Finance

Abrdn analyst calls for faster rate cuts

Published

9 months ago

September 2, 2024

Business Finance News

An eagle tops the U.S. Federal Reserve building’s facade in Washington, July 31, 2013. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/

Jonathan Ernst | Reuters

While British fund manager abdrn predicts that the U.S. economy will see a soft landing, there is still the risk of a prolonged slowdown in 2025, said Kenneth Akintewe, the company’s head of Asian sovereign debt.

Speaking to CNBC’s “Squawk Box Asia” on Monday, Akintewe asked the question: “Is the Fed already sleepwalking into a policy mistake?”

He pointed to economic data like non-farm payrolls, saying they were later revised to reflect a weaker economic picture. In August, the U.S. Labor Department reported that the U.S. economy created 818,000 fewer jobs than originally reported from April 2023 to March 2024.

As part of its preliminary annual benchmark revisions to the nonfarm payroll numbers, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said the actual job growth was nearly 30% less than the initially reported 2.9 million from April 2023 through March of this year.

Akintewe said: “Is the economy already weaker than the headline data suggests and [the Fed] should already be easing?”

He added that policy changes by the Fed takes time to move through the economy, “so if the economy is weaker than the headline data suggests, they will need to accumulate [a] sufficient amount of easing, you know, 150, 200, basis points, that will take time.”

“And once you’ve done that amount of easing, it takes six to eight months to transmit that.”

If the economy suddenly shows signs of more weakness at the start of 2025, Akintewe said it will take until the second half of 2025 to see the effects of any easing transmitted through the economy, which could look “quite different” by that time.

He also argued that the market is too focused on forecasting the size of any possible upcoming cut, asking. “The other question no one seems to ask is, why is the policy rate still at 5.5% when inflation is down [to] almost 2.5%? Like, do you need a 300 basis point real policy rate in this kind of environment with all the uncertainty that we’re facing?

In the U.S. on Friday, data showed the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, the Federal Reserve’s favored measure of inflation, ticked up 0.2% last month, as expected.

The data seems to back a smaller rate cut, with U.S. rate futures suggesting a lesser chance of a 50 basis-point rate cut later in September.

Currently, markets see an almost 70% chance of a 25-basis-point cut at the Fed’s meeting this month, with the remaining 30% expecting the Fed to slash rates by 50 basis points, according to the CME Fedwatch Tool.

— CNBC’s Jeff Cox contributed to this report.

Finance

Stocks making the biggest moves midday: WOOF, TSLA, CRCL, LULU

Published

1 day ago

June 6, 2025

Business Finance News

Finance

Swiss government proposes tough new capital rules in major blow to UBS

Published

1 day ago

June 6, 2025

Business Finance News

A sign in German that reads “part of the UBS group” in Basel on May 5, 2025.

Fabrice Coffrini | AFP | Getty Images

The Swiss government on Friday proposed strict new capital rules that would require banking giant UBS to hold an additional $26 billion in core capital, following its 2023 takeover of stricken rival Credit Suisse.

The measures would also mean that UBS will need to fully capitalize its foreign units and carry out fewer share buybacks.

“The rise in the going-concern requirement needs to be met with up to USD 26 billion of CET1 capital, to allow the AT1 bond holdings to be reduced by around USD 8 billion,” the government said in a Friday statement, referring to UBS’ holding of Additional Tier 1 (AT1) bonds.

The Swiss National Bank said it supported the measures from the government as they will “significantly strengthen” UBS’ resilience.

“As well as reducing the likelihood of a large systemically important bank such as UBS getting into financial distress, this measure also increases a bank’s room for manoeuvre to stabilise itself in a crisis through its own efforts. This makes it less likely that UBS has to be bailed out by the government in the event of a crisis,” SNB said in a Friday statement.

‘Too big to fail’

UBS has been battling the specter of tighter capital rules since acquiring the country’s second-largest bank at a cut-price following years of strategic errors, mismanagement and scandals at Credit Suisse.

The shock demise of the banking giant also brought Swiss financial regulator FINMA under fire for its perceived scarce supervision of the bank and the ultimate timing of its intervention.

Swiss regulators argue that UBS must have stronger capital requirements to safeguard the national economy and financial system, given the bank’s balance topped $1.7 trillion in 2023, roughly double the projected Swiss economic output of last year. UBS insists it is not “too big to fail” and that the additional capital requirements — set to drain its cash liquidity — will impact the bank’s competitiveness.

At the heart of the standoff are pressing concerns over UBS’ ability to buffer any prospective losses at its foreign units, where it has, until now, had the duty to back 60% of capital with capital at the parent bank.

Higher capital requirements can whittle down a bank’s balance sheet and credit supply by bolstering a lender’s funding costs and choking off their willingness to lend — as well as waning their appetite for risk. For shareholders, of note will be the potential impact on discretionary funds available for distribution, including dividends, share buybacks and bonus payments.

“While winding down Credit Suisse’s legacy businesses should free up capital and reduce costs for UBS, much of these gains could be absorbed by stricter regulatory demands,” Johann Scholtz, senior equity analyst at Morningstar, said in a note preceding the FINMA announcement.

“Such measures may place UBS’s capital requirements well above those faced by rivals in the United States, putting pressure on returns and reducing prospects for narrowing its long-term valuation gap. Even its long-standing premium rating relative to the European banking sector has recently evaporated.”