Global Investing

With Shinzo Abe’s new government intent on prodding the Bank of Japan into unlimited monetary easing, it is hardly surprising that the yen has slumped to two-year lows against the dollar. This could lead to even more flows into overseas markets from Japanese investors seeking higher-yield homes for their money.

Japanese mom-and-pop investors — known collectively as Mrs Watanabe -  have for years been canny players of currency and interest rate arbitrage. In recent years they have stepped away from old favourites, New Zealand and Australia, in favour of emerging markets such as Brazil, South Africa and Turkey. (See here  to read Global Investing’s take on Mrs Watanabe’s foray into Turkey). Flows from Japan stalled somewhat in the wake of the 2010 earthquake but EM-dedicated Japanese investment trusts, known as toshin, remain a mighty force, with estimated assets of over $64 billion.  Analysts at JP Morgan noted back in October that with the U.S. Fed’s QE3 in full swing, more Japanese cash had started to flow out.

That trickle shows signs of  becoming a flood. Nikko Asset Management, the country’s third  biggest money manager, said this week that retail investors had poured $2.3 billion into a mutual fund that invests in overseas shares — the biggest  subscription since October 2006. This fund’s model portfolio has a 64 percent weighting to U.S. shares, 14 percent to Mexico and 10 percent to Canada while the rest is split between Latin American countries.

And what of currency wars? The yen has slumped 12 percent against the dollar this year while currencies from emerging economies Korea, Philippines, and Mexico have  risen 6-7 percent. JP Morgan predicts the yen, currently trading around 86 to the dollar,  will trade between 80 and 90 next year ( previous estimate 75-85 yen) But some in the new administration want more – Abe’s special advisor Koichi Hamada says only a 95-100 per dollar level would be proof that monetary easing is working.

So emerging central banks may have a hard fight to keep a lid on their currencies if outflows from Japan gather momentum. Look at the Korean won — it is trading at a 2-1/2 year high against the yen, having risen 21 percent in 2012, the largest annual gain since 1998. That’s painful for an economy that sends around 6 percent of its exports to Japan; its companies from carmakers to electronics manufacturers compete against Japan for other export markets and all that should eventually force the central bank to step in. The Singapore dollar meanwhile has appreciated 19 percent versus the yen this year.

By Alice Baghdjian

Interest rate cuts in emerging markets, credit ratings upgrades and above all the tidal wave of liquidity from Western central banks have sent almost $90 billion into emerging bond markets this year (estimate from JP Morgan). Much of this cash has flowed to locally-traded emerging currency debt, pushing yields in many markets to record lows again and again. Local currency bonds are among this year’s star asset classes, returning over 15 percent, Thomson Reuters data shows.

But the pick up in global growth widely expected in 2013 may put the brakes on the bond rally in many countries – for instance rate hikes are expected in Brazil, Mexico and Chile. One area where rate rises are firmly off the agenda however is emerging Europe and South Africa, where economic growth remains weak. That is leading to some expectations that these markets could outperform in 2013.

There have already been big rallies. Since the start of the year, Turkey’s 10 year bond has rallied by 300 basis points; Hungary’s by almost 400 bps; and Poland’s by 200 bps. So is there room for more.

Hungary’s outlook upgrade to stable from positive by Fitch was greeted with incredulity by many analysts. Benoit Anne at Societe Generale wonders if the decision had anything to do with the Mayan prophecy that proclaiming the end of the world on Dec. 21:

What is the last crazy thing you would do on the last day of the world? Well, the guys at Fitch could not find anything better to do than upgrading Hungary’s rating outlook to stable. Now, that really makes me scared.

A bit brutal maybe but the point Anne wants to make is valid — nothing fundamental has changed in Hungary — its GDP growth and debt numbers are looking as dire as before and the central bank is still subject to political interference.

A rate cut in Hungary is considered a done deal today. But a sharp downward move in the forint  is making future policy outlook a bit more interesting.

The forint fell 1.5 percent against the euro on Monday to the lowest level since July and has lost 2.6 percent this month. Monday’s loss was driven by a rumour that the central bank planned to stop accepting bids for two week T-bills. That would effectively have eliminated the main way investors buy into forint in the short term.   The rumour was denied but the forint continues to weaken.

Analysts are not too worried, attributing it to year-end position squaring. Benoit Anne, head of EM strategy at Societe Generale, points out the forint is the world’s best performing emerging currency of 2012 (up  11.3 percent against the dollar). Given the state of the economy (recession) and falling inflation, the forint move will not deter the central bank from a rate cut, he says.

