Tag Archives: Emerging Markets

Appetite for destruction… and procrastination

Financial markets continue to take into their stride a number of man-made and natural crises and the procrastination of policy-makers in the US, UK and Eurozone.

Global risk appetite remains seemingly well bid despite the still very opaque end-game for rising geopolitical tensions stemming from North Korea and the impact from Hurricanes Harvey and Irma.

In the world of FX, the emerging market carry trade is seemingly enjoying a mini-revival thanks to low yields in developed economies, signs that global GDP growth continues to inch higher and a surge in commodity prices, particularly industrial metals.

Event risk is clearly more acute in September than it was in August but it is not obvious to me that major central banks will deliver the kind of surprises which cause major dislocations in financial markets, including EM currencies.

However, these high-yielding EM currencies’ volatility versus the Dollar remains quite elevated, with perhaps the exception of the Turkish Lira and Indian Rupee.

Chinese policy-makers are seemingly intent, at least for now, on using Renminbi appreciation as a show of strength and I expect further currency gains near-term.

In the UK, the mammoth challenge facing Prime Minister Theresa May is coming into greater focus. Moreover, the Bank of England is unlikely to seriously consider a rate hike before next year, in my view.  With this in mind, I see the risk biased toward bouts of Sterling weakness.

The Euro, which eked out small gains versus the Dollar and Sterling following ECB President Draghi’s Q&A session, is ultimately behaving like a safe-haven currency.

I expect the common currency to benefit, not suffer, from lower interest rates for longer and the associated improvement in economic activity even if future Euro appreciation could be modest rather than spectacular.
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Emerging markets – What will sour sweet spot?

Emerging market (EM) asset prices have performed well since the UK referendum on 23rd June. The overall driver is the perceived view that the risk-reward of investing in EM has improved, both due to better relative returns and more limited risks.

Major developed central banks’ willingness to keep monetary policy loose to put a floor under economic growth is central to this improved risk-reward trade-off for EM assets.

Near-zero rates in most developed markets have put in high-relief high-carry currencies such as the BRL and ZAR which are also benefiting from high global metals prices.

On the risk side of the equation, slowing rather than collapsing global growth and higher commodity prices have attenuated concerns about EM economies’ ability to prosper.

Moreover, stable and still significant EM central bank FX reserves have dulled fears about their ability to defend their currencies in the event of an endogenous or external shock.

At the same time, acute economic, political and geo-political risks in developed economies has led markets to revisit the perceived notion that emerging countries’ economies and political set-ups are inherently less stable and more risky.

Put differently, developed market economies remain just about strong enough to drive EM growth but are sufficiently weak and susceptible to endogenous shocks to highlight the attractiveness of EM assets. The question is what, if anything, is likely to destabilise this fine balance.

The two events which have seriously rattled EM assets, including currencies, in the past year had their epicentres in the world’s two largest economies: the PBoC’s renminbi “devaluation” in August and subsequent government tinkering with Chinese equity markets and the US Fed’s first hike in a decade on 16th December.

An EM crisis is still more likely to have its birthplace in the US or China than Europe for example, in my view, with EM asset prices in the past 18 months relatively resilient to made-in-Europe stresses.

US GDP growth remains unspectacular, with the manufacturing sector weighed down by a strong dollar, while China’s economy is still dependent on loose credit policy and vulnerable because of banks’ growing non-performing loans.

While both the Fed and Chinese policy-makers have seemingly learnt lessons from prior misjudgements, in both countries the risk of policy mistakes remains very much alive. Moreover, the US presidential elections scheduled for 8th November present a significant event-risk to emerging markets and their currencies.
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Should China consider renminbi revaluation?

The causes behind the current meltdown in global equities, commodity prices and EM currencies are complex, inter-connected and at times self-reinforcing. But at the heart of the problem lies the inability of policy-makers from Washington to Beijing to engineer a more robust path for economic growth in which the private sector can believe in. This problem, which is largely structural in my view, has been compounded by cyclical challenges including stretched positioning in riskier assets and historically weak equities in August, as well as country-specific concerns in Malaysia, Brazil and Russia to name but three. Read more

Emerging Markets falling between the cracks (and BRICS)

The distinction between developed, emerging, in transition and frontier economies has in the past 10-15 years become somewhat more blurred and arguably misleading, in my view, for a number of reasons. For starters it’s a very subjective definition. Secondly, it’s a fluid set of groupings. Finally sell-side institutions (and in some cases countries themselves) have been conservative in redefining the boundaries.  Read more