Ben Bernanke y la Regla de Taylor

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/ben-bernanke/posts/2015/04/28-taylor-rule-monetary-policy?cid=00900015020149101US0001-0428

Ben S. Bernanke | April 28, 2015 11:00am

The Taylor Rule: A benchmark for monetary policy?

• Monetary Policy
• Inflation
• Federal Reserve System
• Economics
• U.S. Economic Performance

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Stanford economist John Taylor's many contributions to monetary economics include his introduction of what has become known as the Taylor rule (as named by others, not by John). The Taylor rule is a simple equation—essentially, a rule of thumb—that is intended to describe the interest rate decisions of the Federal Reserve's Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).
The Taylor rule is a valuable descriptive device. However, John has argued that his rule should prescribe as well as describe—that is, he believes that it (or a similar rule) should be a benchmark for monetary policy. Starting from that premise, John has been quite critical of the Fed's policies of the past dozen years or so. He repeated some of his criticisms at a recent IMF conference in which we both participated. In short, John believes that the Fed has not followed the prescriptions of the Taylor rule sufficiently closely, and that this supposed failure has led to very poor policy outcomes. In this post I will explain why I disagree with a number of John's claims.

Taylor Rule Basics

I'll begin with some Taylor rule basics. Historically, the FOMC has set monetary policy by raising or lowering its target for the federal funds rate, the interest rate at which banks make overnight loans to each other. The Taylor rule, which John introduced in a 1993 paper, is a numerical formula that relates the FOMC's target for the federal funds rate to the current state of the economy. Here's the formula:
r = p + .5y + .5(p – 2) + 2 (the “Taylor rule”)
where
r = the federal funds rate
p = the rate of inflation
y = the percent deviation of real GDP from a target
Normally, the Fed's "target" for real GDP is potential output, the amount the economy can sustainably produce when capital and labor are fully employed. With that assumption, the variable y in the Taylor rule can be interpreted as the excess of actual GDP over potential output, also known as the output gap.
To put the equation into words, the (original) Taylor rule predicts that the FOMC will raise the federal funds rate (tighten monetary policy) by one-half percentage point:
(1) for each percentage point that inflation rises relative to the Fed's target, assumed to be 2 percent; or
(2) for each percentage point that that output rises relative to its potential.
The Taylor rule also predicts that when inflation is at target and output is at potential (the output gap is zero), the FOMC will set the real federal funds rate at 2 percent—about its historical average. In his 1993 paper, John showed that the rule described FOMC behavior over the previous half dozen years or so quite well.

Taylor's Critique of Fed Policy

The Taylor rule provides a nice, simple description of how monetary policy has been made in the past. But what does it say about how monetary policy should be made?
Originally, John did not seem to believe that his eponymous rule should be more than a general guideline. Indeed, in his 1993 article, he took pains to point out that a simple mechanical rule could not take into account the many factors that policymakers must consider in practice. (See my IMF remarks for a relevant passage from Taylor 1993. See also Taylor 1999.) I believe that John's original view was sensible. As a policymaker I often referred to various policy rules, including variants of the Taylor rule. However, it seemed to me self-evident that such rules could not incorporate all the relevant considerations for making policy in a complex, dynamic economy.
Lately, though, John has taken a much more prescriptive view, essentially arguing that policy should hew closely to the Taylor rule (or a similar rule) virtually all the time, and that even relatively small deviations from the rule can have enormous costs. He has made two specific claims, see for example here and here:

• First, John argues that the FOMC kept interest rates much lower than prescribed by the Taylor rule during 2003-2005, and that this deviation was a major source of the housing bubble and other financial excesses.
• Second, he asserts that the Fed’s monetary policy since the financial crisis has not been sufficiently rule-like, and that policy has been too easy. He says that, if the FOMC had been following the Taylor rule, it would have ended its policy of near-zero interest rates several years ago. He blames much of the disappointing recovery on the Fed’s putative deviations from the Taylor rule.

The basis of John's claims is findings like those of Figure 1 below, which is my update of the original Taylor rule for the period 1993 to the present. To construct Figure 1, I followed Taylor's original paper and measured inflation using the GDP deflator (more on this in a moment). To measure the output gap, for the period through 2009 I used estimates prepared by Federal Reserve staff for FOMC meetings, which are disclosed after a five year lag. For 2010 through the present, for which Fed staff estimates of the output gap are not yet publicly available, I used estimates produced and published by the Congressional Budget Office. Importantly, for all figures in this post, I used only data that were known to policymakers at the time they made their decisions. Because initial data are often substantially revised, using real-time data is essential for evaluating policy choices. (See my note for more information about data sources and this file for the data itself).
As you can see, the figure shows the actual fed funds rate falling below the Taylor rule prescription both in 2003-2005 and since about 2011. That is, if the Taylor rule shown in Figure 1 is the benchmark, then monetary policy was at least somewhat "too easy" in both those periods.

I responded to assertions similar to John's first claim, that too-easy money caused the US housing bubble, in a 2010 speech. Briefly, I argued there that the Fed's interest-rate policies in 2003-2005 can't explain the size, timing, or global nature of the housing bubble. I won't repeat those points here. Instead, I want here to address John's critique on its own grounds, by examining whether it's really true that—relative to a plausible Taylor rule benchmark—US monetary policy was too easy during 2003-2005 and in the period since the crisis.

A Modified Taylor Rule

To check the robustness of John's claims, I calculated the policy predictions of a Taylor-type rule that was modified in two ways that seem sensible to me.
First, I changed the measure of inflation used in the Taylor rule. In his 1993 paper, John chose to measure inflation using a price index known as the GDP deflator (I used that measure of inflation in constructing Figure 1 above). However, when talking about inflation, economists (and the FOMC) usually mean the rate of increase of consumer prices. The GDP deflator incorporates not only the prices of domestically produced consumer goods and services, but also other categories of prices, such as the prices of capital goods and the imputed prices of government spending (on defense, for example). It also excludes the prices of imports, including imported consumer goods.
In practice, the FOMC has long been clear that its preferred measure of inflation is the rate of change in consumer prices, as reflected specifically in the deflator for personal consumption expenditures (PCE). The FOMC targets overall PCE inflation, but has typically viewed core PCE inflation (which excludes volatile food and energy prices) as a better measure of the medium-term inflation trend and thus as a better predictor of future inflation. Accordingly, I define inflation for the purposes of my modified Taylor rule as core PCE inflation.¹
Second, it's important to consider how policy responds, quantitatively, to changes in inflation and the output gap. The original Taylor rule assumes that the funds rate responds by a half-percentage point to a one percentage point change in either inflation or the output gap (that is, the coefficient on both variables is 0.5). In principle, the relative weights on the output gap and inflation should depend on, among other things, the extent to which policymakers are willing to accept greater variability in inflation in exchange for greater stability in output. Some research subsequent to John's original paper, summarized by Taylor (1999), found a case for allowing a larger response of the funds rate to the output gap (specifically, a coefficient of 1.0 rather than 0.5). In my experience, the FOMC paid closer attention to variants of the Taylor rule that include the higher output gap coefficient. For example, Janet Yellen has suggested that the FOMC's "balanced approach" in responding to inflation and unemployment is more consistent with a coefficient on the output gap of 1.0, rather than 0.5. In my modified Taylor rule I assumed the higher coefficient on the output gap.
Figure 2 below shows the predictions for the federal funds rate of my preferred version of the Taylor rule, which measures inflation using the core PCE deflator and assumes that the weight on the output gap is 1.0 rather than 0.5.

