FT you have the manpower to analyze how risk weighted bank capital requirements distort the allocation of bank credit.

Sir, Megan Greene writes: “Stubbornly low interest rates have failed to generate significant aggregate demand. That suggests the world has been stuck in a prolonged liquidity trap.” “Financial policymakers are right to fight the last war”, November 24.

FT would do all a favor if it sends out its savvy journalists to investigate bank rates given the current different capital requirements. That should cover assets risk-weighted 20%, 50%, 100% and 150%. And then they should try to analyze how these rates relate to each other and how this compares the relation of interest rates for similar assets, before the introduction in 2004 of the risk weighted bank capital requirements for private sector assets.

That would allow FT to understand how these regulations distort the allocation of credit in favor of those who being perceived as safe are favored anyway, and against those who perceived as risky are anyhow disfavored.

But what fighting the last war is Greene talking about? The 2008 crisis was caused by AAA rated securities turning out risky but our bank regulations still are mostly based on the expected credit risks banks should clear for on their own; not on misperceived credit risks or unexpected dangers, like COVID-19. As a consequence, banks will now stand there with their pants down. Good job!

PS. http://subprimeregulations.blogspot.com/2019/03/my-letter-to-financial-stability-board.html

@PerKurowski

What would happen to the yield curve if regulators dared to increase, ever so little, their current 0% risk weight for US Treasury debt?

Sir, Megan Greene discusses how the yield curve the spread between long- and short-term bonds may be influenced by, “The US Treasury is currently borrowing more money to finance predicted big budget deficits and it has mainly done so with short-term debt… and global quantitative easing has created a seemingly insatiable demand for five- to 10-year Treasuries, pushing down yields.” “How central banks distort the yield curve’s predictive power”, September 4.

But that’s not all the distortion in force. The risk weighted capital requirements for banks might distort even more; we recently saw how Greece was taken down by the 0% risk weigh EU authorities assigned to its debt, which caused European banks to drown in it, until they got rescued, by the victim Greece having to take on even more debt.

If the US, in face of its ever growing public debt, suddenly sees it as its responsibility to increase the risk weight of it, so that the interest rates send more correct signals, then I would hold that the rate on all longer term bonds would immediately shoot up, and many banks around the world would stand there with huge losses on their books. 

I here you “That will just not happen? Yes, they have with that 0% risk weight painted themselves into a corner but, sooner or later, there needs to be some adults in the room who start working against having to face a scenario of total collapse; this time with much less tools available than the last time they kicked the can down the road in 2007 2008 … or at least so we hope… or at least so we pray.

PS. Here on research that is still missing 

@PerKurowski

The Stock Exchange should report, in real time, the current average holding period for each security.

Sir, Megan Greene writes: “The average holding period for a security on the New York Stock Exchange has fallen from two months in 2008 to just under 20 seconds today, according to analysis from Cumberland Advisors” “Passive investing is storing up trouble” August 3.

I had no idea we were into holding periods measured in seconds. Some years ago U.S. Sen. Mark Warner mentioned "The average time someone used to hold a share of stock back in the ’60s was eight years.”

Seeing this, it’s clear the stock market should begin to report the individual holding period for each security. Any ordinary investor, who makes his own slow analysis to come up with a decision whether to buy or sell, I assume would not really want to be competing against computers working in milliseconds… distant from fundamentals.

And Megan writes about the systemic risk present in “Passive investments… Often set up to mimic an index, ETFs have to buy more of equities rising in price, sending those stock prices even higher…creates a piling-on effect as funds buy more of these increasingly expensive stocks and less of the cheaper ones in their indices — the polar opposite of the adage “buy low, sell high” … [with] no regard for underlying fundamentals”.

In that Megan is not very far away from that systemic risk I so often write to you about, namely that of higher capital requirements for banks against what is perceived safe than against what is perceived risky. First, those capital requirements take no consideration of the purpose of the credit; and second they are the polar opposite of what they should be, since what is perceived as safe is in fact much more dangerous to our bank systems than what is ex ante perceived as risky.

@PerKurowski