Tuesday, November 27, 2018

Mandatory Rotation of The Auditing Firm - Healthy Competition or Collective Incompetence

The two most important regulators of the word, namely, the European Commission (E.C.) in Europe and the PCAOB in the U.S. have taken very different routes to enhance the audit quality of the firms. In April 2014, EU amended the Statutory Audit Directive of 2006 to introduce provisions relating to the Mandatory Firm Rotation (MFR) to extend periodical changes to audit firms as well. However, the US decided to stick to its rule of only Mandatory Audit Partner Rotation. Three years later, in April 2017, India, through Companies Act, 2013 mandated Audit Rotation in India too.

Mandatory Audit Rotation imposes periodic breaks to audit engagements and is intended to avoid excessively long relationship between the auditor and the client. This means that listed and other public interest entities will have to bid goodbye to their long-standing auditors, put out their audit tender periodically and completely change the auditor after the prescribed period by the regulator. For audit companies, this means that they will have to chase many more new clients than they normally do and re-work on permissible activities that they can provide to their audit clients to avoid a conflict-of-interest between their other services, like consulting, and auditing.

This increased tendering environment has put a limelight on data and analytics. Statutory audit is a homogenous service defined strictly by a few hundred pages of legislation leaving very little room for differentiation. Firms are offering innovative solutions, not only as a differentiator of services being offered, but to address key business risks and inadvertently improving audit quality. The Flip side to this is that the big four, with their deep pockets, are developing new technologies at a considerable cost, effectively creating a barrier to entry for the smaller firms. It’ll be a while until the cost stabilize through innovation seep down. We can safely assume that the big four will continue their dominance, well into the new contract cycle in the coming decade.

The bottom line lies in the audit quality. Auditing quality is widely discussed and debated topic across the globe. It can be defined as the probability that an auditor will both discover and report a breach in the client's accounting system. It can potentially bring out the scam in public domain or sustain it for many years. The probability of finding fault in accounting depends on the auditor’s intellectual competence while that of reporting, depends on auditor’s independence. Audit quality being very subjective topic, can neither be quantified nor be accurately measured, but only proxies are used for its assessment.

Many countries have undergone massive transformations in its auditing practices laws. New Zealand, after Initially refraining from making reforms to its auditing profession, eventually felt threatened that the country might be excluded from international recognition of its auditors and found it necessary to impose reforms.


Key Findings after Partner Rotation in US

There are some interesting results observed when the change in audit partner takes place. For larger firms, we see a positive psychological change in perception. By analyzing the Earnings Response Coefficient, we can conclude that investors perceive the rotation of lead audit partner as enhancing audit quality. While On the other hand, for smaller firms, it is observed that their predictive value of earning for future cash flows improved to as much as 85% during the post-rotation period.

Mandatory Audit Firm Rotation- A Silver Bullet?

MAR is not a new phenomenon. It has found acceptance in other countries such as Italy (auditor term limit of 9 years), Brazil (5 years), South Korea (6 years), and India (4 years for banks, insurance companies, and public sector companies).
External or statutory audit firms keep reiterating that their business is not investigation but assessing fraud in financial statements. However, two of the biggest frauds committed in Parmalat, Italy and PNB, India show that auditor could have detected malpractices with just some due diligence in their regular work. These frauds were at similar scale of Enron and often dubbed as ‘Italy’s Enron’ and ‘India’s Enron’ respectively. In fact, the Parmalat fraud took place after the implementation of mandatory firm rotation.
Implementation of MAR or MPR is yet to have its desired effect on fraud detection. However, the question is, will MAR lead us to a serious problem that is beyond our imagination today?

Additional Concerns

  • Quality of CPAs (Certified Public Accountant Firm)
Major CPA (equivalent to CAs of India) firms usually hire bright minds from reputed B Schools. Over time, accounting as a career has started to lose its charm due to work pressure. Major CPAs are abandoning professionalism to pursue consulting profits. This implies neither proper compensation nor hope for advancement in the minds of aspiring students.  As a result, the quality of graduates joining the firms may be questionable.
  • Protecting each other’s interest
When auditing firms closely compete for the same limited pool of profitable clients, it is in their interest to protect the industry from probable disruption. This behavior has a potential to lead us towards another major financial crisis.
  • Consolidation
If major players start to consolidate to effectively level the competition, then how much consolidation can be beneficial to the market or in the interest of public? Their unquestionable dominance may make it difficult to question their remarks.

