors remain very sensitive to the headlines out of
Europe,” said Alex Roever, who tracks short-term credit
markets for JPMorgan Chase. “The sell-off that we’ve
seen in European bank stocks is going to reinforce that and
investors are likely to stay hyper-cautious. European banks
are not borrowing as much, and they’re not borrowing for
as long as they could three months ago.”
Nevertheless,
American institutions remain vulnerable to problems their
French counterparts might encounter. At the end of the
second quarter, JPMorgan Chase reported total cross-border
exposure of $49 billion to France, while Citigroup had $44
billion and Bank of America had $20 billion.
French
banks, which have huge holdings of sovereign debt from
countries across Europe, have been among the hardest hit,
despite the French government’s efforts to protect them.
The authorities imposed a temporary ban on short-selling
last month after shares in Société Générale, a bank
considered too big to fail, tumbled on rumors it may be
insolvent.
But
shares of Société Générale are still sliding amid
concern that it, like BNP Paribas and other major French
banks, is having trouble raising dollars to finance its
American and other dollar-based operations.
Société
Générale officials say that the market’s fears are
unfounded. The bank’s chief executive, Frédéric Oudéa,
has described rumors that Société Générale was having
trouble raising money as “fantasy.” The shares closed
down 6 percent Tuesday at 18.93 euros. Three months ago the
shares were at 40.
What
is more, French banks, like other European banks, are able
to obtain financing from the European Central Bank if
necessary.
Meanwhile,
problems in Spain were highlighted on Tuesday when one of
Spain’s largest savings banks, Caja de Ahorros del
Mediterráneo, reported a startling increase in bad loans to
19 percent of overall lending from 9 percent at the end of
last year.
Still,
the huge stockpile of euros that banks have stashed away at
the European Central Bank
at rock-bottom interest rates –
last night it hit a recent high of 166 billion euros
– suggests that no bank is close to a Lehman-like
failure.
The
risk now is that Europe’s resistance to recapitalizing its
banks could turn into a broader crisis.
Daniel
Gros, director of the Center for European Policy Studies in
Brussels, had a
blunt explanation of why European governments have so far
refused to recapitalize their banks.
“They
don’t have the money and they are in the pockets of their
bankers,” Mr. Gros said.
Policy
makers in the United States and Britain, where compulsory
infusions of new capital played a crucial role in calming
the markets in 2008, have long urged Europe to do the same.
*
Liz Alderman contributed reporting from Paris.
**
This article has been revised to reflect the following
correction September 7, 2011: An earlier version of this
article incorrectly stated that two-year Treasury bonds
briefly touched a record low yield of 1.90 percent. It was
actually 10-year Treasuries that hit this record.
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