US Treasuries not safe, said don

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Don: US Treasuries not safe, emerging economies should find other ways to buffer themselvesImage via Wikipedia

JACKSON HOLE, Wyoming: Emerging economies should find other ways to buffer themselves from global crises than stockpiling US government debt, a prominent economist argued.

US Treasuries and the debt of other advanced nations might be liquid, but it was far from safe, Cornell University professor Eswar Prasad said in a paper presented to a group of central bankers gathered here.

Emerging countries seeking protection from global shocks by individually stocking up on US debt would be better off banding together to create a pool of funds that could be drawn on in a crisis, he argued. Doing so would give them a backstop should they need it, without saddling their national investment portfolios with debt that could turn sour.



Sharply rising levels of public borrowing and weak growth prospects in the United States mean that over time the dollar will continue to decline against the currencies of faster-growing emerging markets, eroding the value of emerging nations' foreign investments, he said. And the risks are not only for the long-term. The United States' near brush with default earlier this month, as lawmakers refused to raise the country's borrowing ceiling until a deficit-cutting deal was reached, brought the potential pitfalls of holding US debt into sharp relief.

“As demonstrated by recent events in the eurozone, bond investors both domestic and foreign can quickly turn against a vulnerable country with high debt levels, leaving the country little breathing room on fiscal tightening and precipitating a crisis,” Prasad wrote. “The US is large, special and central to global finance, but the tolerance of bond investors may have its limits.”

The dollar has long been the world's main reserve currency, and since the financial crisis emerging economies have built their reserves by buying Treasuries and the debt of a few other advanced economies, according to Prasad.

Any change could hurt the ability of the United States to borrow at low rates despite soaring debt levels.
That would turn the tables in a world where traditionally it was developed nations that pressured developing ones to bring their finances under control, he said.

“It is high time for advanced economies to take the tonic of macroeconomic and structural reforms that they have for so long dispensed to the emerging markets,” he said. Reuters

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China Needs Urgent Review of U.S. Debt, Financial News Says

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By Bloomberg News (Updates with central bank governor’s comment in third paragraph.)

Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) -- China should urgently assess risks from being the main foreign investor in U.S. debt and diversify its foreign-currency reserves more quickly, the Financial News reported today, citing Xia Bin, a central bank adviser.                                      Image via Wikipedia

In the short term, China can adjust the structure of the reserves, the central bank publication cited Xia as saying. Longer-term, the key is to keep foreign-exchange holdings at a “reasonable” level, according to Xia, an academic member of the monetary policy committee of the People’s Bank of China.

Central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan pledged this month to “closely” monitor U.S. efforts to tackle its debt burden. The global stock market rout that saw Tokyo shares sliding this morning follows Standard & Poor’s downgrade of the U.S. debt rating from AAA and a widening of Europe’s sovereign-debt crisis.



China is the biggest foreign owner of U.S. Treasuries, with more than $1 trillion of the securities, and its foreign- exchange reserves are the world’s largest at more than $3 trillion.

The U.S. economy has entered a long cycle of economic weakening that will put pressure on China’s holdings of dollar assets, Xia wrote in a microblog on Aug. 6. He is the director of the Finance Research Institute at the Development Research Center of the State Council, China’s cabinet.

China should buy more non-financial assets with its reserves to diversify risks, Xia wrote, adding that the country should also pursue national strategic interests, and seek to globalize the yuan. He previously said that China should use its reserves to increase holdings of gold and some other precious metals.

To contact Bloomberg News staff for this story: Zheng Lifei in Beijing at +86-10-6649-7560 or lzheng32@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Paul Panckhurst at ppanckhurst@bloomberg.net --Zheng Lifei. Editors: Paul Panckhurst, Nerys Avery.

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Stronger Malaysian ringgit seen

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Stronger ringgit seen

BY DALJIT DHESI daljit@thestar.com.my

Economists expect the ringgit to strengthen further against the US dollar

PETALING JAYA: Economists expect the ringgit to further strengthen against the greenback and attract extensive capital inflow into the region. It will also lead to possible further hikes in statutory reserve requirement (SRR) to stem excess liquidity if the global financial volatility worsens following the US credit rating downgrade.