Below graph plots ordinary least squares (OLS) coefficient estimates (together with 95 percent confidence intervals) from regressions of Audit Fees and audit effort (measured as Audit Hours, Total Partner Hours, or Engagement Partner Hours) for client i in year t on five separate indicators marking the years 1 to 5 of the tenure cycle of the engagement partner. Year 3 serves as base period and lacks a coefficient estimate. The models include various audit and client-specific control variables plus fixed effects (see notes to Tables 4 and 5 for details). The sample comprises up to 17,903 client-year observations over the 2008-2014 period with PCAOB and control variable data.



-  Sagar Gogate
   Ankit Sharma
   SDA Bocconi Asia Center

Friday, February 9, 2018

Arbitrage Opportunities with Bitcoin

Forget gambling in Bitcoins. But, they can give you the best arbitrage opportunities!

Many of my colleagues ask me, “When are you investing in Bitcoins?” I always reply, “Neither me, nor you, nor anybody else can ever invest in Bitcoins. You can only gamble with them!” That’s how I exactly define the difference between investing and gambling. I recall an interview of Jack Ma – Founder & Executive Chairman, Alibaba Group, who admitted openly that he doesn’t understand the price changes of Bitcoins and hence stays away from putting his money into the cryptocurrency. Indian ace investor – Rakesh Jhunjhunwala admitted publicly that he doesn’t understand the business model of many of the businesses present in the e-commerce space; he stays away from investing in businesses that he doesn’t understand, as it would be gambling in that business.

When you don’t understand something, stay away from putting your hard-earned money in it. 

Fair enough!

That’s the only reason I stay away from investing in Bitcoins. I understand them being a vehicle for transaction, but I am never sure how their price may move the next minute. This goes in similar lines when Bitcoin recently lost 20% of its all-time high value in just 1 hour, and is now trading at below USD 8,000 just a few weeks from its all-time high of USD 19,343.

Confused, I went through a few videos on what determines Bitcoin prices as I believe that when people are ready to put in so huge amount from their hard-earned money in such a volatile instrument, there should be some underlying valuation technique. I came across an interesting video by Tom Lee of Fundstrat Global Advisors, who explained valuation of Bitcoin using Metcalfe’s Law which states,

“The value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of connected users of the system.”

So, the cryptocurrency can be valued as the square function of the number of users times the average transaction value. This is what can be said to be the Network Effect. When I went through the bitcoin price as compared to the valuation technique proposed by Tom Lee, I came across the following graph,



That was pretty close!

All these in place and given the valuation technique, I was still reluctant to trade Bitcoins given its volatility and no asset backing. I invest in equities, but all of them have an asset backing. Being a participant in financial markets, I have learnt one thing that you need to follow a discipline while investing; you need to keep greed aside. Follow fundamentals and take cue from technicals and market psychology while making an investment decision.

While I strongly believe that when investing, your instrument need to be asset-backed or be a representative of an asset, the second thoughts were – Am I missing on technological advancement? Am I being an orthodox investor who doesn’t want to evolve? Has the definition of investing changed in this exponentially evolving technological world? But then I heard Jamie Dimon – CEO, JPMorgan literally boycotting Bitcoins and strongly discouraging any of the company’s employees from trading in the cryptocurrency. I was relieved that I wasn’t the only one thinking so. But then I thought of the second-order implication: Will JPMorgan be the next Nokia or Kodak with this thinking?

We are in a financial world, where participants break or make overnight. Who imagined Lehman Brothers would go bankrupt with just flick of fingers? And Bear Stearns? Participants in financial markets need to keep updated and use the advancement in technology for added benefits while keeping aside emotions or greed while taking a position in the market.

While I am still juggling and have not been able to convince myself to ‘invest’ in the volatile Bitcoins, I have found another strategy to use the cryptocurrency to make money. I am hitting upon something that uses the present currency market and Bitcoin market to take an advantage of Arbitrage opportunity that a mixed strategy can give, making use of both the markets.
Let’s take a simple case of that I came across today,

Date: February 09, 2018
Time: 03.01 am


Source: Marketwatch

Bitcoin was trading @USD 8005.97 at 03.01 am and @EUR 6527.29 at the same time.

