Event:
On March 11, 2022, the central bank released China's February financial data:
New RMB loans reached 1.23 trillion yuan, up from 3.98 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 125.8 billion yuan; The stock of social finance scale was 321.12 trillion yuan, an increase of 10.2% year-on-year; The scale of social finance increased by 1.19 trillion yuan, compared with the previous value of 6.17 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 531.5 billion yuan; In February, M2 increased by 9.2% year-on-year, the former value was 9.8%, M1 money supply was 4.7% year-on-year, the former value was - 1.9%, M0 money supply was 5.8% year-on-year, and the former value was 18.5%.
Core view:
The year-on-year growth rate of social finance stock fell again after three consecutive months of recovery in November (10.1%), December (10.3%) and January 2022 (10.5%), and the medium and long-term loans increased significantly less year-on-year, that is, the overall situation of social finance in February was weak in total and poor in structure. The decline in the total amount confirms our previous doubts about the sustainability of the "good start" of credit in January. At the beginning of the year, bank credit projects had sufficient reserves and banks had the demand for a "good start". The superposition of a large number of infrastructure projects led to the bright performance of social finance data in January. However, after entering February, bank credit projects became fewer and the demand for credit line could only be met by bill impulse. Therefore, the total amount of social finance fell and the credit structure continued to deteriorate, This is seasonal. Therefore, in order to further analyze the real situation and trend of social finance, we believe that the aggregate analysis of January and February data may be more objective. We can see that from 2018 to January and February 2022, the total amount of new social finance was 4.35 trillion yuan, 5.65 trillion yuan, 5.93 trillion yuan, 6.91 trillion yuan and 7.36 trillion yuan respectively. 2022 is still much higher than the same period in 2021, indicating that the social financing environment has improved slightly and is still in the stage of expansion, but the improvement range is too weak. At present, the real estate sales data is still getting worse. The financing willingness of real estate enterprises is low and the amount of land acquisition is small, which affects the land transfer income of local governments, and then has a certain negative impact on infrastructure investment. Therefore, although infrastructure is powerful, there are restrictive factors. Therefore, in February, the social finance was not as expected. In addition to the seasonal disturbance, it was mainly due to the excessive negative impact in the real estate field and the repeated impact of the epidemic, which made the enterprise's prospects for economic prosperity not optimistic and the financing demand continued to be weak. This is the result we see from the credit structure. At present, infrastructure investment and manufacturing investment are difficult to cover the negative impact of the real estate downturn, so the credit is stable and difficult to broaden.
Considering that the target GDP growth rate of 5.5% this year is on the high side, and the necessity of adding weight to the steady growth policy is strengthened, in addition to fiscal power, credit easing is the direction that the policy must strive for, and we must guide the recovery of medium and long-term loans of enterprises, so that we can see the restoration of the vitality of the real economy. The problem is that in March, the bill interest rate is still going down, the willingness of enterprises to finance is seriously insufficient, and the banks have insufficient credit power due to the low interest margin. Therefore, it is more necessary to guide the bank's debt cost down and open the interest margin space. At the same time, it can also promote residents to use their funds for consumption and investment rather than saving in the bank. To sum up, we believe that under the demand of stable growth, a broad monetary period can still be achieved. The inter-bank liquidity is acceptable in the near future, and there is no maturity of large MLF. The probability of interest rate reduction in the short term may be greater than the RRR reduction. We believe that March 15 can be used as an important window to pay attention to whether the interest rate will be cut. Because of the high inflationary pressure in the United States, we chose to cut the interest rate before the Federal Reserve's interest rate hike in March is a cost-effective time point, which is also in line with the forward-looking characteristics of the current monetary policy.
The following is the specific data analysis:
I. both short-term loans and medium and long-term loans in the residential sector are weak. The credit structure of the enterprise sector is poor, the impulse characteristics of bills are still obvious, and the credit demand is still very weak. In February, RMB loans were increased by 1230 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 125.8 billion yuan, which is lower than the market expectation. At the end of February, the balance of RMB loans was 197.89 trillion yuan, an increase of 11.4% year-on-year. The growth rate was slower than that at the end of last month, 1.5% lower than that in the same period of last year. Short term loans and bill financing increased more (630.1 billion), while medium and long-term loans decreased year-on-year (1052 billion). On the whole, there is still a sharp decline in medium and long-term loans, the proportion of medium and long-term loans is still low, and the credit demand is still weak.