As you can see in the figure, the predictions of my updated Taylor rule (green line) and actual Fed policy (dashed black line) are generally quite close over the past two decades (the green line starts in 1996 because real-time data for the core PCE deflator are not available before then). In particular, it is no longer the case that the actual funds rate falls below the predictions of the rule in 2003-2005.
As for the period since the financial crisis, the modified Taylor rule in Figure 2 suggests that the "right" funds rate was quite negative, at least until very recently. If the Taylor rule predicts a sharply negative funds rate, which of course is not feasible, then it seems sensible for the FOMC to have done what it did: keep the funds rate close to zero (about as low as it can go) while looking for other tools (like purchases of securities) to achieve further monetary ease.²
As John points out, the US recovery has been disappointing. But attributing that to Fed policy is a stretch. The financial crisis of 2007-2009 was the worst at least since the Depression, and it left deep scars on the economy. The recovery faced other headwinds, such as tight fiscal policy from 2010 on and the resurgence of financial problems in Europe. Compared to other industrial countries, the US has enjoyed a relatively strong recovery from the Great Recession.
In short, Figure 2 argues against Taylor's two criticisms, on their own terms. Relative to a modified but plausible Taylor rule, monetary policy since the early 1990s seems reasonable and consistent.
It could be argued, of course, that my two modifications of the original Taylor rule are not reasonable. Frankly, I don't think there is much of a case for not employing real-time data or for using the GDP deflator to measure inflation rather than using overall or core PCE inflation. With respect to the choice of the weight on the output gap, the research on Taylor rules does not provide much basis for choosing between 0.5 and 1.0. However, the choice of 1.0 seems best to describe the FOMC's efforts to support job growth while also keeping inflation close to target in the medium term.
I also note an odd feature of the Taylor rules I estimated with the original coefficient of 0.5 on the output gap. No matter what inflation measure is chosen, such rules tend to imply that Fed policy was too tight in the 1990s, as well as too easy in 2003-2005. (You can see this result for the GDP deflator in Figure 1. It's also true if overall PCE inflation is used as the inflation measure.) If easy money is an important cause of bubbles, how can the large gains in the stock market in the 1990s be reconciled with monetary policy that appears if anything too tight?

Monetary Policy: Systematic, Not Automatic

I've shown that US monetary policy since the early 1990s is pretty well described by a modified Taylor rule. Does that mean that the Fed should dispense with its elaborate deliberations and simply follow that rule in the future? In particular, would it make sense, as Taylor proposes, for the FOMC to state in advance its rule for changing interest rates?
No. Monetary policy should be systematic, not automatic. The simplicity of the Taylor rule disguises the complexity of the underlying judgments that FOMC members must continually make if they are to make good policy decisions. Here are just a few examples (not an exhaustive list):

• The Taylor rule assumes that policymakers know, and can agree on, the size of the output gap. In fact, as current debates about the amount of slack in the labor market attest, measuring the output gap is very difficult and FOMC members typically have different judgments. It would be neither feasible nor desirable to try to force the FOMC to agree on the size of the output gap at a point in time.
• The Taylor rule also assumes that the equilibrium federal funds rate (the rate when inflation is at target and the output gap is zero) is fixed, at 2 percent in real terms (or about 4 percent in nominal terms). In principle, if that equilibrium rate were to change, then Taylor rule projections would have to be adjusted. As noted in footnote 2, both FOMC participants and the markets apparently see the equilibrium funds rate as lower than standard Taylor rules assume. But again, there is plenty of disagreement, and forcing the FOMC to agree on one value would risk closing off important debates.
• The Taylor rule provides no guidance about what to do when the predicted rate is negative, as has been the case for almost the entire period since the crisis.
• There is no agreement on what the Taylor rule weights on inflation and the output gap should be, except with respect to their signs. The optimal weights would respond not only to changes in preferences of policymakers, but also to changes in the structure of the economy and the channels of monetary policy transmission.

I don't think we'll be replacing the FOMC with robots anytime soon. I certainly hope not.

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^{1. To reiterate, core inflation is used because of its predictive properties for overall inflation, not because core inflation itself is the target of policy. I showed in my 2010 speech that the results are similar to those below when real-time forecasts of inflation are used instead.}

^{2. I caution against reading too much into the fact that the modified Taylor rule predicts a positive federal funds rate at the far right end of the figure. The FOMC has many factors to consider in its decisions. For example, the Taylor rule used in Figure 2, like the original Taylor rule, assumes that the long-run real funds rate is 2 percent. If the equilibrium real funds rate is lower than that, as both financial markets and FOMC participants appear to believe, then the modified Taylor rule used in Figure 2 may currently be predicting a funds rate that is too high.}

La debilidad del sistema bancario de Estados Unidos

http://beta.ineteconomics.org/ideas-papers/blog/americas-banking-system-is-a-giant-house-of-cards-it-could-fall-on-you

America’s Banking System is a Giant House of Cards

By By Lynn Parramore

Apr 21, 2015 | Money & Banking

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It Could Fall On You.

