El sector bancario estadounidense ha evolucionando bien durante los últimos seis meses y los fundamentos para el sistema—la calidad de sus carteras, el spread de interés neto, la liquidez y la actividad económica— están mejorando más de lo que se había previsto.  El sistema logró sostener una ola de pérdidas en 2008 y la primera mitad de 2009, y los bancos que emergieron de la crisis están en una situación moderadamente favorable.  Hay menos competidores de los que había en el 2008 por las fusiones y quiebras de bancos regionales y bancos nacionales.  Además, las reglas “mark to market” fueron abandonadas, por lo que los activos sin cotizacíón o ilíquidos podrán valorizarse en otra manera, y por fin, el sistema está bien capitalizado tras un récord de nuevas capitalizaciones.  Por otro lado, el ambiente regulatorio parece desfavorecer al sector bancario, sobre todo a los bancos más grandes del sistema, incluyendo Citibank.  Sin embargo, se ha registrado una mejora destacada en la rentabilidad y ya que muchos economistas prevén un crecimiento económico para este año, deben seguir su trayectoria positiva en el mediano plazo.  A pesar de nuestra perspectiva, mantenemos una recomendación neutra a positiva para el sector en general durante el 2010, principalmente porque las utilidades han crecido fuertemente en 2009 y la base de comparación es mayor y las nuevas emisiones de acciones diluirán las utilidades por acción.  Segundo, todavía existen riesgos sistémicos y regulatorios (la legislación de tarjetas de crédito, etc) que podrían perjudicar el crecimiento del sector. 

Si bien nuestra perspectiva no es mala para el sector, creemos que Citibank enfrentará más dificultades que el sector bancario en general.  Primero, es necesario resaltar los factores que dificultan la rentabilidad de la acción (factores técnicos bursátiles) y segundo los factores operativos (análisis fundamental) con una comparación con sus competidores. 

La acción de Citi se está cotizando actualmente entre un rango de $ 3,00 y $ 3,50 durante los últimos meses, a pesar de la noticia que salió recién que muchos fondos de cobertura empezaron a comprarlo.  Desde un punto de vista técnico, el impulso importante (del orden de 1.200 millones de compras netas por parte de los fondos) por el lado de la demanda no pudo hacer subir el precio.  Esto se debe a que la oferta subió mucho más—del orden de 5.000 millones de acciones que Citi tuvo que emitir para devolver el TARP y 23.000 millones de acciones a lo largo de la crisis.  Esto significa que la demanda necesaria para hacer subir el precio es enorme, aun más, para que muchas firmas puedan comprarlo, la acción de Citi tendría que dejar de ser un “penny stock” y superar la barrera de $ 5.00, lo que significaría un aumento del orden de casi 50% de la cotización actual.  Tampoco forma parte del Dow Jones a partir del año pasado. Por su parte, el gobierno sigue teniendo unas 7.700 millones de acciones de Citi—27% de la capitalización– y la salida (más bien la venta) de las mismas también pondría mucha presión bajista en el precio durante este año.  Es decir que hay desbalances en la demanda y la oferta, y aunque se ha registrado un leve repunte en la demanda, la oferta actual y la oferta adicional del gobierno presentan un reto importante para la cotización.  Por su parte, parece que los “hedge funds” están especulando que Citi, una vez que se normalice la situación macroeconómica, sería un objetivo de adquisición atractivo.  También a nosotros nos parece factible esa posibilidad, pero no para este año, ya que los bancos acaban de reconstruir sus balances y no tienen suficiente efectivo para hacer una oferta de compra para un banco tan importante como Citi.  Por ende, creemos que es una posibilidad a largo plazo.

