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Showing posts with label Interest rate. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Interest rate. Show all posts

Thursday, May 18, 2023

Money in housing, cautious optimism in industry

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PETALING JAYA: The property market is expected to remain cautiously optimistic in 2023, with the gradual increase in the Overnight Policy Rate (OPR) since last year likely to affect market activity, particularly on residential demand, says the Valuation and Property Services Department.

The outlook of the workforce in the construction sector and the increase in the price of building materials will also affect supply.

Department director-general Abdul Razak Yusak said internal and external factors, such as economic and financial developments both globally and in the country, would also have an impact on the real estate sector and the sentiment of industry players.

“Looking at the national economy which is projected to grow by 4% to 5% in 2023, supported by continued resilient domestic growth prospects, the property market is expected to remain cautiously optimistic in 2023,” he said.The first quarter of this year alone saw over 89,000 transactions worth RM42.31bil, which was higher than those recorded in pre-pandemic years, he said.

“The seasonal factor in house purchases, which is usually low at the beginning of the year, the increase in OPR and the decline in Consumer Sentiment Index (CSI) are among the factors that contributed to a decline in residential market activity in particular,” he said.

New residential launches, said Abdul Razak, were also indicating a cautious sentiment among developers, with the number recorded at nearly 4,700 units, which was less than those in previous years, while sales performance was moderate at 25.7%.

The decrease in new launches was in line with the decrease in the number of developers’ licences and advertising and sales permits of new housing sales and renewals approved by the Local Government Development Ministry from 5,641 in January and February last year to 2,911 during the same period this year, he added.

Johor recorded the highest number of new launches at 2,077 units or about 45% of the nationwide total with a sales performance of 24.9% while Selangor had the second highest at 791 units or 17% share with a sales performance of 37%.

Abdul Razak said in line with the cautious sentiment among developers, construction activity had slowed down in the first quarter of 2023.

“This is seen as a positive development to balance the unsold supply in the market,” he said, adding that the residential and serviced apartment overhang status continued to be positive.

“The number of overhang units has decreased to 26,872 units worth RM18.31bil in the first quarter of 2023 as a result of market absorption in all states, except Selangor. The volume and value of residential overhang decreased by 3.2% and 0.5% respectively compared with the fourth quarter of 2022,” he said.

Selangor recorded the highest number and value of overhang units, with 4,995 units worth RM4.47bil, followed by Johor at 4,759 units worth RM3.94bil, Kuala Lumpur with 3,423 units worth RM3.13bil, and Penang with 3,138 units worth RM2.48bil.

The purpose-built office (private) and shopping complex segment in Kuala Lumpur and Selangor, said Abdul Razak, should be given attention as there was a surplus of space, which was also expected to be severely affected by the inflow of new supply this year.This is as Kuala Lumpur recorded the highest available private purpose-built office space at 2.53 million square metres involving 290 buildings, followed by Selangor with 1.40 million square metres involving 192 buildings.

For the shopping complex segment, Selangor recorded the highest available retail space nationwide at 0.79 million square metres with 146 buildings followed by Kuala Lumpur at 0.56 million square metres with 97 buildings.

“Developers need to be more thorough and cautious before planning any new development and local authorities need to evaluate in detail before approving each new project,” said Abdul Razak.

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Saturday, September 14, 2019

Recession fears can by itself be a self-fulfilling prophecy



AS talk of a recession picks up, a veteran fund manager, Ang Kok Heng of Phillip Capital Management Sdn Bhd, correctly points out that the Malaysian stock market has been in “recession” in five of the six years since 2014.

Hence, he does not envisage how it can get worse for the Malaysian stock market if the global economy does go into a recession next year. Fears of a global recession have picked up pace based on the behaviour of the US yield curve.

The yield curve, which charts the spreads of US debt papers of various tenures, has inverted several times in the past few weeks. Most people would not understand what an inverted yield curve means.

Simply put, it means long-dated debt papers of 10 years giving lower returns compared to shorter-term debt papers such as two-year US Treasuries. It causes what is called an inverted yield curve.

It goes against the normal behaviour of US Treasury yields because long-term debt papers should give a higher return than short-term papers.

The consequence of an inverted yield curve is that it will lead to banks reducing their lending activities because their margins are narrow. Eventually, it results in companies reducing their activities and the country going into a slowdown or recession.

An inverted yield curve has been the precursor to all past recessions (see diagram).

However, there are some who are disputing the fears of an impending global recession based on the behaviour of the bond yield curve. Their reason is that the bond yields are not behaving as what they should due to the governments all around the world printing money to keep interest rates artificially low since 2009.