Anat Admati teaches finance and economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and is co-author of The Bankers' New Clothes, a classic account of the problem of Too Big to Fail banks. On May 6th, at the Finance and Society Conference sponsored by the Institute for New Economic Thinking, she will join Brooksley Born, former chair of Chair of the Commodities Futures Trading Commission, to discuss how effective financial regulation can make the system work better for society. Seven years after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, Admati warns that we are not doing nearly enough to confront a bloated, inefficient, and dangerous financial system. The system can't fix itself. Here's what you need to know.
Lynn Parramore: How would you describe the problem of Too Big to Fail banks. Whey does it matter to an ordinary person?
Anat Admati: Too Big to Fail is a license for recklessness. These institutions defy notions of fairness, accountability, and responsibility. They are the largest, most complex, and most indebted corporations in the entire economy.
We all have to be really alarmed by the fact that not only do we still have such institutions, but many of them are ever-larger and more complex and at least as dangerous, if not more so, than they were before the financial crisis.
They are too big to manage and control. They take enormous risks that endanger everybody. They benefit from the upside and expose the rest of us to the downside of their decisions. These banks are too powerful politically as well.
As they seek profits, they can make wasteful and inefficient loans that harm ordinary people, and at the same time they might refuse to make certain business loans that can help the economy. They can even break the laws and regulations without the people responsible being held accountable. Effectively we're hostages because their failure would be so harmful. They're likely to be bailed out if their risks don't turn out well.
Ordinary people continue to suffer from a recession that was greatly exacerbated or even caused by recklessness in the financial system and failed regulation. But the largest institutions, especially their leaders — even in the failed ones — have suffered the least. They're thriving again and arguably benefitting the most from efforts to stimulate the economy.
So there's something wrong with this picture. And there's also increasing recognition that bloated banks and a bloated financial system – these huge institutions—are a drag on the economy.
LP: Have we made any progress in dealing with the problem?
AA: The progress has been totally unfocused and insufficient. Dodd-Frank claims to have solved the problem and it gives plenty of tools to regulators to do what needs to be done (many of these tools they actually already had before). But this law is really complex and the implementation of it is very messy. The lobbying by the financial industry is a large part of the reason that the law has been implemented so poorly and inefficiently with so much difficulty. We are failing to take simple steps and at the same time undertaking extremely costly steps with doubtful benefits.
So we've had far from enough progress. We are told things are better but they are nowhere near what we should expect and demand. Much more can be done right now.
LP: Banks, compared to other businesses, finance an enormous portion of their assets with borrowed money, or debt – as much as 95 percent. Yet bankers often claim that this is perfectly fine, and if we make them depend less on debt they will be forced to lend less. What is your view? Would asking banks to rely more on unborrowed money, or equity, somehow hurt the economy?
AA: Sometimes when I don't have time to unpack everything I use a quote from a book called Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins by Jeff Connaughton. He relates something Paul Volcker once said to Senator Ted Kaufman: "You know, just about whatever anyone proposes, no matter what it is, the banks will come out and claim that it will restrict credit and harm the economy…It's all bullshit."
Here's one obvious reason such claims are, in Volcker's vocabulary, bullshit: Lending suffered most when banks didn't have enough equity to absorb their losses in the crisis — and then we had to bail them out. The loss they suffered on the subprime fiasco was relatively small by comparison to losses to investors when the Internet bubble burst, but there was so much debt throughout the system, and indeed in the housing markets, and so much interconnection that the entire financial system almost collapsed. That's when lending suffered. So lending and growth suffers when the banks have too little equity, not too much.
Now, banks naturally have some debt, like deposits. But they don't feel indebted even when they rely on 95 percent debt to finance their assets. No other healthy company lives like that, and nobody, even banks, needs to live like that — that's the key. Normally, the market would not allow this to go on; those who are as heavily indebted feel the burden in many ways. The terms of the debt become too burdensome for corporations, and reflect the inefficient investment decisions made by heavily indebted companies. But banks have much nicer creditors, like depositors, and with many explicit and implicit guarantees, banks don't face trouble or harsh terms. They only have to convince the regulators to let them get away with it. And they do.
So the abnormality of this incredible indebtedness is that they get away with it. There's nothing good about it for society. If they had more equity then they could do everything that they do better —more consistently, more reliably, in a less distorted fashion.
Today's credit market is distorted. A key reason is that bankers love the high risk and chase returns. They are less fond of some of the lending where they are needed the most — like business lending, for example. Instead, most people get many credit cards in the mail and too many people live on expensive revolving credit. Effectively, the poor may end up subsidizing the credit card of the person who pays on time and has zero interest (and we all end up paying the enormous fees merchants are charged). So we can have too much or too little lending and live through inefficient booms and busts. Part of the reason for that is that banks are continually living on the edge in a way that nobody else in the economy would, and regulations meant to correct it are insufficient and flawed in their design.
LP: Banking has been a very profitable business. Is it profitable because the risks are born by the taxpayer? Do you think the bank bonus system is part of the problem?
AA: Yes, banking is partly profitable because of subsidies from taxpayers. There are probably other reasons, and not all of them good ones, in terms of the way competition works and other things. The bonus system encourages recklessness, and recklessness increases the value of the subsidies from taxpayers. Bankers are effectively paid to gamble.
It is profitable for the banks to become big even when this is inefficient, because they can do so with subsidized borrowing on easy terms. Guarantees, explicit and implicit, are a form of free or subsidized insurance. We don't control whether what banks do with the cheap funding benefits the economy or just bankers and some of their investors. We must reduce these large subsidies that end up rewarding recklessness and harming us. (See Admati's July 2014 testimony before Congress on bank subsidies).
LP: We often hear about financial innovations that helped bring the global economy to its knees in 2008. Back in December, Congress rolled back a key taxpayer protection concerning derivatives, which Robert Lenzner of Forbes Magazine called a "Christmas present for the banks." What do Americans need to know about derivatives? How do they affect the Too Big to Fail problem?
AA. The Christmas present was just one more small thing in a much bigger problem. The largest financial firms in America can hide an enormous amount of risk in derivatives. That's very dangerous because it makes banks more interconnected, since much of the derivatives trading happens within the financail system. It creates a house of cards — a very fragile system.
We also have bankruptcy laws in this country that perversely give unusual priority to derivatives contracts and other reckless practices.
Derivatives exacerbate Too Big to Fail dramatically because there's so much opacity in the system. Policy-makers get scared into bailing our or guaranteeing a lot of their commitments made in those markets because they won't quite know the consequences of letting them fail. It's very intimately related to Too Big to Fail. It's as if they hold a gun to your head. You don't konw whether they have bullets so you may get scared into paying the ransom.
LP: Is breaking up the banks is a solution?
AA: People say those words but what does it mean? How would you do it? That's the big problem. Banks are multiple times bigger than most of the corporations you think of as big. I once made a mistake rushing through a HuffPost piece in 2010 saying that Jamie Dimon wants to be as big as Walmart. Well, at the time, JP Morgan was already 10 times bigger than Walmart by assets! When it comes to the financial sector, big is really big. People don't even appreciate how big we're talking about. Nobody else gets to be as big, and in fact, In other parts of the economy, companies that get so big often break up on their own. But that doesn't happen in banking partly because of the perverse subsidies taxpayers provide.
The most sensible approach is to force banks and other financial institutions to have more equity, which is actually going to expose their inefficiencies and bring more investor pressure for a break-up to happen naturally without us doing it actively. Regulators can also put significantly more pressure on banks to simplify their structure and divest unnecessary lines of businesses such as commodities (energy, aluminum, etc.). The size appears unmanageable and makes regulation difficult.
LP: What would make banking regulation more effective?
AA: First of all there could be simpler regulation in some places and some cost-ineffective things could be used a bit less. Right now, we know too little about the risk and we have too little margin for error. We must reduce the opacity and increase the safety margins dramatically. Regulators make it complicated because we are unnecessarily living at the edge of a cliff all the time. We live so dangerously! There's no need for that. We are told that we have to live like that, but it's that's completely false. The system has to be made a lot more resilient. Then we can worry less and sleep better.
In addition to making things simpler, it's very important that we are able to see more of the risk and then to enforce much stronger and simpler rules. And, of course, regulators need to be watching where the risks are going. They should not believe that just because the risks are off the accounting balance sheets that they are gone. That was a trick to get around regulations and get around accounting rules in cases like Enron. A lot of the risks were hiding — but they can be traced. Some laws that are counterproductive and make regulation harder should also be examined, including the tax code that encourages debt over equity, and the bankruptcy law that overly protects certain financial practices.
LP: If we don't deal with the problem of Too Big to Fail, what happens?
AA: An ordinary person doesn't realize it, but the impact of this unhealthy system on them happens every day. It's doesn't feel as acute as something like leakage from a nuclear facility because harm from the financial system is a little more abstract. You only see it when it blows. But it's an unhealthy, inefficient, bloated and dangerous system. Because this system is so fragile, it can implode again, and our options next time will be dire again. We will either suffer a lot or bail out the system to suffer a little bit less.
I recently shared with my students a quote by the Rothschild brothers of London, writing to associates in New York in 1863: "The few who understand the system will either be so interested in its profits or be so dependent upon its favours that there will be no opposition from that class, while the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending the tremendous advantage that capital derives from the system, will bear its burdens without complaint, and perhaps without even suspecting that the system is inimical to their interests."
This is a great quote! We get tricked into thinking that we have a great financial system because we have our credit cards and whatnot. We don't see the enormous risks that are taken in derivatives markets and some of the other practices that can topple the entire system again and which extracts fees and bonuses. The truth is that we can have a safer system that serves the economy and society better. But getting there requires that better laws and regulations are implemented and enforced. The system will not correct itself; we must demand that policymakers do a better job for the public

De 270 mmdd el arsenal de Banxico para enfrentar la crisis cambiaria y desalentar algun ataque especulativo

http://aristeguinoticias.com/2304/mexico/mexico-tiene-arsenal-de-270-mil-mdd-para-enfrentar-tormenta-carstens/

México tiene “arsenal” de 270 mil mdd para enfrentar “tormenta”: Carstens

Esto, para enfrentar una posible salida de capitales o un impacto por el precio del dólar o la baja del crudo.

Foto: Bernardo Moncada/ Notimex

Redacción AN

abril 23, 2015 12:33 pm

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México ha acumulado un “arsenal” de 270 mil millones de dólares desde 2008 para enfrentar cualquier contingencia que pudiera presentarse por la “tormenta” internacional, destacó el gobernador del Banco de México (Banxico), Agustín Carstens.
Al comparecer ante la Comisión de Hacienda y Cuenta Pública del Senado de la República, precisó que este “arsenal” considera más de 195 mil millones de dólares del saldo de las reservas internacionales y la línea de crédito flexible por 70 mil millones de dólares que México contrató con el Fondo Monetario Internacional (FMI).
Señaló que desde 2008 y 2009, cuando inició la crisis financiera global, México se ha estado preparando para enfrentar el entorno internacional, ante la reciente caída de los precios internacionales del petróleo, debilidad en la economía mundial y la inminente alza en las tasas de interés en Estados Unidos.
El gobernador agregó que la economía de EU será motor de crecimiento para la mexicana, en la medida en que la recuperación de ese país sea relevante.
“Hemos tratado de tener la mejor coordinación posible con la política fiscal y hemos tratado más que nada de acumular ahora sí que ‘parque’ para enfrentar posibles salidas de capitales que resulten de este entorno, y muy en particular de la revisión de la política monetaria en Estados Unidos”, añadió.
Carstens expresó que la economía mexicana observa un proceso de recuperación sostenido, aunque “ha sido moderado”, pero anticipó que se empezará a acelerar una vez que se empiecen a ver resultados de las reformas estructurales, en particular de la energética.
Sin precisar el periodo, Carstens comentó que el peso mexicano se ha depreciado 20 por ciento frente al dólar, por una caída importante en el precio del petróleo.
Afirmó que el Banxico ha logrado su objetivo de lograr una inflación baja y estable, y anticipó que este año cerrará por debajo del objetivo de 3.0 por ciento, mientras que en 2016 se ubicará en un nivel cercano a esa tasa. (Con información de Notimex)