At 03.01 am, the currency market was showing the following quotation,


Source: Reuters.in
Note: USD/EUR rate (read as 1 USD = xy.abcd EUR)

At this quotation,

For converting USD to EUR,

Bid Price = 0.8155
Ask Price = 0.8157

At the same time, while converting EUR to USD, the bid and ask price interchange i.e.,

Bid Price = 1/0.8157 = 1.2259
Ask Price = 1/0.8155 = 1.2262

At this quotation for Bitcoins and exchange rates as of 03.01 am, one can take the following strategy to take an advantage of an arbitrage opportunity with Bitcoins,
  1.       Convert USD 8004.0343 to EUR 6527.29 @0.8155 bid rate
  2.       Buy 1 Bitcoin @EUR 6527.29
  3.       Sell 1 Bitcoin @8005.97
The total money made in this transaction is 8005.97-8004.0343 = USD 1.9357

In this whole transaction, the trader doesn’t risk the implications of wild volatility in prices that trading in Bitcoin would result in, at the same time making money from arbitrage!   

I believe that arbitrage is a far better strategy while trading with Bitcoins, rather than going long on this extremely volatile vehicle. I am personally a risk-averse investor and would stay away from such a risky trade. For investors and traders having a huge risk appetite can definitely consider this opportunity!

- Harsh Pathak
President - Finance Club, MISB Bocconi
Contact: +91 98209 76480
Email: harsh.pathak@misbbocconi.com; harsh.pathak0509@gmail.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harsh-pathak-2a960559/



Thursday, November 16, 2017

The Indian Steel Industry

I dedicate this post to my father - Janmejay Pathak, who dedicated his entire professional life of 35 years to the steel industry and who was recognized in Essar Steel India Ltd. (where he served for 19 years before moving to Sohar Steel LLC, Oman) by many as Steel Man - I knew this because of my 2 month internship at Essar. Unfortunately, due to medical reasons, my father unexpectedly suffered a heart attack and left us a couple of months ago. 

This blog page was not updated since a long time. Realized this was the best way to rejuvenate! Happy reading!

Recent Trends seen in Indian Steel Makers

The steel industry around the globe has seen turbulent times in the years gone by – mainly because of the oversupply coming from Chinese steel manufacturers. Let us see have a look at the recent performance of the steel industry, particularly in India.

Stock price movements of the listed steel companies would be perfect to get the first idea on the performance of the companies as seen by the investors and their perception on the companies’ past and future performance. Let us see the stock price movements in the past 7 years.

Large Manufacturers


JSW Steel


Source: Moneycontrol.com



Source: Company Annual Reports
Note: The figures indicate Gross Operating Revenues

Medium & Small Manufacturers

 
Source: Moneycontrol.com

Sponge Iron


Source: Moneycontrol.com

Tubes & Pipes

Source: Moneycontrol.com

Steel Rolling

 Source: Moneycontrol.com; Finance Club

Most of the stocks in the steel industry have shown a good performance after July 2015. However, companies like SAIL have consistently eroded investors' wealth. Clearly, investors seem bullish on steel industry. Positive reports on complementary companies like Graphite India, HEG etc. by various broking institutions in India also reflect positive sentiment for the steel sector.

Current Scenario of the Indian Steel Industry

The past two years have proven good for the steel industry as far as the market performance is concerned. Also, sentiments and demand growth have hinted for a promising revival of the steel industry in India. 

Recently, the Indian government imposed an anti-dumping duty on imports of certain flat steel products from China and European Union for five years to guard the interest of domestic players from cheap in-bound shipments. The colour coated/pre-painted flat products of alloy or non-alloy steel have been exported to India from these regions at below the normal value from a few years. Such a move shall be able to protect the interests of domestic manufacturers. The duty will be the difference between the landed value of the steel products and $ 822 per tonne.

Robust policies in the infrastructure segment and major boost by making investments shall prove to be positive news for the steel sector. Also, as now more and more concrete roads are being constructed, it shall be a major boost to the steel industry. During FY17-18, Government of India allocated US$ 10.13 billion for development of national highways across the country. The Government of India plans to increase the length of National Highways from 103,933 kms to 200,000 kms. As of February 2017, national highways of 6604 kms in length were constructed, against a target of 15,000 kms, under various road transport and highway projects.