Interest rates have become so low to the extent that European banks are offering no returns on deposits. This means depositors do not get any money for keeping their money in the banks. Borrowers instead get discounts on their installments.

It’s happening in Europe because government bond yields there have turned negative.

For instance, the yield on 10-year Switzerland bonds is negative 0.74%, while German bonds of a similar tenure yield negative 0.52%. From France to Denmark, government debt papers have negative yields.

Only some countries such as Portugal and Spain still have positive yields on their debt papers.

Analysts believe that this has resulted in investors resorting to buying US debt papers that still offer positive yields. Hence, the price of bonds across all tenures in the US has gone up, causing their yields to come down.

The search for yields has also resulted in the narrowing of the difference between what the two-year and 10-year debt papers offer. And there have been several occasions in the last one month when the yield on the 10-year paper was lower than the two-year debt papers.

Apart from the behaviour of the yield curve, the other indicator that is seen as a precursor to a recession is the declining manufacturing sector all around the world caused by the trade war between the US and China. The Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), which is a leading indicator to assess the state of the economy, has been declining for all major economies.

For Malaysia, the PMI has been less than the 50-point benchmark for almost a year now. The same trend is seen in China, while the indicator has started to decline in the US in the last few months, which some see as a result of the trade war.

The trade war has caused supply disruptions, impacting the manufacturing sector.

However, there are other indicators that do not indicate a recession is imminent.

Banks are fairly well-capitalised and have pulled the brakes on lending. We do not hear of banks being impacted by major corporate defaults except for some financial institutions in China. Malaysian banks, for instance, have weathered the storm quite well so far, thanks to Bank Negara keeping a tight rein on their lending activities.

There has not been any run-up in asset prices. Property prices in countries such as Malaysia have remained subdued since 2015 after Bank Negara pulled the brakes on lending. Since 2014, Bursa Malaysia has closed lower every year, except for 2017.

The only exception of rising asset prices is Wall Street that has soared to record highs. Stock prices are hitting all-time highs due to improved earnings growth.

Technology companies such as Apple and Amazon are US$1 trillion companies. The other technology companies such as Facebook and Alphabet are enjoying growing valuations because of earnings growth.

No other stock exchange in the world has such a large concentration of technology companies than the exchanges on Wall Street. All technology companies, even from China, want to list on Wall Street.

Even Alibaba is listed on the New York Stock Exchange and not in Hong Kong.

It has been 11 years since the last recession, but the world’s central banks have resumed their printing of cheap money to keep interest rates low. The European Central Bank has resumed quantitative easing, while the US Federal Reserve is reducing interest rates. In essence, central banks are taking these measures to prevent a slowing economy going into recession.

In the meantime, it has caused fear among people and companies. Companies are holding back on spending, and in fact, cutting down on their debt.

A clear indicator is in the US where companies raised the most amount of corporate debt. Apple and Disney raised US$7bil worth of debt papers to reduce their borrowings.

In Malaysia, corporations have been deleveraging for the past few years in anticipation of a slowdown. Companies are not expanding, as indicated by the declining private-sector gross capital formation.

It is only reasonable for companies and people to save for the upcoming rainy days. Even governments are cautious in spending. For instance, in the upcoming Budget 2020, many are expecting the government to start spending. But there is also a view that the government will adopt a cautious stance as it continues to strengthen its balance sheet and reduce debts.

If nobody spends for fear of a recession, it would be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Most people are expecting a recession, meaning negative growth. Fear of a recession has translated into a slowdown that the world and Malaysia are experiencing. If this fear continues to perpetuate, a recession would be a self-fulling prophecy.

It is good to be fearful, but being too fearful and conservative will also result in lost opportunity.

As Ang of Phillip Capital puts it, in times when fears of a recession seap in, cash must be held to seize opportunities. Holding cash as an investment is not a wise option.



 By M. SHANMUGAM , The views expressed here are solely that of the writer. Source link


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Monday, October 3, 2016

Why the US dollar will remain strong despite cheap money at near zero interest rates?


THE Fed failed to raise interest rates on Sept 21, giving many markets and fund managers a sigh of relief.

Fed chairman Janet Yellen said the case for an increase has strengthened, but decided for the time being to wait for further evidence of continued progress toward the Fed objectives of maximum employment and price stability. Some analysts felt that any Fed rate increases would be seen as favouring one party in the US Presidential elections.

