Wednesday, April 19, 2017

Who's Who and What's What: Global Savings Glut

From FT Alphaville:

Your morphing global savings glut
Bond yields be depressed for global savings appear to be re-glutted. If you’ve been paying attention you’ll probably have noticed. 
From SocGen:
The global savings glut is reviving after a period of hibernation following the global financial crisis (GFC).The absolute level of East Asian current account surpluses in nominal US dollar terms has climbed beyond the previous high in 2006, while the rise of Western European surpluses has been striking… 
The global savings glut went into hibernation after the 2008 global financial crisis (GFC), but it is awakening. The phrase “global savings glut” was made famous by Ben Bernanke in 2005, when the yawning US current account imbalance drew widespread attention. The chief distinction between the pre-GFC glut and its current incarnation is that surpluses have become more concentrated in certain regions, while current account deficits have become relatively more diffused. In 2006, for example, the US accounted for the lion’s share of the world’s current account deficit in US dollar terms, but this dominance has receded markedly....MUCH MORE, including league tables, chart porn.