Source: IBEF report on Roads

As it can be seen from the figure, since the BJP-led NDA government has come in power, infrastructure project execution has taken a major boost, rising at a CAGR of 20% in the past 3 years and a CAGR of 13.6% in the past 10 years.

These figures indicate rise in sales of construction equipment, rise in the use of structural steel etc. All these factors, coupled with policies to support domestic steel makers, are indicative of good future for the steel industry in India. 

Indian Government’s Push for Electric Vehicles

As per a recent Bloomberg report, stainless steel makers around the globe are bullish on the push towards clean energy. One of the biggest gainers from this policy push, apart from the clean energy generators, will be the manufacturers of Electric Vehicles (EVs). A complementory winner will be the manufacturers of batteries. Stainless steel casings are needed to store the batteries in the EVs. While this is good news for nickel and chromium suppliers (as these metals are largely used to manufacture stainless steel), it gives the steel manufacturers a reason to cheer as this will add to the volumes of steel manufactured, and will result in their top line growth.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BoAML) has projected global electric vehicle sales of 13.6 million units in 2025. 

The Government and the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers developed the Automotive Mission Plan 2016-2026, a road map for the industry development in the following decade. This cooperation aims for the sector to reach $300 billions in revenues, to create 65 million further jobs and to generate 12% of India’s GDP by 2016. The achievement of this goal will require further investment of INR 4.5-5.5 trillion by companies and the continued institutional support to fiscal incentives on R&D expenditures and initiatives such as “Make in India” (launched in 2014 to encourage multinationals to move their production in India) and “Skill India” (launched in 2015 to train 400 million workers in different skills).

Consolidation in the Indian Steel Industry

With Essar Steel Ltd. (Rs. 45,000 crores debt) and Bhushan Steel Ltd. (Rs. 42,000 crores debt) coming under the government scanner and these companies being subject to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code because of highly stressed assets, global players such as ArcelorMittal and POSCO are actively considering investment in these companies to assume ownership of stressed assets. Also, domestic steelmakers like JSW Steel and TATA Steel are actively considering making investments.
POSCO, the company that had almost begun setting up its steel manufacturing plant in Odisha state of India, wrote to the government to take back the 2,700-odd acres of allocated land as the company withdrew its plans. Also, ArcelorMittal has been in active talks with Steel Authority India Limited (SAIL) for a joint venture since 2015. However, these talks have barely been moving ahead since 2 years. With Essar and Bhushan, these international companies have a chance to convert their ‘distant dream’.

In case JSW Steel and/or TATA Steel acquire the stressed assets, it shall prove to be a major capacity addition for either or both the companies, which shall translate to a substantial increase in the increase in market share in a highly price-competitive industry. This shall lead to a considerable consolidation in the Indian steel industry as well.

India Expected Steel Capacity Addition Problem

It was recently reported by Bloomberg in October 2017 that the Indian steel manufacturing capacity will double backed by the demand boom as companies will invest for expansion purposes.
Because of demand pick up and a positive outlook on the Indian steel industry, the stocks of major Indian steel makers i.e. TATA Steel and JSW Steel have beat the benchmark SENSEX in terms of performance since January 2017. India’s finished steel consumption rose 4.3 percent to 43 million tons in the six months to September, while output climbed 5 percent to 52 million tons, according to the steel ministry. In the financial year ended March 31, usage grew 3 percent to 84 million tons, the slowest pace in three years, even as production gained 11 percent to record 101 million tons.

However, doubling the capacity may only add problems to these companies. If they undertake a project of setting up a new plant, it will take not less than 3 years to the plants to get commissioned. The anti-dumping policies rolled out by several governments, including India, which are supporting domestic steel manufacturers against the ‘China steel’, may not be effective as market may reach a new normal. China has faced a huge steel production overcapacity since the country flooded the global markets with its cheap steel. India may face the same problem 3-4 years down the line if plans to double the steel output are materialized. 

World Steel Association Report

India is set to displace Japan as the world’s second-largest steel producer, and by 2022 will churn out 146 million tons compared with 118 million tons from Japan, according to an April report from Australia’s Department of Industry, Innovation and Science. Even a recent report by World Steel Association said the same.