Caution having over-ridden valour, overall stock markets rallied somewhat, while currency markets moved sideways. Going forward, the futures market think that there is a 60% chance of the Fed raising interest rates in December, after the November Presidential elections.

The key question is whether the dollar will strengthen. So far, the US dollar has been strong against emerging market currencies, flat against the euro and weakened relative to the yen.

There are hoards of analysts trying to forecast short-term and long-term exchange rate movements. Exchange rates are determined by the supply and demand in currency pairs, usually between the dollar and the most traded currencies, such as euro, sterling, yen and other liquid currencies (Australian dollar etc). In turn, the supply and demand for foreign exchange would depend on the current account (trade flows) and capital account (financial flows) of the balance of payments.

If one only looked at trade flows, then exchange rate expectations would depend on whether countries are running large current account surpluses or not, on the basis that a surplus country’s currency would strength. On that basis, one would expect that the Euro should strengthen, because the eurozone is now overall running a current surplus of roughly 3% of GDP. Germany alone is runnng a current account surplus equivalent to 8% of German GDP. However, investor nervousness about the sluggish outlook for the eurozone has keep the euro on the weak side.

One reason is that capital flows are now driving the exchange rate, due to large portfolio flows in search of yield and total returns, as financial assets become more globalised. Theoretically, portfolio flows should be driven by covered interest rate parity, meaning that foreign exchange traders arbitrage in spot, forward and futures markets to equalise risk-adjusted interest rates between countries. Hence, expectations of interest rate differentials between countries matter in shaping exchange rate behaviour.

Interest rate behaviour is determined today largely by monetary policy, which is why global markets are particularly nervous about US Fed interest rate adjustments. Since the US dollar is the world’s benchmark currency, with roughly two thirds of global financial assets measured against the dollar, global financial markets move in expectations of future Fed interest rate increases.

The US remains the dominant military and economic power and is consequently the safe-haven currency. Whenever geo-politics become tense, as is the situation currently, the flight is always towards the dollar.

Furthermore, all signs point towards the US economy performing best amongst the advanced economies, despite overall slower growth post-crisis.

There is enough evidence that the US is already reaching full employment levels at 4.9% unemployment rate, with anecdotal evidence that companies are hiring in anticipation of growing consumer confidence.

There is however a disconnect between US recovery and trade growth. The US consumption pattern has changed from consuming durables towards spending on services, such as new apps and digital entertainment. A partial shift towards manufacturing at home also explains why exports to the US have not increased substantially. With global trade growing slower than GDP, emerging markets are not growing due to the traditional cyclical uptick in exports.

The bad news is that historically, a strong dollar has been associated with slower global growth and vice versa. The explanation is that when the dollar is weak, capital flows out to the emerging markets, stimulating trade and investments. When the dollar is strong, capital flows back to the US and if the US is unable to recycle these flows, global growth weakens.

As the taper tantrum in 2013 showed, when the Fed signalled an increase in interest rates, emerging markets suffered huge turmoil of capital outflows, leading to either interest rate increases or sharp devaluations.

The power of the US to recycle global capital flows is critical to global recovery. Unconventional monetary policy in the US, in the form of near zero interest rates, is not working because the transmission mechanism of cheap money to the real economy is not working. Liquidity remains within the central bank-financial market nexus, with relatively slow lending to finance private sector long-term investments. The private sector is also not confident about the future until there are stronger signs of sustained consumer spending. Furthermore, much-needed public sector investments in infrastructure are being constrained by the large debt overhang and toxic politics.

In short, global capital flight to the dollar, with near zero interest rates, will mean global secular deflation. The reason is that zero interest rate dollar holdings have the same deflationary role as gold in the 1930s. Holding gold was deflationary because spending stops as more and more gold hoarding drained liquidity from the market.

Wait a minute. If the Chinese economy is still growing three times faster than the US in GDP terms (6.7% versus 1.8%), shouldn’t the yuan appreciate? Yes, China is running a current account surplus, but capital outflows are currently running about the same level as trade surpluses, so foreign exchange reserves are flat. Many people think that capital outflows indicate that the yuan will remain weak against the dollar until private sector confidence recovers.

The European and Japanese central banks are running negative interest rate policies precisely because with interest rates relatively lower than the dollar, capital flows will induce lower exchange rates, which will hopefully reflate their economies. The Fed has exactly the same fear as the People’s Bank of China in 2009 when China was growing at more than 10% per year.

Higher Fed interest rates would attract higher capital inflows, pushing up the dollar and inducing even higher asset bubbles, with no inflation in sight.

