Overview of financial statistics in March and the first quarter of 2022:
On April 11, 2022, the central bank released the financial statistics of March and the first quarter of 2022. After several quarters of observation, the bill discount interest rate has become a better indicator of high-frequency tracking credit supply. From the rebound of bill discount interest rate from the middle of March to the end of the month, the time point effect of credit impulse at the end of the quarter is obvious:
(1) according to the standards of financial institutions, RMB loans increased by 3130 billion yuan in March, an increase of 395.1 billion yuan year-on-year; In the first quarter, RMB loans increased by 8.34 trillion yuan, an increase of 663.6 billion yuan year-on-year.
(2) in March, the scale of social financing was 4650 billion yuan, an increase of 1280 billion yuan year-on-year. In the first quarter, social financing increased by 12.06 trillion yuan, an increase of 177 million yuan year-on-year.
(3) at the end of March, the growth rate of social finance stock increased by 10.6% year-on-year, with a month on month rise of 0.4 percentage points; The balance of various loans of financial institutions increased by 11.40% year-on-year, the same as that at the end of February;
(4) at the end of March, M2 increased by 9.7% year-on-year, 0.5 and 0.3 percentage points higher than that at the end of last month and the same period of last year respectively; M1 increased by 4.7% year-on-year, the same as last month, 2.4 percentage points lower than the same period last year. The scissors difference between M1 and M2 expanded to 5.0 percentage points from 4.5 percentage points at the end of February.
Total amount: compared with the first quarter of 2020, the total amount exceeded the expected expansion. (1) Due to the successive outbreaks in super large cities such as Shanghai and Shenzhen in March, the situation may be more dangerous than that in Wuhan in the first quarter of 2020. Therefore, only 2020 can take the first quarter of 2022 as the benchmark. The financial crisis is more important than the financial crisis and the expected economic growth. In the first quarter of 2022, the scale of new social financing reached 12.06 trillion, an increase of 1.77 trillion over the first quarter of 2021 and 0.96 trillion over the first quarter of 2020. In terms of total, the monetary easing conditions for "steady growth" are not lower than those in the first quarter of 2020, but the central bank conducted two "interest rate cuts" from January to April 2020, reducing the medium-term lending convenience operation interest rate of 30 BP in total, But in the first quarter of 2022, the central bank only carried out the "interest rate cut" operation of 10 BP in January. (2) From the factors driving the growth of the total amount of social finance, March continued the expansion style driven by the "two rounds" of government debt financing and credit supply since January and February. In the stock structure of social finance, the balance of government debt accounted for 16.80%, up 0.9 percentage points year-on-year, but down 0.1 percentage points compared with the end of February; The proportion of RMB credit granted to the real economy reached 61.40%, up 0.5 percentage points year-on-year and 0.2 percentage points compared with the end of February. The proportion of "off balance sheet financing" continued to decline, and the proportion of corporate bond financing and stock financing did not rise significantly. (3) The total amount of credit and social finance in the first quarter of 2022 exceeded that in the first quarter of 2020, which is a catalyst for the economic growth still troubled by the epidemic. The "wide credit" at the level of total amount is conducive to the "stable growth" of the economy.
Structure: the financing demand of the real economy is still weak. (1) From the perspective of credit structure, the proportion of medium and long-term loans rebounded to 54.90% in March. On average, the proportion of medium and long-term loans in the first quarter was only 54.55%, lower than 57.53% in the first quarter of 2020 during the same "anti epidemic" period. The problem of weak financing demand of the real economy ran through the whole quarter. However, when the outbreak of the epidemic in March disturbed the rhythm of "steady growth", the credit structure is important, but the maintenance and expansion of the total amount is the first step to enhance confidence. (2) From the perspective of credit granting departments, the new increment of the non-financial enterprise sector (an increase of 880 billion yuan year-on-year) is much higher than that of the resident sector (an increase of 394 billion yuan year-on-year). Although the resident sector has ended the "shrinkage" of medium and long-term negative credit growth, the repair of the balance sheet has not been completed, and the enterprise sector continues to maintain a year-on-year increase. However, among the credit increased year-on-year in the enterprise sector, the short-term loan increased by 434.1 billion yuan, and the medium and long-term credit increased by only 14.8 billion yuan. The short-term credit structure not only points to the weak investment and financing demand of the real economy, but also shows that the credit impulse has some effect at the end of the first quarter, which does not rule out the risk of "cooperative" impulse loans between banks and enterprises. (3) Within the residential sector, short-term loans and medium and long-term loans increased by 139.4 billion yuan and 250.4 billion yuan respectively year-on-year. Short-term loans such as consumption and medium and long-term loans such as house purchase weakened, pointing to the increasing pressure of "deleveraging" of the residential sector since February. From October 2021 to the end of April 2022, many central and local departments have launched a series of corrective measures for real estate, but the decline in the willingness of residents to take the initiative in debt is not only solved by the deregulation of real estate supply side policies, but also the key to "stable growth" is to expand the denominator of leverage ratio and stabilize the expectation of residents' income growth.