En cuanto a las operaciones de Citi, el banco se encuentra en una situación más difícil que sus competidores.  Lo bueno de Citi es que está bien capitalizado—la relación de capital “Tier 1” es una de las más favorables del sector y representa una fortaleza para el banco comparado con sus competidores como JP Morgan y Bank of América.  Por su parte, las reservas como porcentaje a préstamos es de 6.09%, mientras que la misma medida para JPM y BAC son de 5.04% y 4.16% respectivamente.  No obstante, la calidad de los activos de Citi es muy mala—los activos morosos (Non-performing”) son de 5.71%, la peor entre casi todos los bancos más importantes, y por encima de JPM (3.12%) y BAC (3.98%) y Wells Fargo (3.53%).  Es decir que la cartera de Citi sigue mucho más riesgosa que sus competidores y por lo tanto tiene que mantener reservas para protegerse ante un golpe de morosidad.  Este hecho no es bueno para la rentabilidad como ROE (retorno sobre capital) comparado con JPM, WFC y BAC.  Además parece que una parte importante de la cartera (tarjetas de crédito) no se está comportando tan bien como la de JPM y BAC.  En enero, Citi anunció que la morosidad de más de 30 días pasó de 5.62% a 5.75% y las pérdidas subieron a 9.80%.  El deterioro, aunque no parezca importante, significa un mal desempeño frente a JPM y BofA, que anunciaron mejoras en su cartera de tarjetas.  Para resumir, la calidad crediticia de la cartera de Citi afectará a la rentabilidad del banco por acción, especialmente en comparación con JPM y BofA, quienes no han diluido su rentabilidad emitiendo tantas acciones.

Por el lado de unidades corporativas, Citi tuvo que desprenderse de la casa de bolsa Smith Barney (entre otras unidades) durante la crisis y depende mucho de banca de inversión y del crédito personal (de consumo y de hipotecas).  El negocio depende mucho de la calidad de la cartera (mencionado anteriormente) y del margen de interés neto.  Citi sigue con un NIM (net interest margin por sus siglas en inglés) inferior al promedio sectorial—de 2.65% contra 3.33% para JPM, y 4.31% para WFC—y la variación de la medida cayó significativamente desde 2008 (57 puntos básicos). Dado que el empleo en los EUA parece que no va a recuperarse este año, este último segmento encontrará problemas.  Por el lado de banca de inversión, el ambiente es más propicio pero también hay más competencia.  Morgan Stanley, por ejemplo, ha registrado un crecimiento más importante que Citi en este sector. Otro segmento cada vez más importante, la intermediación bursátil, JP Morgan y Goldman Sachs están liderando el sector.  Para resumir, Citi sigue desapalancándose y subiendo las reservas, haciendo perder su competitividad operativa ante otros bancos en el mediano plazo.  Por lo tanto se prevé que la rentabilidad no vuelva este año.

Los modelos tradicionales de valorización de la acción se complican porque Citi no es rentable y tampoco paga dividendos, pero se pueden usar proyecciones de utilidades, utilidades normalizadas y también el valor libro, que suele utilizarse para bancos para estimar el precio intrínsico de la acción.  Este último modelo se basa en los ingresos residuales y el valor libros actual.  El Precio sobre el valor libro se encuentra en 0.84 y aunque es más atractivo frente a la industria (que tiene una relación de 0.87x), la medida se proyecta caerá este año debido a una falta de rentabilidad y retención de las mismas.  La proyección para el valor libros en 2010 es de 5.40, y por tanto, la estimación bajo este escenario sería de $4.71 por acción. Si uno basa el valor en el P/U normalizado que sería de 24x, y teniendo en cuenta utilidades de 0.09 por acción, está en $2.19 por acción.  El promedio de los dos modelos calcula una valorización de $ 3.45 por acción, muy cerca de la cotización actual.  Aun en el 2011, las utilidades se pronostican en $0.38 por acción y el P/U adelantado sería de 13, el valor está en apenas $4.94. Más preocupante aun es que el riesgo percibido por el mercado supera a los competidores, ya que tiene un “beta” de 3 contra 2.58 para BAC y 1.12 para JPM.  En resumen, el mercado está fijando un precio justo por el crecimiento y el valor libro en términos normalizados, pero con mucho más riesgo y con un crecimiento reservado.  Si uno quiere mantener las posiciones, una buena idea sería vender calls con un precio “out of the money”, alrededor de $4, ya que son caras y ofrecen un rendimiento atractivo.

Otras opciones como BAC tienen mayores perspectivas de crecimiento y menos riesgo medido por “beta”.  En cuanto a su valorización, BAC tiene un valor intrínsico (por sus utilidades de 0.81 en 2010 y 2.07 en 2011) de $ 20 y $ 18 por el de valor en libros, con un promedio de $19, añadido al hecho de que se esperan más dividendos en el 2010 del orden de $0.05 (no se prevé ningún dividendo para Citi en el 2010 ni en 2011)— BAC ofrece un retorno total de casi 20% frente al precio actual.  Utilizando el P/U adelantado y las utilidades de 2011, la acción valdría $26.91 más $0.41 en dividendos desembolsados, BAC presentaría un retorno de 72% en 2 años.              