In sum, much will depend whether the US will use more fiscal stimulative policies and less of unconventional monetary policy to revive productivity growth. It looks as if we will have to wait for a new President to make that strategic call. We will know by November,

By Andrew Sheng

Tan Sri Andrew Sheng is Distinguished Fellow, Asia Global Institute, University of Hong Kong.

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Sunday, July 24, 2016

The Age of Uncertainty

We are entering the age of dealing with unknown unknowns – as Brexit and Turkey’s failed coup show


The dark future of Europe

THE Age of Uncertainty is a book and BBC series by the late Harvard economist John Kenneth Galbraith, produced in 1977, about how we have moved from the age of certainty in 19th century economic thought to a present that is full of unknowns.

I still remember asking my economics professor what he thought of Galbraith, one of the most widely read economists and social commentator of his time. His answer was that Galbraith’s version of economics was too eclectic and wide-ranging. It was not where mainstream economics – pumped up by the promise of quantitative models and mathematics – was going.

Forty years later, it is likely that Galbraith’s vision of the future was more prescient than that of Milton Friedman, the leading light of free market economics – which promised more than it could deliver. The utopia of free markets, where rational man would deliver the most efficient public good from individual greed turned out to be exactly the opposite – the greatest social inequities with grave uncertainties of the future. Galbraith said, “wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding”. Perhaps he meant that poverty and necessity was the driver of change, if not of revolution.

The economics profession was always slightly confused over the difference between risk and uncertainty, as if the former included the latter. The economist Frank Knight (they don’t make economists like that anymore) clarified the difference as follows – risk is measurable and uncertainty is not. Quantitative economists then defined risk as measurable volatility – the amount that a variable like price fluctuated around its historical average.

The bell-shaped statistical curve that forms the conventional risk model used widely in economics assumes that there is 95% probability that fluctuations of price would be two standard deviations from the average or mean.

For non-technically minded, a standard deviation is a measure of the variance or dispersion around the mean, meaning that a “normal” fluctuation would be less than two; so if the standard deviation is say 5%, we would not expect more than 10% price fluctuation 95% of the time.


Events like Brexit shock us because the event gave rise to huge uncertainties over the future. Most experts did not expect Brexit – the variance was more than the normal. It was a reversal of a British decision to join the European Union, a five or more standard deviation event – in which the decision is a 180 degree turn. The conventional risk management models, which are essentially linear models that say that going forward or sequentially, the projected risk is up or down, simply did not factor in a reversal of decision.

In other words, we have moved from an age of risk to an age of uncertainty – where we are dealing with unknown unknowns. There are of course different categories of unknowns – known unknowns (things that we know that we do not know), calculable unknowns (which we can estimate or know something about through Big Data) and the last, we simply do not know what we may never know.

Big Data is the fashionable phrase for churning lots of data to find out where there are correlations. The cost of big computing power is coming down but you would still have to have big databases to access that information or prediction. Most individuals like you and me would simply have to use our instincts or rely on experts to make that prediction or decision. Brexit told us that many experts are simply wrong. Experts are those who can convincingly explain why they are wrong, but they may not be better in predicting the future than monkeys throwing darts.

Five factors

There are five current factors that add up to considerable uncertainty – geopolitics, climate change, technology, unconventional monetary policy and creative destruction.

First, Brexit and the Turkish coup are geo-political events that change the course of history. In its latest forecasts on the world economy, the IMF has called Brexit “the spanner in the works” that may slow growth further. But Brexit was a decision made because the British are concerned more about immigration than nickels and dimes from Brussels. This is connected to the second factor, climate change.


Global warming is the second major unknown, because we are already feeling the impact of warmer weather, unpredictable storms and droughts. Historically, dynastic collapses have been associated with major climate change, such as the droughts that caused the disappearance of the Angkor Wat and Mayan cultures. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan and all are failing states because they are water-stressed. If North Africa and the Middle East continue to face major water-stress and social upheaval, expect more than 1 million refugees to flood northwards to Europe where it is cooller and welfare benefits are better.

The third disruptor is technology, which brings wondrous new inventions like bio-technology, Internet and robotics, but also concerns such as loss of jobs and genetic accidents.

Fourthly, unconventional monetary policy has already breached the theoretical boundaries of negative interest rates, where no one, least of all the central bankers that push on this piece of string, fully appreciate how negative interest rates is destroying the business model of finance, from banks to asset managers.

Last but not least, the Austrian economist Schumpeter lauded innovation and entrepreneurship as the engine of capitalism, through what he called creative destruction. We all support innovation, but change always bring about losses to the status quo. Technology disrupts traditional industries, and those disappearing industries will create loss in jobs, large non-performing loans and assets that will have no value.

