Don't Blame Europe This Time - It's All About China

Asian stock markets have opened the week extremely weak (no pun intended). No doubt much of that is due to the SPX rolling over on Friday, but there is more. The Nikkei is down 1.8%, Hang Seng almost 3% and Shanghai 1.2% - all of them more than the 1% or so drop of the S&P in the last trading session of last week.

The mainstream media is quick to blame the noise out of Europe, but there is

RBA Says Enough Is Enough

The Reserve Bank of Australia published the minutes of its July 3rd Monetary Policy Meeting (at which they left the overnight rate unchanged at 3.50% - which was market consensus at the time). After presenting various reasons that the economy is slowing but not catastrophically so, that inflation is contained and will probably continue to be for awhile, the RBA concludes that the previous cuts that have lowered the rate from 4.25 to 3.50 in the space of half a year should be enough to stimulate the economy in the near term.

Given all the uncertainties about China's response to their slowdown, the future path of the European crisis and the recent slowdown in the US, it does make sense to not shoot all of their bullets at once. 

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AUD to Appreciate on Hawkish RBA, Resilient Economy

Before the June RBA meeting, the market was predicting even chances of a quarter and half point cuts. This was despite the fact that relatively speaking Australia's economy has been faring quite well despite the recent weakness in China. Well so much for that, as the minutes of RBA's monetary policy meeting showed today.

The Board considered whether the recent information warranted a further reduction in the cash rate. The arguments were finely balanced.

Cutting aggressively was apparently not even discussed. The question was whether to cut at all.

Australian Dollar's Double Jeopardy

This week it feels like the AUD was punished twice for what is essentially the same "crime". On Monday morning Asian time, the Producer Price Index (PPI) disappoints, coming out 0.6% lower than expected. The Australian dollar promptly sells off against the USD and JPY. This makes perfect sense - lower PPI generally feeds into lower inflation, thus an increased likelihood of a rate cut at the next RBA meeting. So far so good.

Overnight, SPX stabilizes and most "risk" currencies bounce a little in line with the equity market. On Tue morning Asian time, Australia's Consumer Price Index disappoints by a roughly equivalent amount. On this data release, the AUD drops again.

More Cracks Appear in AUD's Facade

According to Marketwatch and other sources, Fitch has lowered the ratings of three of the top four Australian banks. As discussed previously, the action has been flagged well in advance. The Marketwatch article says the AUD dropped and it probably did to a small extent right after the announcement. Overall though, the market is still quite complacent of the issues "down under" and trades with a built-in expectation of continued strength in the Australian economy. The focus has been almost exclusively on the Greek drama and the Iran standoff and its impact on the world supply of oil. It appears that investors are still not really making the link between the weakness in China and its suppliers of raw materials.

Fitch Places the Big 4 Aussie Banks on Negative Watch

In a press release, Fitch has placed Commonwealth Bank, NAB, Westpac and ANZ on negative watch, citing that

Australian... banks are each subject to many of the same themes and trends as other banks globally including an uncertain macroeconomic environment and evolving regulatory regimes.

As we have mentioned before, Australia's economy is not necessarily sounder or on a better footing than the rest of the world, if one were to take into account its strong reliance on China.