Novela, La Calle. Reseña.

http://www.compartelibros.com/libro/la-calle/21075

Novela, " La Calle" de Lee Gruenfeld

"Hanley odia su trabajo...y su vida. Como broker especializado en lanzar a Bolsa pequeñas empresas de Internet, Hanley las ha visto alcanzar valores astronómicos en muy poco tiempo y a sus promotores, jóvenes mediocres, hacerse multimillonarios delante de sus ojos. Con sus conocimientos de este enloquecido mercado, decide dar el salto, y crear su propia empresa, Artemis-5.com.
Todo lo que necesita es convencer a un grupo de renombrados asesores para entrar en su consejo de administración, lanzar una campaña de intencionados rumores en torno a Artemis-5.com...y esperar que la histeria especulativa haga el resto.
Sin embargo, Hanley se encontrará frente a Thurgren, un inspector de la Comisión de Valores, que sospecha que detrás de esta brillante fachada algo huele mal. Thurgren comienza una investigación cuya trama le llevará a situaciones más que peligrosas.
Novela fascinante y satírica sobre la Nueva Economía y la locura especulativa generada en torno a las empresas puntocom...que probablemente hará pensar al lector en situaciones muy reales..."

Los cinco directivos mejor pagados

¿Quiénes son los 5 CEOs mejor recompensados por sus empresas?

El pago por rendimiento es un incentivo que algunas empresas otorgan a sus trabajadores por su desempeño dentro de la organización.

Bloomberg

17.04.2015 Última actualización 17.04.2015

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Tim Cook, CEO de Apple, tiene el mejor pago por rendimiento que cualquier otro director general del Bloomberg Pay Index, el primer ranking diario de los ejecutivos mejor pagados de Estados Unidos.

El pago por rendimiento es un incentivo que algunas empresas otorgan a sus trabajadores por su desempeño dentro de la organización.

Cook recibió 65.2 millones de dólares en compensación el año pasado. Durante los tres años fiscales en los que lleva al frente de Apple, los ingresos han subido a 69 por ciento a 183 mil millones y el ingreso neto creció 53 por ciento a 39.5 mil millones de dólares. Las ventas de iPhones han sido más del doble a 102 mil millones de dólares.

“Un buen líder como Cook construye un equipo alrededor de él que puede hacer el trabajo”, dijo Dan Ernst, un analista de Hudson Square Research en Nueva York.

El paquete de beneficios del ejecutivo de 54 años, quien lo hace el 17 ejecutivo mejor pagado de Estados Unidos, es opacado por la utilidad de 28.6 mil millones de dólares de Apple durante los tres años que lleva al frente, mostró el índice.

Apple le dio a Cook 9.2 mil millones de dólares el año pasado, incluyendo un salario de 1.8 millones de dólares, un bono de 6.7 millones y 699 mil 133 para seguridad, de acuerdo con la a tabla de compensación de resumen en su representación presentada en enero.

La cifra no incluye 80 mil unidades de acciones restringidas otorgadas a él en agosto de 2011 que estaban destinados a compensarle por 2014. Después de una división de acciones de siete a uno en junio, 560 mil acciones restringidas de Cook fueron valoradas en 56 millones a finales del año fiscal de la compañía en septiembre.

A Cook le sigue el indio Satya Nadella, quien se convirtió CEO de Microsoft en Enero.

Los 43.5 millones de dólares que el más grande fabricante de software en el mundo le dio el año pasado es igual al 0.4 por ciento de los 12.1 mil millones de dólares de la utilidad de Microsoft.

En la tercera posición está Rex Tillerson de Exxon Mobil con una paga en incentivos de 32.3 millones de dólares; el pago representa el 0.7 por ciento de la utilidad promedio de 4.8 mil millones de dólares de la empresa durante tres años.

Muhtar Kent de Coca-Cola está en el cuarto lugar con 33.8 millones de dólares en 2014 o 12 por ciento de los 2.8 mil millones de dólares de utilidad.

Qualcomm, el mayor fabricante de chips usados en los smartphones, otorgó a su ceo Steven Mollenkopf 37.1 millones. El pago fue parte de una serie de “acciones agresivas de compensación para el talento clave” después de que competidores trataron de reclutar a miembros de su organización dijo la empresa en un comunicado.

La medida de pago por rendimiento utilizado en el ranking de Bloomberg se calcula utilizando la paga de un ejecutivo como un porcentaje de los beneficios económicos de una empresa, que se define como el beneficio neto después de impuestos menos su costo de capital. El pago de Cook es de 0.2 por ciento de la ganancia económica, la fracción más pequeña de cualquier CEO en el ranking, lo que demuestra que los inversores están recibiendo un mejor retorno de cada dólar que se le paga a Cook.

Alza del dólar da a CEOs más poder para compras en el extranjero
Slim y Gates, los hombres más ricos del mundo
Los CEO's en EU se hacen más viejos

Por qué son tan bajas las tasas de interés

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/ben-bernanke/posts/2015/03/30-why-interest-rates-so-low?cid=00900015020149101US0001-0330

Why are interest rates so low?

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Interest rates around the world, both short-term and long-term, are exceptionally low these days. The U.S. government can borrow for ten years at a rate of about 1.9 percent, and for thirty years at about 2.5 percent. Rates in other industrial countries are even lower: For example, the yield on ten-year government bonds is now around 0.2 percent in Germany, 0.3 percent in Japan, and 1.6 percent in the United Kingdom. In Switzerland, the ten-year yield is currently slightly negative, meaning that lenders must pay the Swiss government to hold their money! The interest rates paid by businesses and households are relatively higher, primarily because of credit risk, but are still very low on an historical basis.
Low interest rates are not a short-term aberration, but part of a long-term trend. As the figure below shows, ten-year government bond yields in the United States were relatively low in the 1960s, rose to a peak above 15 percent in 1981, and have been declining ever since. That pattern is partly explained by the rise and fall of inflation, also shown in the figure. All else equal, investors demand higher yields when inflation is high to compensate them for the declining purchasing power of the dollars with which they expect to be repaid. But yields on inflation-protected bonds are also very low today; the real or inflation-adjusted return on lending to the U.S. government for five years is currently about minus 0.1 percent.