Adversity is a great leveller. Just look at the way sovereign credit ratings in the developed and emerging world have been converging ever since the credit crisis erupted five years ago. JPMorgan  has crunched a few numbers.

Few were surprised last week by S&P’s decision to cut the outlook on Britain’s AAA rating to negative. That gold-plated rating is becoming increasingly rare — according to JP Morgan, just 15 percent of global GDP now rates AAA with a stable outlook — a whopping comedown from 50 percent in 2007. Only 13 developed economies are now rated AAA, compared to 21 before the crisis. And only one, Australia, now has a higher rating (AAA) than in 2007 — 16 of its peers have suffered a total of 129 downgrades in this period.  With 20 rich countries on negative outlook, more downgrades are likely.

Emerging sovereigns, on the other hand, have enjoyed 189 upgrades (43 percent of these were moves into investment grade). That has caused what JPM dubs “a traffic jam”  in the triple B ratings area, with 20 percent of world GDP now rated at this level, compared to 8 percent in 2009.

This year has been all about interest rate cuts. As Western central banks took their policy-easing efforts to ever new levels, emerging markets had little recourse but to cut rates as well. Interest rates in many countries from Brazil to the Czech Republic are at record lows.

Some countries such as Poland and Hungary are expected to continue lowering rates. Rate cuts may also come in India if a reluctant central bank finds its hand forced by the slumping economy. But in many markets, interest rate swaps are now pricing rate rises in 2013.

Are they correct in doing so? Emerging central banks will raise interest rates by an average 8 basis points next year, JP Morgan analysts predict.  UBS, in a recent note, reckons more EM central banks will raise rates than cut them. Analysts there offer the following graphic detailing their expectations:

Emerging market currencies have been a source of frustration for investors this year. With central banks overwhelmingly in rate-cutting mode and export growth slowing, most currencies have performed poorly. That has been a bit of a dampener for local currency debt –  while returns in dollar terms have been robust at 13 percent, currency appreciation has contributed just 1.5 percent of that, according to JP Morgan.

The picture could be changing though.  Fund managers at the Reuters 2013 investment outlook summit this week have been unanimously bullish on emerging debt, with many stating a preference for domestic debt. So far this year, dollar debt has taken in three-quarters of all inflows to emerging fixed income.

Andreas Uterman, CIO of Allianz Global Investors told the summit in London that many emerging currencies looked significantly undervalued, and that this anomaly would gradually resolve itself:

One of the big stories of the past decade has been the massive jump in central bank reserves, with total reserves having quintupled from a decade ago to around $10.6 trillion.

But the growth has not been uniform. And over the past 18 months slowing world growth and trade has stalled reserve accummulation across the developing world, making some countries increasingly vulnerable to financial shocks, according to analysts at Capital Economics.

They point out for instance that, although most emerging economies are less vulnerable than in the past, Ukrainian reserves have fallen by a quarter in the past year while in Venezuela they declined by 40 percent. Egyptian reserves halved since end-2011, forcing it to agree to an IMF aid deal. Foreign exchange reserves in these countries may not be sufficient to protect against balance of payment crises should trade flows and investments slow further, they reckon.

A raft of Argentine provinces and municipalities suffered credit rating downgrades this week after one of their number, Chaco, in the north of the country, ran out of hard currency on the eve of a bond payment. Instead it paid creditors $260,000 in pesos. Now Chaco wants creditors to swap $30 million in dollar debt for peso bonds because it still cannot get its hands on any hard currency.

The episode is a frightening reminder of Argentina’s $100 billion debt default 10 years ago and unsurprisingly has triggered a surge in bond yields and credit default swaps (CDS). But broader questions also arise from it.

First, will debt “pesification” by some Argentine municipalities snowball to affect international bonds as well? And second, is municipal debt likely to become a problem for other emerging markets in coming months?

Good news for Europe as the cost for insuring sovereign debt against default fell in the third quarter of 2012, according to the CMA Global Sovereign Credit Risk report.

Ireland slipped out of the 10 most risky sovereigns for the first time since the first quarter of 2010 according to CMA, making space for Lebanon to enter the club of the world’s ten most risky sovereign debt issuers.

Although Irish 5-year credit default swap spreads tightened to 317 basis points from 554 basis points in the third quarter, there is still a 25 percent chance that Ireland will not be able to honour its debt or restructure it over the next five years.