Having spent the first post Brexit week in London it is hard to exaggerate the disappointment, even foreboding, felt by our colleagues in the London office of Investec. A leap into a world where the known unknowns have multiplied exceedingly is naturally unwelcome to those whose vocation it is to manage risks to wealth in an as well-considered way as possible. Clearly risks to the outcomes in the real economy and the financial markets – particularly in the UK – have become greater than they were and volatility in markets is likely to be exaggerated until a clearer view of what the future may hold for Britain, Europe and the Global economy, of which the share of Britain and Europe is above 20%.
The most obvious unknown is the impact on the UK economy – though the description United Kingdom may well be an exaggeration – with the sharp regional and generational divides of the referendum revealed. The political unknowns seem unlikely to be resolved any time soon as the UK is understandably in no hurry to formally invoke the exit option. An accompanying unknown is who will lead the UK through these negotiations, the outcomes of which, to be decided in Westminster by the legislators not the voters, will surely lead to further appeals to voters by way of a general election or even a further referendum. However, under new rules the next general election will only be called in 2020 – unless a large majority of the MP’s determine otherwise. The Conservative government and no doubt the parliamentary Labour Party, in turmoil over its leader, are clearly not of any mind to go to the country any time soon.
The obvious issue for any updated economic forecast of the UK economy is the degree to which the prevailing uncertainties and the risks associated with them will undermine the confidence business and household decision makers have in their economic prospects. Less confidence will mean less spending, as investment and consumption plans are put on hold and as plan Bs are evolved. It will not take much of a deviation from trend to turn positive GDP growth into stagnation, or worse, recession. But neither the Bank of England under Governor Mark Carney nor the Treasury under George Osborne have waited for the dust to settle. They have reacted with promises of counter measures: lower interest rates and less onerous applications of the requirements of banks to reserve capital, at the expense of lending. But as Carney cautioned correctly – “there are limits to what the Bank of England can do” – if people are determined to tighten their belts in a more uncertain environment. Confidence in the future outlook for revenues and employment benefits is the all-important and fragile foundation of all forward looking economic actions. Decisions made today that are taken not only by firms, but more importantly by households, that account for 70% of all spending in the UK.
Though to be sure it is the revenue to be gained or lost from supplying financial services to Europe and the world (a particular strength of the UK economy) – despite, or is it because of, sterling rather than the euro – that is uppermost in the considerations of the City of London. A square mile that is currently in the throes of a most impressive building boom. It is very hard to count the cranes from my bedroom window overlooking much of the City.
George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was doing his best over the weekend to bolster confidence and enhance spending. The intention to balance the government’s budget by 2020 has been abandoned. Less rather than more austerity is in prospect – understandably so – given the encouragement provided by extraordinarily low borrowing costs. In the midst of a financial crisis the yield on 10 year Gilts dropped well below 1%. Gilts, like almost all other government bonds – including those issued by RSA – were regarded as safer, except by the rating agencies. It becomes much less of a crisis when government debt becomes still cheaper to issue rather, than as is more usually the case in a crisis, when government loans become ever more expensive to raise and austerity in a recession becomes impossible to resist.
Osborne moreover promised more than more government spending. He made the case for a sharply lower corporate tax rate of 15% – close to the 12.5% rate in Ireland – a matter of already deep anguish to Brussels who would much prefer less rather than more fiscal competition in Europe. The UK, with all its other advantages in the form of good commercial law and as a tax haven, could become an even more powerful competitor for corporate head offices.
Escaping the clutches of the Brussels bureaucrats may offer Britain many such opportunities to trade more freely with each other and with the rest of the world, while hopefully negotiating full access to trade with the European community, not only with mutually beneficial low tariffs but – more important – to reduce non-tariff barriers to trade. This is particularly the case in services that have made the European community much less of a free trading zone than it appears to be on the surface.
Clearly the biggest threat to growth to incomes and profits of companies in the UK and everywhere, including in the US, is the rising populist threat to freer trade and globalisation generally that is considered to have left important constituencies behind. The leave vote was surely a protest vote as much as a vote for independence (independence to control the flow of immigrants to the UK, who in fact have proved generally to be a source of faster growth) as well as a response to the income earning opportunities that a fast growing UK economy has provided.
For a South African analyst in London with long experience analysing volatile exchange rates, the one most obvious conclusion to draw is how helpful weaker sterling has been to absorb some of the shocks caused by UK-specific uncertainties. Sterling devalued by about 10% on the Brexit news. The sterling value of the FTSE Index has largely held its own. Shares, particularly those of the global companies very well represented on the FTSE Index, have seen a weaker sterling translate into higher sterling values, particularly when their US dollar values improved with the strong recovery registered in New York last week.
Equities can perform as currency hedges when the currency weakness represents additional country specific rather than global risks. The sterling or rather the UK economy hedges on the FTSE came, as they do on the JSE, from global rather than local economy plays.
On this exchange rate note it is encouraging to note how well the rand, in company with most other emerging currencies and bonds, held up through the Brexit crisis (see below). Some stability in commodity and energy prices were consistent with these developments. The news about the global economy since Brexit has not reflected a state of crisis for the global economy, to which emerging markets are especially vulnerable. So far not so bad.