Change is not always a zero-sum game, where one person’s gain is another’s loss. It is good when it is a win-win game; but with lack of leadership, it can easily deteriorate into a lose-lose game. That is the scary side of unknown unknowns.

I shall elaborate on how ancient Asians coped with change in the next article.

By Tan Sri Andrew Sheng

Tan Sri Andrew Sheng writes on global issues from an Asian perspective.


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Monday, December 21, 2015

How property prices are determined?

Factors affecting prices - It is not easy to predict trend as the property market involves all kinds of players

THE year 2015 will always be considered one of the more challenging years for the property sector, with several factors coming into play and leaving potential buyers and investors cautious.

Looking back, Jordan Lee & Jaafar executive director Yap Kian Ann says there were many factors – be it microeconomic or macroeconomic, political, social, among others, that affected the property market performance and its pricing either directly, indirectly and/or jointly.

Click for actual size: http://clips.thestar.com.my.s3.amazonaws.com/clips/business/property-prices-chart-1912.pdf

“These factors are inter-related and influence each other. Individually, they give direct and indirect impact to the property market, property transaction volume and property prices at a different direction and degree.

“As the property market involves players (buyers and sellers) with all kinds of behaviour and is subject to a combination of factors that affect its performance at a given point in time, it is not an easy task to predict its trend and degree accurately.”

Looking ahead, property consultancy VPC Alliance (KL) Sdn Bhd managing director James Wong expects 2016 to be more subdued than this year.

Wong says most developers have launched their products aggressively in 2014.

“They knew the market this year would be soft and this softening would be carried forward to 2016. The full impact of the expiry of the developers’ interest bearing schemes (DIBS) will be felt next year.

Under DIBS, property buyers need not service the loan until the property is completed. Introduced in 2009 as an incentive, speculators purchased multiple units under DIBS because of the initial low outlay.

He expects to see softening demand in the high-rise high-end residential sector in the central region of the Klang Valley in 2016. Landed residential property demand is still resilient, especially with the gated and guarded community concept. House prices are expected to “self-correct”, he says.

Wong says foreign investors are actively monitoring residential properties in Kuala Lumpur due to weak ringgit but they remain cautious.

The increase in interest rates by the Federal Reserve after nearly a decade is also keenly watched. Already, reports are filtering out that Federal Reserve’s sway on global interest rates is causing a sharp jump in Singapore’s benchmark borrowing cost, squeezing growth in the small Asian city-state.

On a state by state basis, MIDF Research said earlier this month that Johor’s house price index showed the slowest growth year-on-year at 3%, Penang (3.5%) while Selangor fared better at 6.2%, followed by Kuala Lumpur’s 5.3%.

“We believe that the outlook for property price is better in Greater KL (Selangor and KL) due to support from the urbanisation factor.”

Citing Bank Negara statistics, the research house also noted that demand for property loans declined 13% year-on-year in October 2015 to RM25.19bil.

“This was weaker than September 2015, which declined 9% year-on-year. On a monthly sequential basis, the data was 1% lower. We are negative on the data as the number was showing nine consecutive year-on-year declines since February 2015.

“Year-to-date October 2015, loans were lower by 7% year-on-year to RM253.88bil. In our view, consumer appetite for big ticket items such as property remains low due to the rising cost of living and the weakening ringgit.”

By Eugene Mahalingam The Star/Asia News Network

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Saturday, December 19, 2015

To fellow US interest rate hike or to cut rates?




Emerging economies in a dilemma on whether to follow suit or cut rates

“Specifically, we expect rate cuts in India, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand in 2016. We also project a further 75bps of rate cuts and a 200bps reduction in RRR in China'. - Credit Suisse

THE big question is what happens next?

The much anticipated hike in US interest rates on Thursday meant that for the first time in almost a decade, US interest rates are on the way up. The 25 basis point (bps) rise in US interest rates by The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) to between 0.25% and 0.5% was made as the US economy showed tangible signs of improvement.

Such gains in the US economy through lower unemployment and higher forecast inflation has meant that the target for interest rates by the end of 2016 has been pegged at 1.5%, meaning that rates are expected to rise by 25 basis points every quarter until the end of next year.

The implications of what the US FOMC does reverberates throughout the world. Conventional thinking of the past is that higher rates in the US does put pressure on central banks elsewhere to follow suit.

But times have changed. Countries today have their own domestic economies and issues to manage and that has taken precedence over what the US does with its monetary policy.

