MacroScope

Local currency bonds in emerging markets, like most financial assets, have enjoyed a solid rally on the back of ample global central bank liquidity. But the good times may be coming to an end, according to a report from Capital Economics. That’s because there’s only so much boost the securities can get out of the monetary easing efforts of the Federal Reserve and other major central banks, the firm says.

Emerging market (EM) local currency government bond yields have fallen sharply in the past few years. Our GDP-weighted overall 10-year yield of a sample of 18 EM sovereign borrowers has dropped by 125 basis points since the start of 2011, to around 4.4% at the end of April.

Our calculations suggest that almost the entire decline in the yield has been due to a drop in the risk-free rate rather than in the credit spread. And since the risk-free rate reflects long-term expectations for monetary policy, this suggests that the fate of EM local currency bonds will depend to a large extent on how short-term rates evolve.

The recent trend has been for central banks to loosen monetary policy further and we generally expect policy rates to remain low throughout our forecast window. However, of the 18 countries in our sample, we forecast that by the end of next year the benchmark policy rate will actually be higher in 10 cases, the same in 5 cases, and lower in only 3 cases. We expect some rise in rates in the Emerging Asia and Latin America regions to be offset only partly by a drop in rates in Emerging Europe.

Accordingly, we think the best days for EM local currency bonds may now be over. After all, the risk-free component of our 10-year overall yield seems unlikely to fall further if we are right to expect some small rise in policy rates on average, even if we forecast rates to rise by less than the consensus.

Where is the Japanese money? Mostly it has been heading back to home shores as we wrote here yesterday.

The assumption was that the Bank of Japan's huge money-printing campaign would push Japanese retail and institutional investors out in search of yield.  Emerging markets were expected to capture at least part of a potentially huge outflow from Japan and also benefit from rising allocations from other international funds as a result.  But almost a month after the BOJ announced its plans, the cash has not yet arrived.

EM investors, who seem to have been banking the most on the arrival of Japanese cash, may be forgiven for feeling a tad nervous. Data from EPFR Global shows no notable pick-up in flows to EM bond funds while cash continues to flee EM equities ($2 billion left last week).

There are still plenty of macro factors to worry about around the world, but China seems to have dropped down the charts. Conversations with delegates at TradeTech Asia, the annual trading heads’ conference held in Singapore, revealed that the U.S. fiscal cliff, food inflation, geopolitical risks in the Middle-East and Europe all trumped China as the major risks out there for financial markets.

Last time this year China was public enemy #1 for investors. But according to the latest Bank of America Merrill Lynch Global fund managers’ survey confidence in the outlook for China’s economy has surged to a three-year high – a big turnaround from a year ago when the fear was that shrinking company profits, rising bad loans and weak global demand at a time of stubbornly high inflation would all add up to a “hard-landing” for the world’s second largest economy. The consensus opinion among economists now is that the worst is over and growth bottomed in the third quarter that ended in September.

Money has come back to the market too. Nine straight weeks of inflows have seen $3.2 billion pumped into China equity funds, according to EPFR, in the lead up to the 18th Party Congress where China’s new leadership was unveiled.  Hong Kong, still the main gateway for foreign investors into China, has seen optimism over China combined with the U.S. Fed’s third round of asset purchases lead to strong capital flows into the market. The territory’s monetary authority was forced to repeatedly intervene to defend the HK$’s peg against the US$ last month while the Chinese yuan is hitting fresh record highs.

High inflation is a drag on economic growth in the world’s second most populous country and matters immensely to over 400 million people, or over a third of India’s total population, who struggle to earn enough to feed their families three meals a day.

The particularly volatile nature of inflation in India has confounded policymakers and small business owners and has left economists, who are often running complex statistical models based on a dearth of reliable data, with a poor forecasting record.

To be fair, predicting economic data can be pretty tough in a country where collecting and reporting national statistics is still in its infancy stage. Provisional numbers are often completely revised away.

With a faltering economy, political gridlock, high interest rates, delayed monsoons and an epic power outage that has plunged half its 1.2 billion population into darkness, optimism is a sparse commodity in India.

Just not when it comes to rising house prices.

‘What goes up a lot must keep going up’ was the conclusion from the very first Reuters Indian housing market poll this week. And it sounded very familiar.

Past experience shows that respondents to housing market polls – whether they be independent analysts, mortgage brokers, chartered surveyors – tend to cling to an optimistic tone even as trouble clearly brews below the surface.

On a recent trip home to Singapore, I was startled to learn just how much housing prices in the city-state have risen in my absence.

A cousin said he had recently paid over S$600,000 -- about US$465,000 -- for a yet-to-be-built 99-year-lease flat. Such numbers are hardly out of place in any major metropolis but this was for a state-subsidised three-bedroom apartment.

Soaring housing prices have fueled popular discontent -- little wonder as median monthly household incomes have stagnated at around S$5,000.

Food and electricity bills are high. The cost of filling up at the petrol station isn't coming down much either. The U.S. economy is in trouble and suddenly the job isn't as secure as it seemed. Maybe that designer handbag and new car aren't such good ideas after all.

That's the kind of decision millions of middle class consumers in developing countries are facing these days. That's bad news for purveyors of everything from jeans to iphones  who have enjoyed double-digit profits thanks to booming sales in emerging markets.

Brazil is the best example of how emerging market consumers are tightening their belts. Thanks to their spending splurge earlier this decade, Brazilian consumers on average see a quarter of their income disappear these days on debt repayments. People's credit card bills can carry interest rates of up to 45 percent. The central bank is so worried about the growth outlook it stunned markets with a cut in interest rates this week even though inflation is running well above target

No question that investors are in the throes of passion over emerging markets. The latest Reuters asset allocation polls show investors pouring money into Asian and Latin American stocks in October to the detriment of U.S. and euro zone equities. Exposure to equities in emerging Europe, Asia ex-Japan, Latin America and Africa/Middle East rose to 15.6 percent of a typical stock portfolio from 14.3 percent a month earlier.

Mike Dicks, chief economist and blogger at Barclays Wealth, has identified what he sees as the three biggest problems facing the global economy, and conveniently found that they are linked with three separate regions.

First, there is the risk that U.S., t consumers won’t increase spending. Dicks notes that the increase in U.S. consumption has been “extremely moderate” and far less than after previous recessions. His firm has lowered is U.S. GDP forecast for 2011 to 2.7 percent from a bit over 3 percent.

Next comes the euro zone. While the wealth manager is not looking for any immediate collapse in EMU, Dicks reckons that without the ability to devalue, Greece and other struggling countries won’t see any great improvement in competitiveness. Germany, in the meantime, has sped up plans to cut its own deficit.  It leaves the Barclays Wealth’s euro zone GDP forecast at just 1 percent for next year.