By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ and ERIC DASH

Published: February 24, 2010  COMENTARIO DEL BLOGGER: LOS BANCOS, PRINCIPALMENTE FRANCESES QUE FINANCIARON LA CUANTIOSA DEUDA GRIEGA, ENTRARON AL MERCADO DE CREDIT DEFAULT SWAPS (CDS) A CUBRIRSE ANTE EL MUY PROBABLE DEFAULT, Y ESTO ABONA  A LA ESPECULACIÓN Y PRECIPITA LAS DIFICULTADES DEL PAIS PARA SALIR ADELANTE YA QUE LOS BANCOS GANAN SI GRECIA DEFAULTEA.

Bets by some of the same banks that helped Greece shroud its mounting debts may actually now be pushing the nation closer to the brink of financial ruin.

Echoing the kind of trades that nearly toppled the American International Group, the increasingly popular insurance against the risk of a Greek default is making it harder for Athens to raise the money it needs to pay its bills, according to traders and money managers.

These contracts, known as credit-default swaps, effectively let banks and hedge funds wager on the financial equivalent of a four-alarm fire: a default by a company or, in the case of Greece, an entire country. If Greece reneges on its debts, traders who own these swaps stand to profit.

“It’s like buying fire insurance on your neighbor’s house — you create an incentive to burn down the house,” said Philip Gisdakis, head of credit strategy at UniCredit in Munich.

As Greece’s financial condition has worsened, undermining the euro, the role of Goldman Sachs and other major banks in masking the true extent of the country’s problems has drawn criticism from European leaders. But even before that issue became apparent, a little-known company backed by Goldman, JP Morgan Chase and about a dozen other banks had created an index that enabled market players to bet on whether Greece and other European nations would go bust.

Last September, the company, the Markit Group of London, introduced the iTraxx SovX Western Europe index, which is based on such swaps and let traders gamble on Greece shortly before the crisis. Such derivatives have assumed an outsize role in Europe’s debt crisis, as traders focus on their daily gyrations.

A result, some traders say, is a vicious circle. As banks and others rush into these swaps, the cost of insuring Greece’s debt rises. Alarmed by that bearish signal, bond investors then shun Greek bonds, making it harder for the country to borrow. That, in turn, adds to the anxiety — and the whole thing starts over again.

On trading desks, there is fierce debate over what exactly is behind Greece’s recent troubles. Some traders say swaps have made the problem worse, while others say Greece’s deteriorating finances are to blame.

“This is a country that is issuing paper into a weakening market,” said Ashish Shah, co-head of credit strategy at Barclays Capital, referring to Greece’s need for continual borrowing.

But while some European leaders have blamed financial speculators in general for worsening the crisis, the French finance minister, Christine Lagarde, last week singled out credit-default swaps. Ms. Lagarde said a few players dominated this arena, which she said needed tighter regulation.

Trading in Markit’s sovereign credit derivative index soared this year, helping to drive up the cost of insuring Greek debt, and, in turn, what Athens must pay to borrow money. The cost of insuring $10 million of Greek bonds, for instance, rose to more than $400,000 in February, up from $282,000 in early January.

On several days in late January and early February, as demand for swaps protection soared, investors in Greek bonds fled the market, raising doubts about whether Greece could find buyers for coming bond offerings.

“It’s the blind leading the blind,” said Sylvain R. Raynes, an expert in structured finance at R&R Consulting in New York. “The iTraxx SovX did not create the situation, but it has exacerbated it.”

The Markit index is made up of the 15 most heavily traded credit-default swaps in Europe and covers other troubled economies like Portugal and Spain. And as worries about those countries’ debts moved markets around the world in February, trading in the index exploded.

In February, demand for such index contracts hit $109.3 billion, up from $52.9 billion in January. Markit collects a flat fee by licensing brokers to trade the index.