Table 1: Demand Growth in the Top 10 Steel using countries
Source: World Steel Association Report; Finance Club, MISB Bocconi

Table 2: Top 10 country-wise crude steel production (in million tonnes) 
Source: World Steel Association Report; Finance Club, MISB Bocconi

From Table 1, it can be seen how the Indian steel industry has outperformed its global peers in terms of crude steel production. With this pace of growth, India is clearly set to overtake Japan for the crude steel production. Also, it can be observed from Table 2 that only India has an outstanding demand growth in the coming year. China, India and Russia are the BRICS countries that have made it to the above list. However, it is only India that has promising growth statistics.

Comments

While the demand growth is robust, it is the policy measures which can support the Indian steel industry, which has been the case for the good performance of the major steel producers – TATA Steel and JSW Steel on the stock markets. If the projections by World Steel Association are to be believed, Indian steel sector will outperform its global peers in the next financial year for the robust demand and robust production growth ahead.

Investors will reward for future outlook of an industry. With price support and technological advancement for which steel sector shall be one of the biggest contributor, the steel sector poses itself to be showing a good performance in the near future.

- Harsh Pathak
President - Finance Club, MISB Bocconi - Bocconi India
E-mail:harsh.pathak@misbbocconi.com; harsh.pathak0509@gmail.com
Contact: +91 9820976480, +39 3333291847

Monday, April 24, 2017

‘Pen’ is mightier than a sword – Not With love, from Paris

No, I am still that same enthusiastic Financial Markets guy. I haven’t changed my discipline. I haven’t lost hope and didn’t choose to get into philosophy after seeing back to back shockers in global politics and global financial markets. As an active participant in the financial markets, I choose to make my way through these events.

You can’t stop the world from functioning! You can’t stop evolution! Events happen. You need to make your way through it and emerge as a winner in financial markets
                                                  
                                                                                                                                                               -         Harsh Pathak

So….Still confused over that philosophical title on this post which is dedicated to finance?

Without creating much confusion, let me reveal…. This post is dedicated to Ms. Marine Le Pen – the pro-populist French Presidential election candidate who, on April 23, 2017, emerged as one of the finalists for the runoff on May 7, 2017. This post is about the bloodshed in the global financial markets that will result once she gets elected to power.

After long theories and interpretations that I read on Bloomberg and Financial Times on the most probable outcomes of the first round of the French Presidential elections that were held on April 23, 2017, yesterday’s results finally showed that Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen advanced to a runoff which shall determine the next French President. The runoff is scheduled to happen on May 7, 2017.

It is the first time in the nearly 59-year history of France’s Fifth Republic that both of the final candidates are from outside the traditional left-right party structure. Mr. Macron, a former investment banker, abandoned traditional parties a year ago to form his own movement with an eclectic blend of left and right policies. He campaigned on a pro-European Union platform, coupled with calls to overhaul the rules governing the French economy. Ms. Le Pen’s success was a victory for people who oppose the European Union and for those who want to see more “France first” policies.

With this, it has broadly become a contest where French people shall choose between globalization and populism. As I read Bloomberg news and FT in detail on this, Macron’s victory on 7th May shall indicate the future of European Union’s integrity to be in place, while his defeat and Ms. Le Pen’s victory seems to be, at the moment, a sure exit of France from the EU, which is fondly being referred to as Frexit by media and economists.

However, I am not a big think tank on politics. All I can contribute in political arena is read the news reports and get updates from market, analyse them, predict the scenarios and utilize them in combination with my other fundamental and technical analysis of financial markets to take positions on equities.

The future of global equity markets – in developed as well as emerging economies is, as per me, sitting on a big time bomb called the ‘Final Round of French Presidential Election’. The final outcome of the May 7 voting can either burst the bomb or diffuse it.

But why after all is it a bomb?  

A new paper from Sciences Po and Cepremap, shared with the Financial Times, shows a clear division between a “pessimist” France turned towards Ms Le Pen, and an “optimist” France put their confidence in Emmanuel Macron. According to the research, when asked about their expectations for the future, the individuals who were most pessimistic were those most likely to vote for Ms Le Pen. In contrast, those most satisfied with their life opted most often for Mr Macron. Cutting the long story short, statistical models are predicting win for Macron, but his defeat is also not ruled out completely.

