“There is $50 trillion more in world debt today than there was in 2018.” And that will hurt equities. Larry McDonald
2021 global debt database shows largest one year debt surge post World War II to $226 trillion, i.e., 256% of global GDP in 2020. Government borrowing was half this increase; global public debt rose by 20% to an unprecedented level in over 50 years.
In a financial sense, the bond (or debt) market dwarfs the stock market. Although the rise in interest rates has been devastating for bond investors because of the inverse relationship between rates (yields) and bond prices. In actuality, both the debt and equity markets have fallen this year.
Yet, “The world is still in love with debt,” according to analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Debt vulnerabilities are rising, with potential costs and risks to debtors, creditors and, more broadly, global stability and prosperity. But, does it matter. After all, world governments owe the money to their own citizens. The rising total global debt is important for two reasons.
- First, when debt rises faster than economic output (as it has been doing in recent years), higher government debt implies more state interference in the economy and higher taxes in the future.
- Second, debt must be rolled over at regular intervals. This creates a recurring popularity test for individual governments’ sovereign bonds. Fail that test, as various euro-zone governments have done, and the country (and its neighbors) can be plunged into fiscal and economic crisis.
If the Federal Reserve raises the federal funds rate by another 100 basis points and continues its balance-sheet reductions at current levels, “they will crash the market,” states Larry McDonald, founder of The Bear Traps Report and author of “A Colossal Failure of Common Sense”.
A pivot may not prevent pain
McDonald expects the Federal Reserve to become concerned enough about the equity market’s reaction to its monetary tightening to “back away over the next three weeks,” announce a smaller federal funds rate increase of 0.50% in November “and then stop.”
References:
- https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/the-stock-market-is-in-trouble-thats-because-the-bond-market-is-very-close-to-a-crash/ar-AA12Q8kd
- https://www.businessinsider.com/baml-global-debt-has-rise-by-50-trillion-since-the-financial-crisis-2015-10
- https://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/ar/2022/in-focus/debt-dynamics/