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).

Latin America has defied one of the most elementary rules of macroeconomics in the past decade, Citigroup economists Joaquin Cottani and Camilo Gonzalez found in a report.

Lower interest rates reduce the cost of money and therefore should encourage businesses and consumers to borrow, as we’ve repeatedly heard from analysts and government officials for decades. Puzzlingly enough, credit growth accelerated after central banks in countries like Brazil and Peru raised rates, and slowed when borrowing costs fell. Why is that?

The keyword here is confidence. In this commodity-exporter region, with a long history of deep, painful crises caused by currency devaluations and global downturns, perhaps it’s worth paying more attention to what happens abroad than to the cost of money – and how the global background might affect the local business cycle.

Ironically, an increase of capital inflows to Latin America in the last few years due to unappealing ultralow yields in industrialized countries and the region’s relative economic success is posing a threat for development, according to a recent paper that provides wider background to BRIC criticism of the latest U.S. Federal Reserve´s quantitative easing.

The article, written by Argentine economists Roberto Frenkel and Martin Rapetti for the World Economic Review – an international journal of heterodox economics –  warns about the possibility of a Latin American variant of the so-called “Dutch Disease”. This is a situation where a country suddenly finds a new source of wealth that makes its currency more expensive, hurting local exports and causing traumatic de-industrialization.

“Our concern is that massive capital inflows to Latin America may have pernicious effects via an excessive appreciation of the real exchange rates, which could lead to a contraction in output and employment in tradable activities with negative effects on long-run growth”, says the paper.

If anything positive can be said to have come out of the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, it may be that the theory arguing major economies could “decouple” from one another in times of stress was roundly disproved. Now that Europe is the world’s troublesome epicenter, economists are already on the lookout for how ructions there will reverberate elsewhere.

Luis Oganes and his team of Latin America economists at JP Morgan say Europe’s slowdown is already affecting the region – and may continue to do so for some time. The bank this week downgraded its forecasts for Brazilian economic growth this year to 2.1 percent from 2.9 percent, and it sees Colombia’s expansion softening as well. More broadly, it outlined some key ways in which Latin American economies stand to lose from a prolonged crisis in Europe.

Latin America has exhibited an above-unit beta to growth shocks in the U.S. and the euro area over the past decade; resilient U.S. growth until now had offset some of the pressure coming from lower Euro area growth, but U.S. activity is now weakening too.

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.