Leverage: Residents' savings are "deleveraged" and fiscal policy is overweight. In terms of deposit structure, financial institutions added 4.49 trillion yuan of local currency deposits in March, an increase of 860 billion yuan year-on-year. In terms of sub sectors, (1) the resident sector increased 762.3 billion yuan year-on-year. On the one hand, there was an increase in deposits, on the other hand, there was a decrease in loans, and the tendency of the resident sector to weaken its willingness to consume and invest and increase its willingness to save may restrict the recovery of consumption in the later stage; (2) The deposits of the financial sector decreased by 357.1 billion yuan year-on-year, pointing to the increase of fiscal expenditure, and the fiscal policy is playing the role of "steady growth".
Policy: "water" has been spilled, and where is "noodles"? After the national standing committee meeting mentioned monetary policy on April 6, the bond market, which is most sensitive to monetary easing, was not excited. On the one hand, of course, because the national Standing Committee focused on "refinancing", the market's expectation of the central bank's use of aggregate policy tools was cooled; On the other hand, it is because in the past, the habit of loose goods administration was to "add water when there are too many faces". However, under the impact of the epidemic in March, when the transportation is blocked and the business operation is not ideal, where is behind the flood? Under the shutdown, the financing demand of the real economy is difficult to recover, resulting in the lack of confidence in the total expansion of credit and social finance.
In the morning trading of Chinese bonds on April 11, due to the rapid rise of US bond yields, the nominal interest rate difference between China and the United States showed an upside down for the first time since 2010. Although from the perspective of the inflation rate difference of - 8 percentage points between China and the United States, it seems to be in line with the current economic fundamentals that the nominal interest rate difference between China and the United States is upside down like that from 2002 to 2007, this time, the RMB exchange rate did not start depreciation under the feedback of narrowing the interest rate difference between China and the United States, and remained in the range of 6.36-6.37 with the real interest rate difference between China and the United States. The narrowing of nominal interest rate spread between China and the United States and the strong RMB exchange rate actually point to that China has tended to "tighten". Next, in terms of breaking the tightening effect of real interest rate (nominal interest rate inflation rate) and real exchange rate on China's real economy, monetary policy can only continue to reduce nominal interest rate. If there is no aggregate demand policy to boost inflation expectations, Then the effect of falling nominal interest rate on reducing real interest rate and real exchange rate will be greatly reduced. After the total expansion in the first quarter, "water" has been poured out. Next, we need to see where the "face" is. The latter is the direction in which fiscal policy needs to focus.
Market: after the total amount is loose or not loose, what opportunities do the bond market have?
(1) the bond market continues to maintain the expectation of loose policy. Although the strong financial statistics in the first quarter continue to divide the judgment of the bond market on the necessity of interest rate and reserve requirement reduction, judging from the warning of "no sorrow is greater than death" at the press conference of financial statistics in the first quarter, the uncertainty of the Fed's interest rate increase in the second quarter and the pressure of "steady growth", we still believe that, April is a good time to use the aggregate monetary policy. With the real interest rate and real exchange rate both high, the decisive use of the aggregate policy is a better "credit easing" measure in the first half of the year.
(2) for the bond market, whether there is aggregate policy operation in April or not, it should be cautious and optimistic. If the "interest rate cut" and other aggregate easing measures are fulfilled in April, there will probably be no further operation in the second quarter. Like the reduction of the excess reserve interest rate in April 2020, the yield hit the bottom after the last stick of bulls passed; If there is no aggregate policy such as "interest rate cut" in April, in order to alleviate the upward pressure on real interest rates, liquidity will continue to remain loose, but the fiscal policy or leading force to promote the expansion of aggregate demand, inflation rate and inflation expectation may be revised upward from the "tight" state, which will correspond to the shock of bond yields falling into the long short balance again.
Risk tip: the challenge of internal and external balance. (1) The tightening monetary policy path of the Federal Reserve increases the risk of external economic imbalance, or restricts the loose space of monetary policy of the Central Bank of China; (2) The real estate regulation policy has changed beyond expectations; (3) The risk of inflation is rising.