It is clear that the de-coupling has taken place a long time ago. The European Union and Japan are still engaged in quantitative easing and are keeping rates near zero or in the case of the EU, in negative territory.

For Malaysia, the thinking is that with the difference between domestic and US interest rates still having a nice cushion, the focus of Bank Negara will be on the Malaysian economy.

Rate pressure: Should the path of the US rate cycle starts to steepen, economists say it will put pressure on Bank Negara as the ringgit may be pressured by inaction. – Reuters Countries such as China cut its interest rates in October to 4.35% as it grapples with a slowing economy. Different priorities call for different action.

But analysts feel the move by the US does create a bit of a dilemma for policy makers. Raising rates does cool an economy, which is already shifting to a lower gear given the tangible cooling of major economic indicators.

Trimming interest rates further, while will help the economy, will put more pressure on the flow of capital. Analysts feel that might not be what the central bank will want to do at the moment considering the weakness of the ringgit not only against the US dollar this year but also against the currencies of its major trading partners.

“Our rate is accommodative for economic growth and Bank Negara can raise rates when the economy is slowing down,” says an economist with a local brokerage.

To each its own

The United States has been the traditional locomotive of growth for the world for much of recent history. But the emergence of China has changed that equation. Trade of the emerging world increases with China as the second largest economy of the world grows, its influence on Malaysia and the rest of Asia has become more affixed.

It is for that reason that some are speculating that emerging economies, such as Malaysia, will keep its eyes focused on what the People’s Bank of China does while having the US action in its periphery vision.

“We argue that Asian central banks’ monetary policy stance next year will be more influenced by economic and monetary policy cycles in China than in the past, and will diverge from the US. Unlike the previous US Fed hiking cycle when virtually all Asian central banks tightened their policies, we think this time Asian policy rates will stay lower for longer,” says Credit Suisse in a report.

“Specifically, we expect rate cuts in India, Indonesia, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand in 2016. We also project a further 75bps of rate cuts and a 200bps reduction in RRR in China.


“Given the challenging environment for exports, we expect growth in trade-dependent economies including Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand to surprise the consensus on the downside. Meanwhile, more domestic-oriented economies with policy catalysts, including Indonesia and the Philippines, could outperform expectations considerably,” it says.

For Malaysia, the FOMC decision was keenly watched. Any time US interest rates move, Bank Negara pays close attention to it.

Is it the key determinant for the direction of domestic interest rates?

No, say economists. “Local conditions override what the US does,” says an economist.

For Malaysia, economists believe that the current overnight policy rate of 3.25% is appropriate to support growth. But they do too acknowledge that Malaysia is in a dicey situation depending on what happens next.

The general view is that the US will continue to push rates upwards. Just how rapidly will be important and as US rates goes up, the differential with Malaysia will narrow.

“If the local economy does as it is predicted, then there is a possibility of a small hike next year but there is no urgency to do that,” says an economist.

The question is what happens after next year should the path of the US rate cycle starts to steepen?

Economists say that will put pressure on Bank Negara as the ringgit might be pressured by inaction. As it is, the drop in crude oil prices is the most pressing issue affecting the value of the ringgit.

The effect on emerging currencies

Emerging markets have had a series of bad press over the past year. With sentiment souring and the outlook in the US getting brighter, it was no coincidence that the US dollar surged, gaining about 40% on average against emerging market currencies since May 2013.

But is it time for things to change?

Schroders thinks that might happen.

“It is difficult to argue that the Fed has been the sole factor in emerging market debt weakness. China hard landing fears, plummeting commodity prices, Brazilian political disarray, Russian policy concerns and general weakening of growth across all regions created a near perfect-storm for emerging market debt investors.

“However, a more predictable and less fraught path going forward for the Fed should help steady investor nerves and risk appetite. If developed market bond yields remain very low – as seems likely with a very slow hiking path, set out with some confidence – emerging market dollar yields may remain one of the few places to look for meaningful income generation for years to come,” it says.

Schroders says the move by the US Federal Reserve comes at a time when emerging market dollar debt seems particularly attractive.

“Yields in the primary sovereign dollar index are at highs not seen since 2010, when Treasury yields were much higher than today. Yield spreads over Treasuries for investment grade sovereign debt are just under 300 basis points, and remain at elevated levels that were last seen consistently during the European crisis of 2011. High yield sovereign debt currently has a yield to maturity of 8.5%.

“The divergence between developed market monetary policies has driven the dollar nearly 20% higher on a trade-weighted basis since July 2014. Emerging market currencies have fallen in lock step.