Standard and Poor's (S&P's) had last Friday downgraded the world's largest economy a notch lower to AA+ from a triple A rating since the credit rating was issued to the US in 1917.

MIDF Research chief economist Anthony Dass said he expected the ringgit to strengthen against the US dollar at an average 2.97 for the year supported by a combination of healthy economic fundamentals and strong inflow of liquidity.

Stronger ringgit: Dass expects the ringgit to trade at an average 2.97 to the greenback for the year.

He added that the stronger ringgit against the US dollar would help cushion some level of imported inflation, which would give some breathing space for Bank Negara on further raising the overnight policy rate (OPR), which now stood at 3%.

“We have now placed a 30% odd for the OPR to stay at 3% for the rest of the year and expect the central bank to raise it by another 25 basis points (bps) in the second half of this year,” Dass said.

Much depends on the direction of the ringgit, the global commodity and food prices, liquidity and whether there will be further relaxation of subsidies.

Underpinned by healthy economic fundamentals and benefiting from the regional net inflow of funds, liquidity inflow into Malaysia has been strong, forcing the central bank to raise the SRR by 300 bps to 4% between April-June 2011. SRR are non-interest deposits kept at the central bank to mop up excess liquidity in the financial system.

With lingering uncertainties on the global front, Dass said he expected Malaysia, like other Asian ex-Japan economies, to continue to see inflow of funds. While this would strengthen the ringgit, he said ample liquidity would add pressure on inflation, adding that he was not ruling out the possibility of further hikes in SRR by another 50 bps to 100 bps should the inflow of liquidity pose a problem.

RAM Holdings economist Jason Fong, in response to a query from Starbiz, said if the financial volatility in the US turned out to be very significant and persistent, the impact on its external markets, including Malaysia, could be substantial.



One of the worst case scenarios would entail extensive capital flight from US-centric assets, he said. In this scenario, he added that there would be considerable decline in the value of the US dollar, causing an appreciation of US-denominated assets, particularly commodities.

The US financial volatility might also cause investors to put their money into safe haven assets such as precious metals, like gold, Fong noted.



Furthermore, he said if there were further US debt rating downgrade within the next two years as pointed out by S&P, then banks (depending on its portfolio weightings in US Treasuries) might slow down lending activities to meet international banking guidelines and this could slow domestic lending and cause consumption and investment to decline.

Fong said a larger-than-usual capital inflow would likely put upward pressure on the ringgit, causing Malaysia's exports to be more uncompetitive.

He said the rating agency maintained its economic growth forecast of 5.6% for Malaysia this year but acknowledged that the downside risk to growth had risen in the last few months.

This included a prolonged US slowdown coupled with a deteriorating external economic environment, he noted.

AmResearch Sdn Bhd director of economic research Manokaran Mottain reckons that the impact on Malaysia from the US credit rating downgrade will be minimal as the local economy is more domestic-oriented.

Countries more exposed to US Treasuries, including Japan and China, would face the brunt in the near term. China would be pressured to ease the grip on a weaker yuan policy, he added.

For Malaysia, the biggest impact will be in the currency market, with the ringgit rallying again towards RM2.93 per dollar again. The ringgit was traded at RM3.019 to a US$1 yesterday.

In the medium term, a possible quantitative easing (QE3) in the US would lead to the appreciation of the regional currencies, including the ringgit - which is expected to rally towards RM2.90 per dollar before settling between the RM2.80-RM2.90 range for this year.

Manokaran, who is maintaining the country's gross domestic product forecast at 5% this year, said the Government had trimmed its exposure to the G3 and plans to boost domestic demand. Apart from the US, the G3 also include Japan and the European Union.

