Basel III Barks Up the Wrong Tree

By Eric Jackson
RealMoney Contributor
9/13/2010 5:00 PM EDT
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All the bank stocks are rallying this morning on news that the Basel III requirements are not as taxing as feared. Many analysts are applauding the new rules, saying that the Basel Committee struck the right balance between stability and growth. The committee did no such thing, in my view, because these new standards will have no bearing on causing future growth or preventing future crises.

The new rules which came out yesterday in the Basel Committee press release state that banks with now have to put aside 7% in capital for every loan they make. What's more, the banks will have eight years to get in compliance with this new standard. This 7% includes a 2.5% "buffer," which, I suppose, suggests that the committee believes it's really unnecessary. It's like the committee is saying that this buffer is the equivalent of putting banks under "extreme stress tests."

The market feared much higher levels than 7%, thus leading to this morning's rally. But, put another way, 7% capital requirements really mean that for every $1 in deposits, banks can make $14.29 in loans -- eight years from now.

Perhaps the Basel Committee thought 20:1 leverage -- when banks were asked to set aside only 5% of their capital on loans -- was perfectly acceptable and now 14:1 is severely conservative. Maybe when you compare it with the 25:1 ratio carried by Goldman Sachs (GS - commentary -Trade Now) or the 32:1 ratio carried by Morgan Stanley (MS - commentary - Trade Now) back in 2007, these new standards seem austere.

Yet the Canadian banks such as Royal Bank(RY - commentary - Trade Now), Bank of Nova Scotia (BNS - commentary - Trade Now), Bank of Montreal (BMO - commentary - Trade Now) and Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce(CM - commentary - Trade Now) have current leverage ratios (and did through the crisis) of 21x, 23x, 19x, and 29x respectively. Yes, you read that last one correctly: Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce has a current leverage ratio of 29:1.

I thought the Canadian banks were the ones we were supposed to emulate. I thought they were smart. I thought they were conservative. They had a single regulator who was on the job. Even men's magazines are writing articles declaring these obvious facts, so it must be true.

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Canada's Real Estate Market Bubbly

By Eric Jackson

05/19/10 - 06:00 AM EDT

Stock quotes in this article: RY , TD , CM , BMO

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- It has been painful to watch the housing turmoil in the last few years play out in the U.S. I know friends who have been terribly affected by it. After seeing the devastating impacts on the entire economy from this housing downturn, many market observers have pointed to China as a frothy real estate bubble that will likely pop soon. However, you might be surprised to learn that -- up until very recently -- there were bidding wars going on for homes in Canada.

Canada might be America's neighbor to the north, but it has a bubbly real estate market, even as the U.S. market continues to limp along. Consider these eye-raising facts:

Canada's real estate prices have increased on average 40% in the last year while incomes have dropped.

Canadian residential real estate is now worth more today than it was pre-Lehman.

There are now more dwellings built in Canada (assuming, as the Canadian government does, that an average of 2.3 people live in each dwelling) than the population of Canada.

Canadian consumers have racked up enormous debts while interest rates have been low over the past 20 months.

Personal bankruptcies are at record levels now in Canada when interest rates are still at historical lows.

In Vancouver, people now spend 68% of their disposable income on housing. In Toronto, people spend 44% of their disposable income on housing. (Keep in mind that the China bears were complaining that it was unsustainable that some Chinese in Beijing and Shanghai were spending more than 30% of their disposable income on housing.)

Canadians have been proud that their banks have done well post-Lehman, unlike so many of their global peers. The banks have actively originated mortgages demanded by Canadians over the last year, but -- unlike U.S. banks during the housing boom -- for the most part, they've elected not to hold on to these mortgages. As quickly as they can, they pass along the mortgages to the Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation. This is a crown corporation, meaning it's 100% owned by the federal Canadian government (i.e., the Canadian taxpayers).

Over the last five years, the CHMC's liabilities -- meaning the mortgages they hold on their books -- have gone up five times from C$80 billion to C$400 billion. Any time you see a business increase its liabilities by that amount, it's intriguing. When you consider the last two years has been the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, it's even more head-scratching.

However, Canada's economy was going along okay pre-Lehman. Whenthe stock market dropped, Canadian housing and real estate activity stopped and prices did drop. But, with most consumers and the Canadian banks in okay shape, and with Canadian job losses not as bad (relatively) as in the U.S., Canadian consumers had quicker confidence to spend thanks to the lower interest rates.

When famous bear David Rosenberg left Merrill Lynch to move back to Canada in 2008 and join Gluskin Sheff, he spoke in glowing terms about Canada's position in the global economy. Yet, even he has begun to acknowledge the housing bubble that exists in Canada.

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