Why are interest rates so low? Will they remain low? What are the implications for the economy of low interest rates?
If you asked the person in the street, “Why are interest rates so low?”, he or she would likely answer that the Fed is keeping them low. That’s true only in a very narrow sense. The Fed does, of course, set the benchmark nominal short-term interest rate. The Fed’s policies are also the primary determinant of inflation and inflation expectations over the longer term, and inflation trends affect interest rates, as the figure above shows. But what matters most for the economy is the real, or inflation-adjusted, interest rate (the market, or nominal, interest rate minus the inflation rate). The real interest rate is most relevant for capital investment decisions, for example. The Fed’s ability to affect real rates of return, especially longer-term real rates, is transitory and limited. Except in the short run, real interest rates are determined by a wide range of economic factors, including prospects for economic growth—not by the Fed.
To understand why this is so, it helps to introduce the concept of the equilibrium real interest rate (sometimes called the Wicksellian interest rate, after the late-nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Swedish economist Knut Wicksell). The equilibrium interest rate is the real interest rate consistent with full employment of labor and capital resources, perhaps after some period of adjustment. Many factors affect the equilibrium rate, which can and does change over time. In a rapidly growing, dynamic economy, we would expect the equilibrium interest rate to be high, all else equal, reflecting the high prospective return on capital investments. In a slowly growing or recessionary economy, the equilibrium real rate is likely to be low, since investment opportunities are limited and relatively unprofitable. Government spending and taxation policies also affect the equilibrium real rate: Large deficits will tend to increase the equilibrium real rate (again, all else equal), because government borrowing diverts savings away from private investment.
If the Fed wants to see full employment of capital and labor resources (which, of course, it does), then its task amounts to using its influence over market interest rates to push those rates toward levels consistent with the equilibrium rate, or—more realistically—its best estimate of the equilibrium rate, which is not directly observable. If the Fed were to try to keep market rates persistently too high, relative to the equilibrium rate, the economy would slow (perhaps falling into recession), because capital investments (and other long-lived purchases, like consumer durables) are unattractive when the cost of borrowing set by the Fed exceeds the potential return on those investments. Similarly, if the Fed were to push market rates too low, below the levels consistent with the equilibrium rate, the economy would eventually overheat, leading to inflation—also an unsustainable and undesirable situation. The bottom line is that the state of the economy, not the Fed, ultimately determines the real rate of return attainable by savers and investors. The Fed influences market rates but not in an unconstrained way; if it seeks a healthy economy, then it must try to push market rates toward levels consistent with the underlying equilibrium rate.
This sounds very textbook-y, but failure to understand this point has led to some confused critiques of Fed policy. When I was chairman, more than one legislator accused me and my colleagues on the Fed’s policy-setting Federal Open Market Committee of “throwing seniors under the bus” (to use the words of one senator) by keeping interest rates low. The legislators were concerned about retirees living off their savings and able to obtain only very low rates of return on those savings.
I was concerned about those seniors as well. But if the goal was for retirees to enjoy sustainably higher real returns, then the Fed’s raising interest rates prematurely would have been exactly the wrong thing to do. In the weak (but recovering) economy of the past few years, all indications are that the equilibrium real interest rate has been exceptionally low, probably negative. A premature increase in interest rates engineered by the Fed would therefore have likely led after a short time to an economic slowdown and, consequently, lower returns on capital investments. The slowing economy in turn would have forced the Fed to capitulate and reduce market interest rates again. This is hardly a hypothetical scenario: In recent years, several major central banks have prematurely raised interest rates, only to be forced by a worsening economy to backpedal and retract the increases. Ultimately, the best way to improve the returns attainable by savers was to do what the Fed actually did: keep rates low (closer to the low equilibrium rate), so that the economy could recover and more quickly reach the point of producing healthier investment returns.
A similarly confused criticism often heard is that the Fed is somehow distorting financial markets and investment decisions by keeping interest rates “artificially low.” Contrary to what sometimes seems to be alleged, the Fed cannot somehow withdraw and leave interest rates to be determined by “the markets.” The Fed’s actions determine the money supply and thus short-term interest rates; it has no choice but to set the short-term interest rate somewhere. So where should that be? The best strategy for the Fed I can think of is to set rates at a level consistent with the healthy operation of the economy over the medium term, that is, at the (today, low) equilibrium rate. There is absolutely nothing artificial about that! Of course, it’s legitimate to argue about where the equilibrium rate actually is at a given time, a debate that Fed policymakers engage in at their every meeting. But that doesn’t seem to be the source of the criticism.
The state of the economy, not the Fed, is the ultimate determinant of the sustainable level of real returns. This helps explain why real interest rates are low throughout the industrialized world, not just in the United States. What features of the economic landscape are the ultimate sources of today’s low real rates? I’ll tackle that in later posts.

Holanda, Bolsa de valores y la Compañia de las Indias Orientales

http://investorsconundrum.com/2015/04/08/historias-imprescindibles-de-la-bolsa-y-los-mercados-compania-de-las-indias/

Historias imprescindibles de la bolsa y los mercados: Compañía de las Indias

• Posted by Marc Garrigasait on April 8th, 2015 filed in Bolsa, Destacado, emprendedores, Macro
• Comentar ahora »

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Holanda dominaba el comercio mundial a las Indias y America.
Continuando con el relato de uno de los manuales más antiguos sobre bolsa y mercados financieros. “Confusión de confusiones” escrito en 1.688 por José De la Vega un judío sefardita español originario de la provincia de Córdoba. En este libro José De la Vega relata el funcionamiento de la bolsa en Ámsterdam donde existían diversos mercados o corros en distintos edificios. De hecho empezó a contratarse materias primas al aire libre en un mercado hasta que en 1611 los mercaderes construyeron el edificio de la Bolsa de Ámsterdam. Probablemente era la plaza bursátil mas importante del continente europeo.
La primera salida a bolsa: la Compañía de las Indias Orientales.
Cuando José De la Vega tuvo que emigrar de España, se instaló en Ámsterdam y justo coincidió con la que probablemente ha sido la primera OPV (IPO en ingles) o salida a bolsa de la historia. En 1602 las seis cámaras de comercio locales se unieron en una sola Compañía holandesa de las Indias Orientales. Según la declaración oficial, todos los habitantes de las provincias unidas tenían la oportunidad de participar en la Compañía, lo cual me imagino que fue una revolución histórica. Según se cuenta en la introducción del libro:
“Al principio los derechos derivados de los pagos iniciales se llamaron “paerten”, “partieen” o “partijen”, palabras tomadas de la costumbre de la “participación” en el sector naviero. No fue hasta 1606 que la palabra “actie” (es decir, acción) parece que empieza a utilizarse. La posibilidad de comerciar con estas “participaciones” estaba garantizada por el hecho de que todo poseedor de acciones podía, mediante el pago de una cuota, transferir la totalidad o parte de su propiedad a otra persona. La sección de Ámsterdam suscribió más de la mitad de la suma total aportada por las diversas secciones (o Cámaras de Comercio), y con dicha proporción de la “propiedad” mantenida posteriormente, fue en Ámsterdam donde las operaciones bursátiles florecieron más esplendorosamente”.
El capital social fue de 6.459.840 florines, la mitad suscrito por Ámsterdam, una cuarte parte por Middelbourg y una sexta parte por Róterdam, Delft, Hoorn y Enkhuisen. Se cuenta que a la salida a bolsa invirtieron también gente modesta acudiendo un amplio espectro de la población.
En la misma época se creo la Compañía Británica de las Indias Orientales pero sin salida a bolsa. Fue la reina Isabel I de Inglaterra quien les concedió los privilegios del comercio con las Indias para 15 años el día 31 diciembre de 1600. La compañía británica a diferencia de la holandesa fue fundada por un grupo de empresas e influyentes hombres de negocios.
Fue más tarde que nacieran nuevos competidores a la compañía británica y a la holandesa, en Francia, Dinamarca y Suecia se acabarían creando el mismo tipo de compañía. Al igual que en los tiempos modernos, unas compañías fichaban a los ejecutivos de otra. El primer director general de la Compañía francesa de las Indias Orientales fue François Caron, quien estuvo 30 años trabajando en la Compañía Holandesa de las Indias Orientales, incluyendo 20 años en Japón.
La Compañía holandesa de las Indias Orientales fue una compañía de gran importancia y volumen de negocios durante casi dos siglos, pagando un dividendo anual de 18% durante 200 años, hasta que llegó a la bancarrota y fue disuelta en 1800.
Continuando con las citas del libro “Confusión de confusiones”:
“Tan solo unos pocos días después de haberse completado l suscripción original (de unos 6,5 mill. de florines), las acciones de la Compañía holandesa de las Indias orientales empezaron a negociarse tan activamente que subieron un catorce o quince por ciento por encima de la par y la tendencia al alza continuó hasta que en 1607 la cotización se había prácticamente doblado. Sin embargo en el año siguiente, el valor de mercado cayó a un ciento treinta por ciento, como consecuencia de las manipulaciones realizadas por un grupo de especuladores organizados por un tal Isaac Le Maire, quienes en realidad estaban interesados en la fundación de una empresa francesa rival. Estos primeros “operadores” vendieron grandes paquetes de acciones y, además, buscaron l caída en las cotizaciones a través tanto de la ventas “en corto” (o “short”) como de la propagación de rumores desfavorables sobre la Compañía holandesa. Por consiguiente, el 27 de febrero de 1610 se promulgó el primer edicto prohibiendo este tipo de actividades (les suena de algo¡¡) especialmente el windhandel, es decir, la negociación con acciones que no estaban en posesión del vendedor (lo que llama ahora “naked short”). La venta de acciones de la compañía a cargo de los verdaderos propietarios para entrega en el futuro si que estaba permitida. En 1621, después de la declaración de la guerra con España, hubo que proclamar un segundo edicto, que fue seguido de prohibiciones adicionales, pero aparentemente los abusos no pudieron ser eliminados……. A este periodo, le siguió otro de gran actividad, cuando en 1621 se fundó la Compañía Holandesa de las Indias Occidentales y sus acciones empezaron también a negociarse.”
La Compañía de las Indias Occidentales funcionaba bajo la misma filosofía que el de las Indias Orientales, pero comerciaba con el continente americano. Se trataba de financiar las expediciones en barco asumiendo los múltiples riesgos de corsarios, naufragios, pérdidas, etc.

