More cracks appear in the New Fragile Five

Recessions serve to unwind the excesses of the past expansion cycle. While the immediate odds of a US recession is still relatively low right now (see A recession in 2020?), and there are few excesses in the economy, the problems are found outside US borders. This time, most of the excessive private debt accumulation has occurred in China, and Canada.

I wrote about the New Fragile Five last March. Loomis Sayles made the case for these countries to be the New Fragile Five, which includes Canada, based on unsustainable real estate bubbles:

Cracks are starting to appear in five highly leveraged economies: Canada, Australia, Norway, Sweden and New Zealand. For several years following the global financial crisis, these five countries all shared a common theme—a multi-year housing boom, fueled by low interest rates, which resulted in very elevated levels of household debt.

This boom is starting to dissipate in all five markets. House prices have largely reversed course, be it slowing appreciation or outright decline. Moreover, this is occurring even as interest rates remain at or near record lows and labor markets continue to be robust. Importantly, this is a correction that many thought could not occur given the otherwise strong economic growth backdrop in these countries. But we take a long-term view of house prices, and began highlighting affordability problems in these markets several years ago.

Signs are growing that those property bubbles are popping.

The full post can be found at our new site here.