Though there are statistical models predicting Macron’s win, I would rather choose not to completely believe them. This is because models are built on human interpretations and the use of analytics (system-based) and this year everything that can amuse and surprise anybody has happened in the 2017 French Presidential elections. From François Hollande’s decision not to run for a second term to former Prime Minister Manuel Valls getting defeated in the Socialist Party primary; from the rise of insider-outsider Emmanuel Macron to the standout debate performance by far-left candidate Philippe Poutou; from François Fillon’s rise, fall, and rise to Jean-Luc Mélenchon’s last-minute surge. All these events have increased the uncertainity of the outcome of the election.

So, the explosion is here – The case of Marine Le Pen winning the 2017 French Presidential Election

Name of the victim – the Euro and the European Union

After the results of the first round were out, the markets on Monday gathered optimism on the possibility of Macron winning the final round of elections on May 7. The win of Macron, who is a pro-Euro candidate, shall mean that the chances of EU collapse shall be mitigated (or rather eliminated tentatively) as the chances of Frexit get very weak because of his support for globalization.  

As per the data from Reuters, the Euro rose to day’s high of 1.0935 against the USD  after closing at 1.0723 on the previous trading day. It however slipped to 1.0863 against the USD at 16:15 hours IST. Reaching to that day’s high means an advancement of 2% in the currency’s value.

If Macron wins, market expectations for the EUR/USD in the range of 1.09-1.10 post the final round may hold and this shall result in stabilization of the U.S. Treasury market. Also, this win shall mean fading of credit risk in the Eurozone which means increased flow of funds in its cheaper equity markets which shall further support the EUR/USD.

They say, “When your expectations are not met, you feel that everything has fallen apart.” Stock market participants, according to me, face this situation in and out. The Euro, as seen, has rallied on expectations of a Macron win. However, if Le Pen turns out to be the winner and if market grapevine is to be believed, the euro can slide down to 1.00 against the USD as the fears of Frexit may take over (as was indicated by Le Pen in her campaigns).

It is they who make the rally and it is the same them who are responsible for the fall. Expect wisely!! Don’t torture yourself!!
-         
-                                                                     -            Harsh Pathak

One of the main reasons sighted is, if France, under the leadership of Le Pen, chooses to leave the EU and consequently drops euro as its currency, then introduction of a new devalued national currency, as indicated by Le Pen would give out a shocker to especially the bond markets. The French state is expected to pledge to limit its fluctuations against the EU currency basket to a maximum of 20 percent. The prospective devaluation may prove to an immediate inorganic boost to the French economy, but the foremost concern of investors in this case shall be the fear to switch to a completely new currency.

A devalued French currency shall mean increasing its competitiveness in the International financial markets and shall reduce France’s debt in Euro terms. As per a Bloomberg report, Le Pen’s adviser Bernard Monot said, “Government debt would be redenominated in the new French currency and the state would seek to buy back the debt from foreign lenders. France would meet all its obligations to secure the trust of lenders. The Bank of France’s quantitative-easing program would generate about 100 billion new francs a year for the government -- theoretically equivalent to 100 billion euros ($107 billion) -- which would use the revenue to cover welfare payments and to fund its industrial strategy. Between 30 percent and 40 percent of the revenue would be used to repay government debt. France’s borrowing costs will rise as result of this policy but not crazily”. He forecast that the yield on 10-year bonds would be between 2 percent and 3 percent.

However, 60% of the French bonds are held outside France. S&P has already warned that any move to repay debt in a new currency shall lend up France in a Default rating. On introduction of the new French currency devalued against the Euro and repaying the bonds in terms of that currency, French investors might not care as much, but investors whose base currency is dollars or sterling or any other currency per se would very much care as the base currency valuation of their holding could end up being significantly less.

Economically weaker Eurozone countries like Greece, Portugal and Italy may have a ripple effect on their financial markets as well as the credit risk in the union rises with Frexit.

Market expectations indicate that the chances of Le Pen winning the election are way too less. The only reason why I am not eliminating the possibilities of her win are that the significance of the models that are predicting Marcos’ win do not seem to be reliant as there is still a lot of confusion in what the French are thinking. The margins with which Macron won was also narrow though. Also, when I look to the past 2-month yield spread between the German and France on 10-year sovereign bonds, they indicate a completely different picture of market expectation.

As per the yield spread, investors seem to have dumped the French bonds and instead bought German bonds, which indicate that there is still an underlying room for Le Pen to win on May 7.