En este artículo podéis conocer las rutas habituales realizadas por la Compañía de las Indias Orientales.
José De la Vega publicó su libro en la década de 1680-1690 de gran actividad bursátil. Como comentaba en el anterior post, según un erudito ingles en 1701 describió como un 85% de la operativa de compra-venta de acciones en las Compañías de las Indias orientales la realizaban judíos con lo que José De la Vega sabía muy bien de lo que hablaba.
¿Que ocurrió con la Compañía Holandesa de las Indias Occidentales?. Todos podéis suponer que fue un éxito al copiar el modelo de la exitosa compañía de las Indias Orientales. Pues no fue así, en los negocios y también en la bolsa suele ocurrir que cuando copias otra idea, todos los nuevos inversores y directivos están convencidos del futuro éxito viéndose reflejados en el espejo del proyecto anterior, pero todo es mas complejo. Y en bolsa cuando un proyecto nace con expectativas elevadas, suele ofrecerse a unos precios de salida mucho mas altos con lo que hay una clara transferencia de valor en contra de los compradores-financiadores iniciales. En el próximo post explicaré que ocurrió con la Compañía de las Indias Occidentales en la bolsa de Ámsterdam.

Los tipos de inversionistas

http://www.forbes.com.mx/como-es-un-inversionista-angel-en-2015/

¿Cómo es un inversionista ángel en 2015?

• 

  Carlos Morales
• Emprendedores
• hace 2 días

Foto: Reuters.

03¿Qué es un inversionista ángel? ¿Qué significa el capital semilla? ¿Por qué deben interesarte estos conceptos a ti como emprendedor? Aquí te explicamos.


Si eres un emprendedor sabes muy bien que una idea de negocio es tan buena como el capital que se consigue para materializarla. Aunque en México la inversión en startups ha sido tradicionalmente casi una figura mitológica, cada vez más fondos están mirando a nuestro país como una fuente de potenciales negocios y ya comienzan a participar en el ecosistema de los pequeños emprendimientos.
Si quieres comenzar tu empresa, es fácil perderte entre términos, conceptos y definiciones del mundo de la inversión, especialmente en etapas tempranas, dada la falta de una cultura en la materia en nuestro país. ¿Qué es un inversionista ángel? ¿Qué significa el capital semilla? ¿Por qué deben interesarme esos conceptos a mí como emprendedor?
El capital semilla es todo aquel de etapa temprana, el que ayuda al emprendedor a desarrollar un prototipo y a echar a andar una idea de negocio, explca Hernán Fernández, cofundador y socio de Angel Ventures México. Aunque ya existen varios fondos en el país dispuestos a aportar el capital, Fernández opina que la ronda de amigos y familia, conocida como la de las 3F (family, friends and fools), suele ser un primer paso usual para muchos emprendedores. Por su parte, una inversión ángel es aquella que da al emprendedor armas para desarrollar su producto.
Para Guillermo Garza, representante en México de Angel Labs, una academia para inversionistas ángel con sede en Silicon Valley, la principal diferencia entre un inversionista semilla y un ángel es que el primero sólo aporta recursos financieros, mientras que el segundo está dispuesto, además, a aportar su tiempo y experiencia para hacer crecer la compañía en la que está invirtiendo.
Fernández añade dos diferencias entre los fondos de inversión y un ángel: el fondo tiene “una tesis más definida, más a largo plazo, y el ángel es más oportunista, es meterse en un proyecto que le dé rentabilidad, que funciona en una base por contrato, mientras que los fondos están mucho más estructurados”. El monto del capital que ofrecen también hace la diferencia: mientras que “los ángeles invierten entre 250,000 y hasta 2 millones de pesos, los fondos de inversión están en el rango de los 2 millones en adelante”, dice.

¿Y en las grandes ligas?
La escena emprendedora mexicana se ha contagiado en los últimos años del furor mundial por las startups estadounidenses, emulando sus modelos de negocio y tratando de generar un ambiente que haga viable la proliferación de pequeños negocios.
Aunque resultan evidentes las diferencias entre México y Estados Unidos, vale la pena mencionar el estado en que se encuentra el sector ‘startupero’ de EU. El célebre inversionista ángel Jason Calacanis (ha puesto dinero en Uber, Tumblr, Whisper y Evernote, entre otras), ha detallado las diferencias entre las series de financiamiento, definidas por la función del dinero en la compañía y su evolución en el tiempo a través de un post en su blog.
Definiciones de 2014:

• Pre fondeo: Desarrollar un prototipo de tu producto.
• Serie Semilla: Lo necesario para lanzarlo.
• Serie A: Lo necesario para comenzar a producirlo.
• Serie B: Lo necesario para escalarlo.

Calacanis advierte que “no solía ser así. ¡Antes se suponía que levantabas capital semilla para construir tu prototipo!”, y contrasta esas ideas con la concepción generalizada de 2004:

• Pre fondeo: Hablas sobre tu idea y elaboras un plan de negocios.
• Serie Semilla: Desarrollar un prototipo de tu producto.
• Serie A: Lo necesario para lanzar tu producto.
• Serie B: Lo necesario para comenzar a producirlo.
• Serie C: Lo necesario para escalarlo.

No obstante, este año los requerimientos son aún más exigentes:

• Pre fondeo: Hablas sobre tu idea, desarrollas un prototipo y lanzas un producto mínimamente viable.
• Serie Semilla: Lo necesario para comenzar a producirlo.
• Serie A: Lo necesario para escalarlo.
• Serie B: Lo necesario para dar liquidez a los fundadores, abrir unas oficinas cool y hacer que los competidores se den por vencidos (o nunca entren en tu mercado en primer lugar).

El célebre inversionista recomienda a los emprendedores desarrollar productos simples que hagan una sola cosa bien, y luego buscar fondeo desde una posición más ventajosa, mientras que a los inversionistas les aconseja no invertir en planes de negocio: “Es un camino que no lleva a ningún lado.”

El perfil del inversionista ángel mexicano
Calacanis es tan implacable como el espíritu de competencia de Silicon Valley, pero la explicación de Fernández, de Angel Ventures, aunque brutal, ilustra de forma clara a qué obedecen las diferencias entre México y el mundo desarrollado:
“El 80% de los inversionistas ángel en EU y en Europa ya pasó por un ciclo de financiamiento completo; se trata de ex emprendedores que lanzaron una empresa con éxito, levantaron capital, crecieron y la vendieron o la hicieron pública. Esos emprendedores se retiraron con dinero, y ya que han pasado buena parte de su vida trabajando en la industria, se juntan con otros individuos de perfil similar y forman grupos de ángeles inversionistas o invierten por sí solos.”
El perfil de los inversionistas latinoamericanos es radicalmente distinto. Fernández afirma que no hay tantos casos de éxito entre emprendedores: se trata de individuos “con alto poder adquisitivo derivado de trabajos muy bien pagados, en multinacionales o socios de consultoría y demás, que tienen un alto componente de smart capital, tienen mucha experiencia en la industria, dinero y tiempo para invertir en algo más que renta fija”.
Las implicaciones de esas diferencias son muy profundas. Si consideramos la definición de inversión ángel de Guillermo Garza, los fondeadores deben acompañar a los emprendedores, asesorarlos y llevarlos de la mano para que aprovechen al máximo el potencial de su negocio, pero si no hay experiencia que compartir, la brecha entre las escenas del mundo desarrollado y Latinoamérica no hará sino ampliarse.
Por eso, Fernández ve el futuro en un solo sentido: “Tiene que ser un tema de política pública prioritario para impulsar el ecosistema el crear o encontrar vertientes para desarrollar ángeles inversionistas.”

