ECB confidence is rising. Fragmentation is receding and Draghi described the
situation in financial markets as one of "positive contagion". There are still
risks to the economic recovery, but our key take-away from the January ECB
press conference was that the window to cut policy rates has closed again.
Unless the economy re-deteriorates, 0.75% should mark the refi rate floor.
Market sentiment is at the moment so strong that, for all the hurdles that
still need to be overcome in the periphery, we now believe neither Spain nor
Italy will need to trigger OMT in Q1 2013. The key test will be whether or not
growth—ultimately the condition of long-term debt sustainability—will
recover around spring. If our US colleagues are right and the ensuing fiscal
consolidation does not trigger another downturn around mid-2013, then the
peripherals could entirely avoid ECB/ESM support.
Portugal in our view is going to be a bigger source of noise in 2013 than in
2012. The assumed GDP contraction of “only” 1% in 2013 is optimistic. The
political situation is souring, with the new austerity package under scrutiny
by the Constitutional Court. The market remains positive on Portugal, but we
think that given the risks—both public and private debt remains very high—
Portugal’s return to the market should be supported. OMT, rather than an
extension of the EU loan, could be the right compromise solution, but this
will take a radical change of stance by the central bank.
Amid significant uncertainty, current Italian opinion polls suggest a postelection
coalition between the centre-left and Monti could obtain a workable
majority in both houses. This would safeguard to some extent the drive in
favour of reforms and a pro-European stance. However, without either
market pressure or clear OMT conditionality, a risk is that the reformist drive
could be significantly slowed down to avoid risking government instability.
Recent upside surprises have led us to revise our forecasts for UK CPI
inflation. But with the ONS deciding to leave the computation of RPI (used
to uprate index linked gilts) unchanged this week our view on this measure
of inflation has been revised up meaningfully.