European banks including the Swiss giants Credit Suisse and UBS, France’s Société Générale and BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank of Germany have been among the heaviest buyers of swaps insurance, according to traders and bankers who asked for anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly.

That is because those countries are the most exposed. French banks hold $75.4 billion worth of Greek debt, followed by Swiss institutions, at $64 billion, according to the Bank for International Settlements. German banks’ exposure stands at $43.2 billion.

Trading in credit-default swaps linked only to Greek debt has also surged, but is still smaller than the country’s actual debt load of $300 billion. The overall amount of insurance on Greek debt hit $85 billion in February, up from $38 billion a year ago, according to the Depository Trust and Clearing Corporation, which tracks swaps trading.

Markit says its index is a tool for traders, rather than a market driver.

In a statement, Markit said its index was started to satisfy market demand, and had improved the ability of traders to hedge their risks. The index and similar products, it added, actually make it easier for buyers and sellers to gauge prices for instruments that are traded among players over the counter, rather than on exchanges.

“These indices have helped bring transparency to the sovereign C.D.S. market,” Markit said. “Prior to their creation, there was no established benchmark index enabling investors to track the performance of segments of the sovereign C.D.S. market.”

Some money managers say trading in Greek swaps alone, not the broader index, is the problem.

“It’s like the tail wagging the dog,” said Markus Krygier, senior portfolio manager at Amundi Asset Management in London, which has $40 billion in global fixed-income assets. “There is a knock-on effect, as underlying positions begin to seem riskier, triggering risk models and forcing portfolio managers to sell Greek bonds.”

If that sounds familiar, it should. Critics of these instruments contend swaps contributed to the fall of Lehman Brothers. But until recently, there was little demand for insurance on government debt. The possibility that a developed country could default on its obligations seemed remote.

As a result, many foreign banks that held Greek bonds or entered into other financial transactions with the government did not hedge against the risk of a default. Now, they are scrambling for insurance.

“Greece is not a small country,” said Mr. Raynes, at R&R in New York. “Credit-default swaps give the illusion of safety but actually increase systemic risk.”

• FEBRUARY 24, 2010

The Euro’s Next Battleground: Spain

By STEPHEN FIDLER

MADRID—Greece set off the crisis rattling the euro zone. Spain could determine whether the 16-nation currency stands or falls.

The euro zone’s No. 4 economy, Spain has an unemployment rate of 19%, a deflating housing bubble, big debts and a gaping budget deficit. Its gross domestic product contracted 3.6% in 2009 and is expected to shrink again this year, leaving Spain in its deepest and longest recession in a half-century.

At the center of the crisis are millions of Spaniards like Olga Espejo. The 41-year-old lost her administrative job at a laboratory in Madrid, then found a temporary post replacing someone on sick leave—until that job was abolished. Her husband and her sister have also been laid off—all among the one in nine working Spaniards who have lost jobs in the past two years.

Each gets an unemployment check of at least €1,000 a month, or about $1,350, part of a generous social safety net that Madrid says it won’t cut. But Ms. Espejo’s benefit runs out in July and her husband’s in May.

“What prospects do any of us have now?” Ms. Espejo asks.

That question haunts Spain and the entire euro zone as the Continent faces its biggest economic crisis since the common currency launched in 1999. Worries over Greece’s ability to finance its huge debts have spread to other, weaker members of the euro zone, but these same fears are now nipping at Spain’s heels. The problem is that, thanks largely to its membership in the euro, Spain lacks tried-and-true means to heal its economy.

Spain can’t devalue its currency to make its exports more attractive and its sunny beach resorts cheaper because the euro’s value is driven by Germany’s bigger, competitive industrial economy. Madrid can’t slash interest rates or print money to spur borrowing and spending, because those decisions are now made in Frankfurt by the European Central Bank.

Spain could still try to stimulate growth through tax cuts and spending increases. But it has already mounted enormous stimulus spending that swelled its budget deficit to 11.4% of GDP last year, and it would need to sell more bonds to raise fresh cash. Buyers of Spanish government bonds, spooked by the prospect of a Greek default, have already demanded higher interest rates from Madrid.

“Spain is the real test case for the euro,” says Desmond Lachman of the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. “If Spain is in deep trouble, it will be difficult to hold the euro together…and my own view is that Spain is in deep trouble.”