“With the European Central Bank now charting a path towards a steady dose of quantitative easing as growth in Europe stabilises, Fed predictability should help curb that dollar appreciation. Emerging market currencies should then likely steady at attractive levels, boosting sentiment towards the asset class. Even a modest virtuous cycle led by these factors could make emerging markets one of the strongest global fixed income performers next year, given today’s generous yield levels.”

By Jagdev Singh Sidhu The Star/Asia News Network

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Fear factor: Traders working in the S&P options pit at the Chicago Board of Options Exchange in Chicago, illinois. The prospect of th...

Friday, December 18, 2015

The global impact of the US interest rate rise

Fear factor: Traders working in the S&P options pit at the Chicago Board of Options Exchange in Chicago, illinois. The prospect of the first hike in US rates in almost a decade had kept emerging markets on edge in the weeks leading up to the Fed’s decision.


A quarter of one per cent hike as expected.

It doesn't sound like much - but its significance is mighty.

After nearly a decade of what has been, essentially, a global economic effort - and experiment - to save the world from financial calamity, the Federal Reserve, the central bank to the world's largest economy, has decided, finally, to try a touch of "normalisation".

Getting economies "back to normal" was always the hope during that remarkable time when the financial system was in danger of going bust.

Central banks around the world slashed interest rates to near zero and created billions of pounds of support for governments and the wider economy.

I'm not sure anyone thought that, eight years on, we would still be in a near zero interest rate world. Or, in cases such as the eurozone, a negative interest rate world.

Fundamental damage

The financial crisis - a banking crisis which so damaged confidence and put the world in "risk-off" mode - more fundamentally damaged the global economy than many initially predicted.

Paying off debts - deleveraging - and not taking on more risk became the order of the day for governments that had over-borrowed and banks, businesses and consumers that had become drunk on easy credit.

Now the Federal Reserve has moved interest rates up a small notch.

The hike is a "doveish" one, with the Fed statement making it clear that any future increases will be "gradual".

Primarily, the rate rise is a signal about the strength of the US economy and shows that the chairwoman of the Fed, Janet Yellen, believes that the long march back to more normal economic conditions can begin.

Employment levels in America are high and growth is running at just over 2%.

Ms Yellen, a cautious governor, does not want to overdo it. She says the pace of growth in the US economy is "modest". And inflation is below target.

Global implications

When America stirs, the rest of the world takes notice.

Rising US interest rates could mean higher debt repayments for emerging market governments and businesses - as the amount owed is denominated in dollars.

And with higher interest rates in America, investment capital will be encouraged across the Atlantic and away from Asia in the hunt for better returns.

That could affect Europe as well.

On the upside, the stronger dollar which has followed the rise might be good for European and Asian economies as it means exports to America are cheaper.

UK interest

Could it increase pressure on Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England, and his colleagues on the Monetary Policy Committee, to raise interest rates in Britain in 2016?

Many say yes.

The UK economy is strengthening, as is America.

The Bank insists the positive signs are not yet strong enough, but with employment rising and wage increases above the rate of inflation, a 2016 interest rate rise is certainly considered possible by many economists, including Sir Charlie Bean, the former deputy governor of the Bank of England.

Mr Carney has made it clear, in a way similar to the Federal Reserve, that when a rate rise comes it will be small and any subsequent increases will be gradual.

Homeowners with mortgages will need to factor in higher payments.

Savers who have seen years of very low interest rates are likely to heave a sigh of relief as, finally, the world starts approaching economic normality.

By Kamal Ahmed Business editor BBC

Markets rise on rate hike - However, concerns linger on adverse impact of further increases

PETALING JAYA: Key regional markets, including Bursa Malaysia, reacted positively to the United States Federal Reserve’s (Fed) first interest rate hike in nine years, although concerns linger on the impact to be felt on the future rate hikes anticipated to take place next year.

In a knee-jerk reaction to the rate rise, which sent out a signal that the US economy was now on a stronger footing, the local key benchmark index, the FTSE Bursa Malaysia KL Composite Index, closed 1.37% or 22 points up to 1,656 points, with market breadth across the bourse generally positive.

World Bank country manager for Malaysia Faris Hadad-Zervos said the issue of the Fed hike had been the longest-talked-about and most-anticipated one to date.

“It is still too early to tell the impact of the move, but our analysis so far indicates that the Malaysian Government policy and market have long internalised the move into their estimates and sentiment about the economy.”