Empresas afectadas favorable o negativamente con la devaluación del peso

http://www.elfinanciero.com.mx/empresas/las-firmas-perdedoras-y-ganadoras-con-la-debilidad-del-peso-en-el-1t15.html

Las firmas perdedoras
y ganadoras con
la debilidad
del peso en el 1T15

Alfa, Asur, Femsa, Lala y Liverpool serían las empresas del Índice de Precios y Cotizaciones de la BMV afectadas por la debilidad del peso frente al dólar, tienen una alta proporción de deuda en dólares y baja en ventas con esta misma moneda.

Ana Valle

25.03.2015 Última actualización 30.03.2015

Etiquetas

• Liverpool
• Mexichem
• Televisa
• BMV
• Alsea
• Alfa
• IPC
• Elektra
• aef
• Arca Continental
• Alpek
• Asur
• Grupo Lala
• Coca-Cola Femsa
• debilidad del peso
• Genomma Lab International

ARTICULO

1 Comentario

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El dólar caro parece haber llegado para quedarse. La depreciación del peso frente a la divisa verde observada en el cuarto trimestre de 2014 se acentuó en los primeros tres meses del presente año, lo que afectará a las grandes empresas mexicanas que tienen una parte importante de su deuda en dólares, o les beneficiará si sus ingresos están denominados en su mayoría en dicha moneda.

Un ejercicio de El Financiero reveló que firmas como Alfa, Grupo Aeroportuario del Sureste (Asur), Femsa, Grupo Lala y Liverpool, integrantes de la muestra del Índice de Precios y Cotizaciones (IPC) de la Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV), serían de las perdedoras al contar con una elevada proporción de sus pasivos en dólares y pocos ingresos en esta misma moneda.

“La mayor parte (de las empresas) van terminar pagando un mayor costo por el lado de intereses; la situación es que muchas de las emisiones pueden estar denominadas en dólares y si no se hace el ‘match’ entre ingresos y pago de deuda, el flujo que tendrán para afrontar sus obligaciones será menor”, explicó Carlos Ugalde, subdirector de Analisis de Signum Research.


Presionan vencimientos de corto plazo en dólares


El pasado 10 de marzo la moneda mexicana tocó su mínimo histórico en las 15.6250 unidades por dólar. En lo que va del primer trimestre del 2015 el peso se ha depreciado 1.6 por ciento, lo que contrasta con la apreciación de 0.2 por ciento del mismo lapso de un año antes. Además, en los últimos 12 meses el deslizamiento ha sido de 14 por ciento.

Carlos Ponce, director general de Analisis y Estrategia de Ve por Mas Casa de Bolsa, comentó que uno de los efectos del tipo de cambio es a nivel financiero, reflejado en la utilidad neta, y el otro a nivel operativo, expresado en el margen operativo de las compañías.

Dentro de la muestra de las 35 firmas que integran el IPC de la BMV las más expuestas son Asur, Lala y Liverpool, quienes no perciben ingresos en dólares, pero su deuda en otra moneda que no sea el peso representa el 71.8, 28.3 y 27.9 por ciento de su pasivo total, respectivamente. Lala registra tanto compromisos financieros como algo de costos en dólares, explicó Montserrat Antón, analista de Invex.

Hay otras compañías que si bien generan ingresos en moneda extranjera, sus flujos no son suficientes para cubrir el efecto negativo de su deuda en dólares, como son Femsa, Alfa, Televisa y Alpek, de acuerdo con datos del cierre de 2014. En el caso de Femsa, dueña de Coca Cola Femsa, sólo genera 33 por ciento de sus ingresos fuera de México, mientras que el 64 por ciento de sus pasivos son en moneda extranjera.

LAS BENEFICIADAS
En contraste con lo anterior, las firmas que resultarían ganadoras del peso débil son Alsea, Arca Continental, Elektra, Genomma Lab y Mexichem, al tener un alto porcentaje de sus ingresos denominados en la divisa verde y poca o nula deuda en dólares.

Carlos Ponce agregó que las firmas exportadoras comienzan a beneficiarse de la depreciación del peso, ya que reciben más ingresos en moneda local (pesos) al hacer la conversión del tipo de cambio.

“Empresas que tienen exportaciones, en principio van a ser favorecidas, aunque si su materia prima está en dólares, parte de este beneficio se nulifica y se tiene que ver la balanza comercial para cada una”, explicó Ponce.

La firma con la mayor cobertura es Mexichem, para quien su facturación foránea representa el 88 por ciento del total de sus ingresos, mientras que la deuda en dólares significa el 45 por ciento de sus compromisos financieros.

Pese al fortalecimiento del dólar, en conjunto las empresas del IPC de la BMV elevaron su exposición de deuda en moneda extranjera al cuarto trimestre de 2014 ya que sus compromisos financieros en ésta representaron el 44 por ciento de sus pasivos totales, tres puntos más que a diciembre de 2013.

Da clic en la imagen para agrandarla

PRECISIÓN:

Con relación a la nota publicada el pasado 26 de marzo en esta sección con el título "Las firmas perdedoras y ganadoras con la debilidad del peso en el 1T15", y en la que se indica que Alfa, Asur, Femsa, Lala y Liverpool serían las empresas del Índice de Precios y Cotizaciones de la BMV afectadas por la debilidad del peso frente al dólar, al contar con una alta proporción de deuda en dólares y baja en ventas con esta misma moneda, Grupo Lala aclaró que durante los últimos 12 meses realizó amortizaciones a su deuda con los recursos obtenidos a través de su Oferta Pública Inicial.

En consecuencia, indica que no tiene pasivos actualmente, ni en moneda nacional ni en dólares, contando con una posición financiera muy sólida, como lo publicó ante el público inversionistas en su último reporte del cuarto trimestre de 2014.

Agrega, que la estrategia comercial y de precios que ha implementado, aunado a las iniciativas de productividad y eficiencia operativa, le han permitido compensar de manera exitosa los efectos derivados de la depreciación del peso en el costo de sus insumos denominados en dólares.

Cae inversión extranjera en bonos del gobierno

http://www.jornada.unam.mx/ultimas/2015/04/02/se-desploma-la-inversion-foranea-en-el-mercado-de-valores-7341.html

 

Se desploma la inversión foránea en bonos del gobierno

Por Víctor Cardoso

jue, 02 abr 2015 14:40

Registros de la Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV) y del Banco de México (BdeM) revelan que los recursos extranjeros en Cetes bajaron en 57 mil 69.83 millones de pesos.