Alvaro Leiva for The Wall Street Journal

In Madrid, Olga Espejo, her husband, José Antonio Sacristan, and her sister, Marisa Espejo, have all been laid off.They are among the nation’s 4.3 million unemployed.

The government rejects talk of crisis. “The fundamentals of our economy are solid,” Elena Salgado, Spain’s economy minister, said in an interview. Ms. Salgado said the country’s big banks are sound, its economic statistics credible and its companies dynamic enough to maintain their share of export markets. She pointed out that Spain was running budget surpluses until the financial crisis struck, and its government debt has grown from a very low base.

Euro-zone heavyweights Germany and France have pledged to support Greece if necessary. But any bailout for Spain—whose $1.6 trillion economy is nearly double those of troubled euro-zone partners Greece, Portugal and Ireland combined—would be far costlier.

A “shock and awe” infusion aimed at renewing faith in Spain’s finances, should it be necessary, would take roughly $270 billion, according to an estimate by BNP Paribas. It estimates similar confidence-restoring moves in Greece, Ireland or Portugal would require $68 billion, $47 billion and $41 billion, respectively.

Some observers, to be sure, believe Spain will ride out the troubles. Emilio Ontiveros, president of AFI, a financial analysis firm in Madrid, says recovery is in sight in the second half of the year. “We’ve had some luck. France and Germany, our biggest markets, are beginning to grow,” he said. This should be enough to stop unemployment rising much beyond 20%, a level Spain has coped with as recently as the late 1990s.

Most economists see three options for Spain.

The first is for the government to do nothing, leaving the economy to wallow through years of high unemployment and debt defaults. The second is for the government to take a more active role, slashing its spending while taking unpopular measures to boost the supply side of the economy, including overhauling a rigid labor market.

On Tuesday, Spain’s top central banker strongly urged this path, calling in a speech for swift government action to reduce the budget deficit and reform the labor market.

“If the reforms come late or are insufficient, our future is undoubtedly worrying,” Bank of Spain Governor Miguel Angel Fernández Ordoñez said.

Mr. Lachman of the American Enterprise Institute is among the pessimists who doubt the government will take this course. He thinks Spain’s chronic inability to restart growth will lead it to contemplate a third option: splitting the euro zone asunder by withdrawing from the common currency. That would permit a devaluation that would, at a stroke, increase Spain’s competitiveness and allow the economy to grow again.

A more mainstream view holds that no government, Spain’s included, would dare to brave the financial chaos such a move would unleash.

“It’s extremely costly to leave the euro,” said Jean Pisani-Ferry of Bruegel, a pro-European think tank in Brussels. The moment a government hinted at a possible devaluation, there would be a run on the banks and an effective default on every euro financial contract with that country. “The day you start to admit that you’re thinking about it, you’re in a financial mess.”

The government has announced plans, starting with tax rises and spending cuts this year, to slice the budget deficit to 3% of GDP by 2013, a program financial analysts have described as credible. It forecasts that public debt will crest at around 74% of GDP in 2012, compared with 113% today in Greece and Italy.

Still, Socialist Prime Minister José Luis Zapatero has drawn criticism from economists for saying he will deal with the crisis without hurting the country’s social programs.

“That’s not a plan, but an announcement,” said Lorenzo Bernaldo de Quirós, president of Freemarket International Consulting in Madrid. As a result, he said, Spaniards don’t yet understand that their comfortable way of life, cushioned by the state, is about to change. Spaniards still “think like Cubans and live like Yankees,” he said.

Spain’s troubles are a mirror of the boom years after it and 10 other countries entered the monetary union in 1999. The euro was meant to cement a single market across Europe, reducing cross-border costs for trade, investment and travel.

In close to a decade of good times, Spaniards overtook the Italians and approached the French in terms of what their salaries could buy. Spanish energy, infrastructure, utility and banking companies spread world-wide.

But seeds of trouble were being planted. Spain’s wages grew fast, making its economy less and less competitive. Low euro interest rates, set with low-inflation Germany in mind, began generating a housing bubble.

Spanish house prices more than doubled in real terms in the decade ending in 2008. At the peak, the country of 45 million people was building more houses than Germany, France and Italy—combined population 200 million—put together.