US Dollar’s Share Of Global Reserves Continues To Slide, Reserve Status Questioned

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Dollar’s Share Of Global Reserves Continues To Slide, Reserve Status Questioned

 Timmy Geithner and Bennie Bernanke have contributed to the dollar's decline - Getty Images North America.

WASHINGTON - APRIL 21: Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (L) and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke applaud during the unveiling of the new $100 note in the Cash Room at the Treasury Department April 21, 2010 in Washington, DC. According to the Treasury Department, the U.S. government evaluates advances in digital and printing technology to redesign currency and stay ahead of counterfeiters. The new note will be put into circulation in Feburary 2011.

Further confirmation that the U.S. dollar is gradually losing its reserve status came today from an International Monetary Fund report on global holdings of foreign exchange reserves by central banks.  The greenback, and the euro, lost share vis-à-vis the Japanese yen, the Australian, and the Canadian dollar, pointing to a “slow, gradual diversification” of reserve holdings.

With Christine Lagarde recently appointed General Manager in replacement of the disgraced Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the IMF released its latest “Composition of Official Foreign Exchange Reserves” (COMFER) which lists reserves held at central banks in 33 “advanced economies” and 105 “emerging and developing economies.”  China, one of the largest holders of foreign reserves, is not included in the sample. (Read IMF Appoints Lagarde To Fix A Disgraced institution).

Attesting to the continued global loss of confidence in the U.S. dollar, the greenback’s share of the world’s reserve continued to slide in the fourth quarter of 2010, the latest data show.  Interestingly, the trend can be explained entirely by valuation effects, with the trade-weighted dollar depreciating 4%% in that time frame.

The U.S.’ share of allocated reserves fell in the first quarter to 60.69%% from 61.53% from Q4 2010.  Central Bank reserves move slowly, but the slide in the greenback’s share, which Nomura suggests would be even steeper if China was included in the sample, has been very pronounced if one takes a longer-term window.



A year before the latest data, Q1 2010, the greenback’s share stood at 61.64%, while in Q1 2001, ten years before, it stood at 72.3%.  While USDs dominance was unquestioned a few years ago, it is anything but rare to speak of a move toward a multi-currency system, with the dollar still a primus inter pares [first among peers]. (Read Central Banks Dump Treasuries As Dollar’s Reserve Currency Status Fades).

Emerging and developing nations aggressively accumulated foreign reserves in the first quarter, as their high-growth economies attracted massive capital flows from so-called advanced economies.  While rich nations added $65.5 billion in reserves, $1.6 billion of those in U.S. dollars, emerging markets added $366.3 billion, $65.8 billion of those in dollars.  Regardless, EM central banks also sought further diversification, with the Japanese Yen as the main destination.

Emerging market central banks accumulated $6.6 billion in new JPY reserves in the first quarter, taking their allocation up to 2.9%.  “While the increase appears small, it signifies that the yen has recently found favor amongst EM central banks as an alternative safe haven,” noted Nomura.

“Other” currencies, as denominated by the IMF, made up 20% of emerging market reserve accumulation in the first quarter.  With the Canadian and Australian dollars as some of the biggest beneficiaries, the share of “other” currencies climbed up to 5.8%, from 5.1% in Q4 2010.

Euro share of global reserves crawled up a couple of percentage points to 26.6%, despite being shunned by EM central banks (where its share fell to 28.2%).  With the euro gaining 5.8% against the dollar in the first quarter, the data indicates EM’s actively selling euros.  “It is likely that central banks sought to rebalance their reserve portfolios in the wake of EUR strength and corresponding USD weakness. That is, they sold EUR and bought USD and other currencies to counter the sharp change in valuation,” explained Nomura’s analysts.

The IMF’s most recent COFER continues to support the thesis that the U.S. is losing its reserve status.  Central banks are sticking to “relatively stable allocations of major currencies,” namely the U.S. dollar and the euro, yet they are gradually moving away, adding yen and “other” currencies.  While the greenback will continue to play a predominant role in world trade, there can be no doubt that slowly, but surely, central banks will rely less and less on it.