Fifteen years ago Ben Bernanke had to ask for $700bn to bail out the US Financial system otherwise "We might not have an economy on Monday", but the often overlooked reason why a financial crisis became an economic one was the role of the Money Market Funds which were effectively funding corporate working capital through Commercial Paper markets. When they froze, so did the economy. Fifteen years on, they are once again dominant, but this time crowding out bank deposits rather than bank loans. Let's hope they don't cause a similar, but different liquidity problem this time.
Recency Bias makes us focus on what just happened and ignore even recent history, while the end of history illusion makes us think that there will be less change in the next five years than in the last five. A quick recap on the last 5 Q4 periods reminds us of the dramatic changes we have seen, and while the next 5 years may not be as dramatic, we would see these changes as pressaging further changes on paths now revealed, be it BRICS+ disrupting the financial system, AI and working from home disrupting the service sector globally or just the retsoration of the proper price of money and liquidity through the end of QE.
Please note that you are about to leave the website of Market Thinking and be redirected to Toscafund Hong Kong. For further information, please contact Toscafund Hong Kong.