MacroScope

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).

But first, some good news. Retail investors are demonstrating some interest in emerging assets. Barclays says launches of toshin or investment trusts last week garnered $2 billion in subscriptions, with a Pacific Rim equities fund, partly geared to Asia, receiving $1.2 billion.  The previous week saw a $500 million ASEAN fund while an emerging equities toshin started in March took in $1.6 billion. There has also been net new uridashi bond issuance in the Mexican, Brazilian, Turkish and Russian currencies over the past few weeks, Barclays data shows.

The bad news is that Japanese  funds and insurers -- and that's where the big money is -- have steered clear of emerging markets, and indeed foreign assets so far.   Barclays writes that could be bad news for markets such as Hungary and South Africa, which have poor fundamentals and have benefited from talk of Japanese cash:

Noe Torres and Jean Luis Arce contributed to this post. Blog updated Sept 5 to add Q2 GDP data for Brazil and Mexico.

Three weeks ago, Mexico beat Brazil on Saturday to win its first-ever men’s football Olympic gold medal. What does that have to do with economics? Maybe nothing. But as The Economist notes, Mexico’s victory might just prove “just a warm-up for more good results to come” — on the economic field.

Mexico’s economy grew 4.1 percent in the second quarter from the year-earlier period. Even considering a mild slowdown from the previous quarter due to weaker U.S. demand, this growth pace far outshines Brazil’s lackluster performance since mid-2011.

Central bankers have said repeatedly since the start of the global financial crisis that monetary policy can only do so much to heal a broken economy. Agustín Carstens, president of Mexico’s central bank, chose an interesting analogy at an IMF event this weekend to describe the adjustment needed in countries with very high debt levels:

In relatively modern cars the spare tire is (pretty small). Basically that spare tire should be enough to take you to the next gas station. But if you want to drive your car (a very long distance) it’s likely you will never get there.

So today I think what central banks have done is that the tire was gone, they used the spare tire, the spare tire is this big, and you can go just a few miles to the next gas station and you repair the car. So, if they (the fiscal authorities) don’t do that then they will be left on the road.

Mexico Central Bank Governor Agustin Carstens spoke to Reuters Insider on the sidelines of this year’s IMF/G20 meetings. He said the peso, which like many other emerging market currencies has taken a drubbing with the dollar’s recent rally, is undervalued. But unlike in Brazil, where an even more volatile exchange rate has prompted the monetary authorities to step in, Carstens said Mexico does not see the need to intervene.

As long as the markets continue to work well, I think central bank intervention is not required. If we guide ourselves by fundamentals the peso should appreciate soon.

Asked about the path of monetary policy for Mexico, Carstens said he backs a “neutral” stance for now given all the uncertainty in the global economy. Until recently, analysts were betting the central bank would lower borrowing costs to offset the drag from a global economic slowdown. But the peso’s steep depreciation, with its potentially inflationary implications, has muddled the outlook for Mexican interest rates, currently at 4.5 percent. Mexico is struggling to recover from a deep recession in 2009, with growth seen below 4 percent this year, and is particularly vulnerable to lower U.S. demand.

Carstens and Lagarde in earlier days

Mexico has won Spain’s vote in the leadership contest for the International Monetary Fund. Or rather, it appears Mexico is effectively telling Spain how it will vote. Of course, Spain’s problem is that it doesn’t really have a vote.

Mexican Central Bank Governor Agustin Carstens and French Finance Minister Christine Lagarde are the only declared candidates to head the International Monetary Fund after Dominique Strauss-Kahn resigned to fight sexual assault charges.

Both have embarked on a global tour to drum up support for their bids, with Lagaarde starting off in Brazil this week while Carstens headed for Spain and Portugal. Spanish Economy Minister Elena Salgado said on Tuesday Spain would like to support Lagarde, but the IMF’s voting structure would oblige it to vote for Carstens.

Jim O'Neill, the Goldman Sachs economist who coined the term BRICs back in 2001, is adding four new countries to the elite club of emerging market economies. But does his new edifice have the same solid foundations?

In future, the BRIC economies of Brazil, Russia, China and India will be merged with those of Mexico, Indonesia, Turkey and South Korea under the banner “growth markets,” O'Neill told the Financial Times.

Hmmm.  Doesn't quite grab you like BRICs, does it? The Guardian helpfully offers an amended branding banner of  "Bric 'n Mitsk" (geddit?). But which ever way you cut it, it's hard to see a flood of investment conferences and funds floating off under the new moniker.

If you’re looking for ground zero in America’s longest and deepest recession, El Centro in southern California appears on first glance to fit the bill.

The unemployment rate here and for the whole of Imperial County hit 30.1 percent in September, the highest rate in the United States. Locals say there is no denying that El Centro has suffered as a result of the recession and that jobs are more scarce in an area where agriculture is the backbone of the community and forms 25 percent of the local economy.

“We’ve always had high unemployment, but nothing like this,” said Judith Klein-Pritchard, director of the Center for Family Solutions of Imperial Valley, which provides intervention for domestic violence and shelter services in the area.

Trade protectionism – or at least the threat of it — has raised it head as the global economy has declined, bringing with it all the historical fears about the Great Depression. Consider the flurry of concern about a “Buy American” clause in one of the U.S. stimulus bills.

It is traditionally assumed that widespread protectionism would most hurt the biggest economies, the United States and Japan. But Barclays Capital analyst David Woo says this is not so and that Russia, Canada, Australia and Sweden are the most vulnerable.

Woo studied various factors that would play on the effect of protectionism on a country, from openness and flexibility to its dependence on trade and it savings.