Banks choosing to shrink balance sheets over lending

THE US

The massive fiscal and monetary stimulus and bank bailouts have played an enormous role in helping the economy climb out of a very severe and long recession.

A flood of liquidity has helped shore up corporate balance sheets and by default encouraged asset prices to rise. The good news is economic indicators remain positive and continue to support further economic expansion in the coming few months. The index of leading indicators, which has had a good predictive record in signalling the start and end to the recent recession, continues to improve. We are currently in the middle of Q1 earnings reports and corporate America is again surpassing expectations, something they have achieved by a significant margin in the last five quarters. To date, ...