México, D.F. Durante la primera mitad de marzo pasado, cuando el gobierno mexicano se vio orillado a realizar subastas adicionales por 52 millones de dólares diarios para apuntalar a la moneda nacional, residentes extranjeros retiraron cerca de 70 mil 500 millones de pesos que mantenían invertidos en el mercado de bonos gubernamentales, revelan cifras del Banco de México y registros del Instituto para el Depósito de Valores (Indeval), de la Bolsa Mexicana de Valores (BMV).
La participación extranjera en el llamado mercado de valores gubernamentales registró el desplome las primeras dos semanas de marzo, al pasar de 2 billones 169 mil 906.59 millones de pesos alcanzado el 4 de ese mes, a 2 billones 99 mil 442.85 millones para el día 19.
La baja de la participación extranjera en la tenencia de bonos gubernamentales representa alrededor de 4 mil 460 millones de dólares, considerando un tipo de cambio de 15.1188 pesos por dólar, un promedio establecido por Banamex para el mes de marzo.
De acuerdo con los registros, el mayor monto de recursos propiedad de inversionistas foráneos se registró en la tenencia de Certificados de la Tesorería (Cetes), un instrumento que se considera como líder en el mercado, pero de corto plazo. En este tipo de valores gubermentales la disminución de los recursos extranjeros fue por 57 mil 69.83 millones de pesos, equivalente muy cercano a 81 por ciento del total de la caída.
En este tipo de instrumentos la participación extranjera que había alcanzado el 58 por ciento del billón 12 mil 582.44 millones en circulación, quedó en poco menos de 52 por ciento.
Las dos primeras semanas de marzo fueron uno de los periodos de mayor volatilidad en los mercados financieros internacionales y México no escapó a la incertidumbre que provocaba la indefinición de la Reserva Federal de Estados Unidos (Fed, por sus siglas en inglés) de normalización de su política monetaria que implicaba un alza en las tasas de interés. Sin embargo, después de la reunión de marzo de la Fed, a partir del día 19 comenzó a registrarse una mayor estabilidad financiera, tanto en los mercados de bonos como en el tipo de cambio.

Por qué las tasas de interés son demasiado bajas, según Bernanke

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/ben-bernanke/posts/2015/03/31-why-interest-rates-low-secular-stagnation?cid=00900015020149101US0001-0331

Ben S. Bernanke | March 31, 2015 11:00am

Why are interest rates so low, part 2: Secular stagnation

• Economics
• U.S. Economic Performance
• Monetary Policy
• Unemployment

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Three of the most important objectives for economic policy are:

1. Achieving full employment
2. Keeping inflation low and stable
3. Maintaining financial stability

Larry Summers’ secular stagnation hypothesis holds that achieving these three goals simultaneously may prove very difficult. (See Larry’s statement of the case and a collection of short pieces on the subject by prominent economists.)
The term “secular stagnation” was coined by Alvin Hansen in his 1938 American Economic Association presidential address, “Economic Progress and Declining Population Growth.” Writing in the latter stages of the Great Depression, Hansen argued that, because of apparent slowdowns in population growth and the pace of technological advance, firms were unlikely to see much reason to invest in new capital goods. He concluded that tepid investment spending, together with subdued consumption by households, would likely prevent the attainment of full employment for many years.
Hansen proved quite wrong, of course, failing to anticipate the postwar economic boom (including both strong population growth—the baby boom—and rapid technological progress). However, Summers thinks that Hansen’s prediction was not wrong, just premature. For a number of reasons—including the contemporary decline in population growth, the reduced capital intensity of our leading industries (think Facebook versus steel-making), and the falling relative prices of capital goods—Larry sees Hansen’s prediction of limited investment in new capital goods and an economy that chronically fails to reach full employment as relevant today. If the returns to capital today are very low, then the real interest rate needed to achieve full employment (the equilibrium real interest rate) will likely also be very low, possibly negative. The recent pattern of slow economic growth, low inflation, and low real interest rates (see below) motivates and is consistent with the secular stagnation hypothesis.

Notice, by the way, that the secular stagnation story is about inadequate aggregate demand, not aggregate supply. Even if the economy’s potential output is growing, the Hansen-Summers hypothesis holds that depressed investment and consumption spending will prevent the economy from reaching that potential, except perhaps when a financial bubble (like the housing bubble of the 2000s) provides an additional push to spending. However, Summers argues that secular stagnation will ultimately reduce aggregate supply as well, as growth in the economy’s productive capacity is restrained by slow rates of capital formation and by the loss of workers’ skills caused by long-term unemployment.
The Fed cannot reduce market (nominal) interest rates below zero, and consequently—assuming it maintains its current 2 percent target for inflation—cannot reduce real interest rates (the market interest rate less inflation) below minus 2 percent. (I’ll ignore here the possibility that monetary tools like quantitative easing or slightly negative official interest rates might allow the Fed to get the real rate a bit below minus 2 percent.) Suppose that, because of secular stagnation, the economy’s equilibrium real interest rate is below minus 2 percent and likely to stay there. Then the Fed alone cannot achieve full employment unless it either (1) raises its inflation target, thereby giving itself room to drive the real interest rate further into negative territory by setting market rates at zero; or (2) accepts the recurrence of financial bubbles as a means of increasing consumer and business spending. It’s in this sense that the three economic goals with which I began—full employment, low inflation, and financial stability—are difficult to achieve simultaneously in an economy afflicted by secular stagnation.
Larry’s proposed solution to this dilemma is to turn to fiscal policy—specifically, to rely on public infrastructure spending to achieve full employment. I agree that increased infrastructure spending would be a good thing in today’s economy. But if we are really in a regime of persistent stagnation, more fiscal spending might not be an entirely satisfactory long-term response either, because the government’s debt is already very large by historical standards and because public investment too will eventually exhibit diminishing returns.
Does the U.S. economy face secular stagnation? I am skeptical, and the sources of my skepticism go beyond the fact that the U.S. economy looks to be well on the way to full employment today. First, as I pointed out as a participant on the IMF panel at which Larry first raised the secular stagnation argument, at real interest rates persistently as low as minus 2 percent it’s hard to imagine that there would be a permanent dearth of profitable investment projects. As Larry’s uncle Paul Samuelson taught me in graduate school at MIT, if the real interest rate were expected to be negative indefinitely, almost any investment is profitable. For example, at a negative (or even zero) interest rate, it would pay to level the Rocky Mountains to save even the small amount of fuel expended by trains and cars that currently must climb steep grades. It’s therefore questionable that the economy’s equilibrium real rate can really be negative for an extended period. (I concede that there are some counterarguments to this point; for example, because of credit risk or uncertainty, firms and households may have to pay positive interest rates to borrow even if the real return to safe assets is negative. Also, Eggertson and Mehrotra (2014) offers a model for how credit constraints can lead to persistent negative returns. Whether these counterarguments are quantitatively plausible remains to be seen.)
Second, I generally agree with the recent critique of secular stagnation by Jim Hamilton, Ethan Harris, Jan Hatzius, and Kenneth West. In particular, they take issue with Larry’s claim that we have never seen full employment during the past several decades without the presence of a financial bubble. They note that the bubble in tech stocks came very late in the boom of the 1990s, and they provide estimates to show that the positive effects of the housing bubble of the 2000’s on consumer demand were largely offset by other special factors, including the negative effects of the sharp increase in world oil prices and the drain on demand created by a trade deficit equal to 6 percent of US output. They argue that recent slow growth is likely due less to secular stagnation than to temporary “headwinds” that are already in the process of dissipating. During my time as Fed chairman I frequently cited the economic headwinds arising from the aftermath of the financial crisis on credit conditions; the slow recovery of housing; and restrictive fiscal policies at both the federal and the state and local levels (for example, see my August and November 2012 speeches.)
My greatest concern about Larry’s formulation, however, is the lack of attention to the international dimension. He focuses on factors affecting domestic capital investment and household spending. All else equal, however, the availability of profitable capital investments anywhere in the world should help defeat secular stagnation at home. The foreign exchange value of the dollar is one channel through which this could work: If US households and firms invest abroad, the resulting outflows of financial capital would be expected to weaken the dollar, which in turn would promote US exports. (For intuition about the link between foreign investment and exports, think of the simple case in which the foreign investment takes the form of exporting, piece by piece, a domestically produced factory for assembly abroad. In that simple case, the foreign investment and the exports are equal and simultaneous.) Increased exports would raise production and employment at home, helping the economy reach full employment. In short, in an open economy, secular stagnation requires that the returns to capital investment be permanently low everywhere, not just in the home economy. Of course, all else is not equal; financial capital does not flow as freely across borders as within countries, for example. But this line of thought opens up interesting alternatives to the secular stagnation hypothesis, as I’ll elaborate in my next post.