The credit of the resident sector decreased by 336.9 billion yuan, a significant increase of 479.2 billion yuan year-on-year. Among them, short-term loans decreased by 291.1 billion yuan, an increase of 22 billion yuan year-on-year, mainly due to repeated epidemics and pessimistic expectations of economic prospects, which suppressed residents' willingness to consume; Medium and long-term loans decreased by 45.9 billion yuan, an increase of 457.2 billion yuan year-on-year. The medium and long-term loans of residents increased negatively for the first time since the data were available, which is a reflection of the sharp drop in real estate sales, indicating that the loose policy of real estate is not enough to improve demand in space and time. Behind the lack of willingness of residents to buy houses is the insufficient reduction of housing loan interest rate The restriction of commercial housing policy and the pessimistic expectation of residents on the real estate industry and the overall economic situation are the common results. Loans to the enterprise sector increased by 1.24 trillion yuan, an increase of 57.3 billion yuan year-on-year. Among them, short-term loans increased by 411.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 161.4 billion yuan, bill financing increased by 305.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 490.7 billion yuan, medium and long-term loans increased by 505.2 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 594.8 billion yuan. The poor credit structure of enterprises shows that the financing willingness of enterprises is still insufficient. Because the risks in major fields such as real estate have not been cleared and the economic capacity of infrastructure support is insufficient, enterprises are generally not optimistic about the economic prospect. Due to the interest rate difference, banks are not willing to lend, so the phenomenon of bill impulse is still obvious.
II. The demand for physical financing is very weak, and the increment of social financing is less than expected. Credit and on balance sheet bill financing are the main drag. The existing increment is mainly driven by the steady growth policy. In February, the increment of social financing scale was 1.19 trillion yuan, an increase of 5315 trillion yuan less than the same period last year. At the end of February, the stock of social financing scale was 321.12 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 10.2%, The growth rate decreased by 0.3% compared with the previous month. In terms of increment, it mainly comes from the support of corporate bonds and government bonds, reflecting the power of steady growth policy. However, from the perspective of each sub item, the impulse of bank bills is serious, the non-standard pressure drop is very obvious, and the actual credit demand is seriously insufficient. In February, the net financing of government bonds was 272.2 billion yuan, an increase of 170.5 billion yuan year-on-year. Direct financing increased by 396.2 billion yuan in February, with a year-on-year increase of 191.3 billion yuan, of which the net financing of corporate bonds was 337.7 billion yuan, with a year-on-year increase of 202.1 billion yuan, and equity financing was 58.5 billion yuan, with a year-on-year decrease of 10.8 billion yuan. The increase in government bonds is mainly due to the advance of the issuance progress of government special bonds, while the increase in corporate bonds is mainly due to the current abundant inter-bank liquidity, which makes the issuance cost of enterprises low.
In February, non-standard financing decreased by 505.3 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 465.6 billion yuan, of which undiscounted bank acceptance bills decreased by 422.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 496.7 billion yuan, trust loans decreased by 75.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 18.5 billion yuan, entrusted loans decreased by 7.4 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 2.6 billion yuan.
The undiscounted acceptance bill decreased significantly in February, which is one of the main drag items of social finance, mainly related to the large amount of credit offset by bills.
III. M1 has warmed up, M2 has fallen back, financial investment is slow, and it is still in the stage of capacity accumulation
At the end of February, M1 increased by 4.7% year-on-year, 6.6% higher than the previous value. The balance of M2 was 244.15 trillion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 9.2%. The growth rate decreased by 0.6% compared with the end of last month and 0.9% compared with the same period of last year. The scissors difference between M2 and M1 decreased significantly by 6.2% compared with the previous month. The growth rate of M0 was 5.8% year-on-year. Household deposits increased by 5.41 trillion yuan, an increase of 2.66 trillion yuan year-on-year, and deposits of non-financial enterprises increased by 138.9 billion yuan, an increase of 10.574 billion yuan year-on-year. Deposits from non bank financial institutions increased by 1.39 trillion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 1.366 billion yuan. Fiscal deposits increased by 600.2 billion yuan, an increase of 17.079 billion yuan year-on-year. The significant improvement of M1 growth rate compared with January is mainly due to the dislocation of Spring Festival time; However, on the whole, the growth rate of M1 is still weak year-on-year. The reason for the year-on-year decline of M2 may be that due to the small financial expenditure, the Financial deposits have not been transformed from the central bank account to the enterprise department account. February is not a big tax month, but the increase in fiscal deposits may be a reflection of the historical balance profits of specific institutions, and less fiscal expenditure, indicating that the fiscal policy has not yet been put into force. However, local government bonds increased significantly in February. With the gradual implementation of specific projects, we believe that the finance is in a state of reserve and ready to go.
Risk tip: the credit easing policy exceeded expectations, the effect of the steady growth policy exceeded expectations, the situation in Russia and Ukraine was uncertain, and the development of the epidemic was uncertain