Spain’s housing market has been slow to adjust, likely delaying recovery. The Bank of Spain estimates prices have fallen 15% from their highs, about half the U.S. peak-to-trough decline. “In the U.S. market, the day of reckoning came quickly. In Spain, it’s been postponed,” said Mr. Ontiveros of AFI.

The housing bust shows how Spain differs from Greece in the current crisis. Economists say Greece’s troubles stem from its profligate government. Madrid ran budget surpluses for years— but Spain’s private sector went on a debt-fueled spending binge.

Spanish private and public debt rose an average of 14.5% a year from 2000 to 2008, according to McKinsey Global Institute. Total debt peaked at the end of 2008 at $4.9 trillion, or 342% of GDP—a higher percentage than the level in the U.S. and most major economies except Britain and Japan. Six-sevenths of that is owed by the private sector.

McKinsey expects households, indebted companies and real-estate developers to shed debt, a widespread “deleveraging” that is likely to trigger defaults and harm the banking system. Most analysts say Spain’s banking problems are concentrated in the country’s 45 cajas, regional savings banks usually run by local politicians that often went deep into real-estate lending.

Nonperforming loans in Spain’s banks and regional savings institutions are now estimated at 5% of the total, up from 3.2% a year ago. Santiago López Díaz, a bank analyst at Credit Suisse in London, estimates this may underestimate the total by 30% to 40%.

Roughly half of Spain’s estimated 1.3 million unsold houses are now on the books of cajas and banks, which have been slow to sell them because they don’t want to realize losses. Financial institutions “have become the biggest realtors in Spain,” said Fernando Encinar, co-founder of Idealista.com, Spain’s largest property Web site.

The government has tried to force cajas to merge into stronger institutions, and has set up a fund to encourage them to restructure and bolster capital. Analysts expect cajas to post big losses this year that will likely force the government to raise more money to boost the fund.

Massive joblessness could further slow Spain’s climb out of debt. Even in good times, unemployment never got below about 8%. Now the rate is nudging 20% overall and close to 45% among young people—statistics that reveal to economists a deeply flawed employment market.

Wages are set through a complicated system of bargaining with trade unions that imposes wage increases on firms even if their business can’t afford it. Because wages are inflexible, Spanish companies can cut labor costs only by firing workers. Yet some workers, hired on so-called indefinite contracts, are deeply entrenched, not least because they are entitled to 45 days’ severance pay per year of service.

So, when the economy turns down, those on temporary contracts bear the brunt. When prospects brighten, companies think long and hard before inking more indefinite contracts.

That bodes poorly for Eduardo García, 55, who was huddling in line outside a job center recently in Madrid’s Santa Eugenia neighborhood. Unemployed for the first time, Mr. García worked for 25 years at a book-and-magazine distributor that closed in November. His wife and 20-year-old daughter are also unemployed. Mr. Garcia said he has had no work offers. “At my age, it will be difficult.”

Madrid has vowed to reform the labor market. One proposal would reduce the severance-pay entitlement for new workers by 12 days, to 33 days.

Fernando Eguidazu, director-general of the Circulo de Empresarios, a business association, said Madrid has avoided locking horns with labor. Demonstrations against a proposal to raise the retirement age from 65 to 67 took place in several Spanish cities Tuesday and Wednesday.

Unions could resist new labor proposals, he said, but it’s a needed step: “If they [the government] try to keep being nice to everybody, we are wasting time and the people and the markets are losing confidence.”

That sentiment is already apparent in the market for insurance against a Spanish default. The price to insure €10 million in Spanish bonds for five years— just €2,350 three years ago— rose this month to €171,750 before falling to €125,000, said data firm Markit Group Ltd.

That translates into increased borrowing costs for Spain, which now pays about 0.8 percentage points more than Germany to borrow money for 10 years.

For years to come, Spain will largely be at the mercy of wary bond investors to finance its governments, banks and companies. The national government says it will have to raise €76.8 billion this year and pay back an additional €35 billion of maturing bonds.

Amid it all, Mr. Bernaldo de Quirós predicts, investors’ worries will ebb and flow over what he calls “a real risk of default” as they await decisive government action. “They more time you lose,” he said of the government, “the more devastating the adjustment has to be.”

Write to Stephen Fidler at stephen.fidler@wsj.com