Yesterday, the Fed raised its key interest rate from a range of 0% to 0.25% to a range of 0.25% to 0.5%, signalling that the economic health of the world’s largest economy had improved since the days of the 2007/2008 financial and subprime crises.

“I feel confident about the fundamentals driving the US economy, the health of US households and domestic spending,” CNN Money quoted Fed chief Janet Yellen as saying. Yellen was reported to have said that further increases would be gradual, with rates likely to remain low “for some time”. Economists in the US have predicted that the Fed could raise the rates by between 50 basis points (bps) to 100 bps next year.

While yesterday’s rate hike caused emerging markets to react positively, as most of them had already priced in a rate hike in the US, concerns of further increases on interest rates on capital flows remained.

The biggest fear is that investors would take even more of their capital out of emerging markets, which have enjoyed rapid growth in recent years, and move it to the US, which presumably will yield higher returns now that its economy is firmly on the path to recovery.

Already, investors have pulled out about US$500bil from markets in emerging countries in 2015, the first annual outflow since 1988, Forbes reported, citing the Institute of International Finance estimates.

Notably, a strengthening US dollar will negatively affect regional companies which have dollar-denominated bonds.

In its Asean strategy report entitled “May the Fed be with you”, Nomura Research noted that lower commodity prices, fiscal consolidation and rising costs were weighing down on domestic demand in Malaysia even as the export sector continued to perform well and support overall growth.

“Stocks to focus on will likely be ones that are cheap, large-cap, higher-yielding and ones more recently under pressure. But it is still unlikely that Malaysia will outperform, given the weaker earnings outlook,” Nomura told clients.

It added that banks offered “earnings visibility at cheap valuations”, while healthcare stocks and exporters benefited from the depreciation of the ringgit.

Year-to-date, the ringgit has lost as much as 23% against the US dollar, making it one of the worst-performing currencies in the region although it strengthened against the greenback and other key regional currencies at yesterday’s close.

Interestingly, Nomura said the Philippines offered the best growth prospects and it was “overweight” on it.

“Despite the recent correction and negative momentum in earnings revisions, the macro fundamentals remain very favourable for double-digit earnings growth next year,” it said.

Elsewhere in the commodity markets, crude oil continued to be under pressure owing to more supply than demand, with the benchmark West Texas Intermediate and Brent crude oil prices trading at US$35.52 and US$37.19 per barrel, respectively, almost 50% down from June last year.

By Yvonne Tan The Star/Asia News Network

A sigh of relief from Asian central bankers - Regional currencies and stocks reat favourably to US rate hike

SYDNEY: Asian governments and central bankers has breathed a collective sigh of relief after currencies edged up and stocks rallied rather than recoiled at the US Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates.

The prospect of the first hike in US rates in almost a decade had kept emerging markets on edge in the weeks leading up to the Fed’s decision, amid fears investors would redirect capital to higher-yielding US debt in a fresh blow to their shaky economies.

However, an initial rally smoothed the brows of Asian central bankers who were the first to respond to the hike as US policymakers sought to end an era of ultra-low rates that followed the global financial crisis.

“It is a relief that even despite the Fed rate hike, turbulence in global financial markets has not been large,” said South Korea’s Vice-Finance Minister Joo Hyung-hwan.

The more composed initial reaction was aided by the fact the Fed had clearly flagged the move in advance, and also said the pace of tightening would be gradual – an important signal for many asset markets adjusting to less stimulus after years of flush Fed liquidity.

However, Citibank’s Asian economic team said while equities and credit market had perked up, the response of commodity market suggested caution.

“We have long argued that early signs of growth in emerging markets would be seen in commodity markets, so we take heed that neither energy nor metal prices shared the optimism of the equities and credit markets,” the analysts said in a report.

Hong Kong’s top central banker, who was obliged to immediately match the Fed’s hike under the Chinese-run city’s peg to the US dollar, said he expected only a modest outflow of capital as a result of the central bank’s move.

China’s central bank also added to the reassuring mood, pencilling in economic growth of 6.8% for next year in a working paper released on Wednesday, down only slightly from an expected 6.9% this year.

A senior researcher at an official Chinese think tank chimed in, saying the hike would not lead to major economic disruption.

Zeng Gang, director of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences banking research division, told the official People’s Daily paper that as the rate rise had been widely expected, it had been priced into markets and the announcement impact was limited.

Data showing drops in exports from Japan and Singapore, including big falls in shipments to China, sounded some of the few sour notes yesterday, but Tokyo too voiced relief that emerging markets were taking the US rate hike in their stride. — Reuters