 Source: Bloomberg

US Stock Markets

On Monday, after the first round of French election results were out, the US stock markets also developed optimism, with the US stock futures opening sharply higher as Dow futures rallied by more than 200 points. Any disappointment on May 7 can severely affect the Euro currency and the US stock markets as a whole as a result of panic in the markets.

Talking about India

Le Pen’s win means introduction of new devalued (against the Euro) French currency and a major decline in the EUR/USD rate (remember my quote on expectations???). It also means further breaking up of the EU. Now, India’s debt exposure to Europe is 16.5% out of the total USD 485 Billion external debt (as per reports of the Reserve Bank of India as on March 31, 2016). We survived Brexit calmly – thanks to the RBI policies set by the former central bank governor – Dr. Raghuram Rajan in maintaining enough forex reserves and other measures as well.

India is one of the most open financial markets in the world and though it survived the effects of Brexit directly, it was indirectly affected by the spillover effect of the financial markets throughout the world – thanks to globalization. And this time the spillover effect could be huge, really huge. No…. Gigantic!!

Financial markets throughout the world are going to get a major shocker if Le Pen wins and would result in a global turmoil.

History has shown that once big negative news start coming in, market participant develop a pessimistic outlook on futures. I am still a new entrant in the financial markets, but to the extent that I have seen and heard in the markets and then reading the history of stock market events and outcomes, I have realized that market participants, on a large scale, take position on stocks on the prevailing events so much that they tend to become over-optimistic or over-pessimistic, depending on the type of news. I remember the May 2014 elections in India when there was euphoria and predictions of the Modi government to win with majority in the elections, big and well known brokerage houses became so over-optimistic that they went on to predict the benchmark index – SENSEX to touch the 35,000 mark by the end of that same calendar year. It didn’t even touch the 30,000 mark that year. It was in March 4, 2015 that SENSEX crossed the 30,000 mark, but didn’t even sustain it. It took 2 long years hence to again touch the 30,000 mark and is still not sustaining it and now many big brokerage houses predict the 40,000 levels! (You see! Expectations!!) But, however, we are humans and financial markets, to a considerable scale, show movement because of expectations of market participants.

This time also, it will be pessimistic expectations that will rule the financial markets in case Le Pen wins. The U.S. economy and the stock markets have a history of sending shocks to the global financial markets. This time also, it may be the case.

I am also expecting the Indian stock markets to see some heat way forward. As per the present scenario, not only India, but the world is very optimistic on the “India: A Growth Story” with its (India’s) strong macroeconomic numbers, stable government that is growth-oriented, robust monetary policies, robust stock markets, huge demographic dividend etc. The U.S., Australia, New Zealand etc. are adopting the “country first” approach which means that Indian youth may have to explore for domestic opportunities on a large scale. This means the government may need to create enough job opportunities at a good pace. This is, at present, not the case, which means that India’s demographic dividend may soon become its demographic liability.

Returning back to the threat that U.S. may pose to Indian financial market conditions, let us see the following graph,

Source: Bloomberg

This graph shows that the ratio of Market Capitalization of the S&P 500 Index to the U.S. GDP has been rising to levels that were existing during the dot-com bubble. The same levels are seen to be approaching at the moment since the Great Recession happened. This may be an indication of the U.S. stocks being overvalued at the moment.

Any shock from the final round of the French Presidential election (yes, the shock I am referring is the win of Le Pen) will trigger a global financial market turmoil and can send the U.S. stock markets back to the 2009 levels. We seem to be sitting on another possible recession, this time from the present EU. And, any shock in the U.S. means ripple effect in the rest of the world.

Le Pen has also indicated a 6-month EU exit timeline once she assumes power and then the introduction of the new devalued currency in the country, which shall be responsible for all of the above.

Let’s see if Le Pen can prove mightier and lead to a bloodshed in case she ‘writes’ France’s future. Or would Macron be able to diffuse the ‘bomb’.


- Harsh Pathak
President - Finance Club, MISB Bocconi - Bocconi India

About the author,

Harsh Pathak is a student at MISB Bocconi (Bocconi India) and the president of Finance Club of the institute. He has immense interest in financial markets and runs his own analysis on Indian stock markets on a daily basis. He can be reached at,

Phone: +919820976480
Email: harsh.pathak@misbbocconi.com
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