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IMF Warns About Emerging Markets: Hello “Always Late” IMF, Global Crisis Coming

October 11, 2018

IMF Warns About Emerging Markets: Hello “Always Late” IMF, Global Crisis Coming

The IMF is finally warning that there may be an emerging market crisis. Hello IMF, it’s already here. Look ahead.

The IMF is perpetually late in its forecasts. Here’s the latest hoot: IMF Warns of Possible Emerging-Markets Crisis.

A new study by the International Monetary Fund projects emerging economies will muddle through recent market turbulence without a severe shock to their financial systems, but flags an outside chance of a crisis.

In a “severely adverse” scenario, the IMF says capital could flood out of countries at a pace not seen since the 2008 global financial crisis.

Outside Chance of a Crisis? What the Hell?

Argentina and Turkey are both in a full-blown crisis. So is Pakistan which last week went to the IMF for help.

Here’s a hint: It’s a certifiable crisis to go to the IMF for a bailout.

And what about Venezuela deep in hyperinflation.

Wake-Up Call

“This should serve as a wake-up call,” Ms. Lagarde said of the mounting debts and risks of capital outflows.

Wake-up call to do what? Please tell us Ms Lagarde.

The emerging market crisis is already underway.

When the global junk bond and equity bubbles pop, we will not just be talking about emerging markets that are in trouble.

Hello IMF, please wake up.

India & the Emerging Market Crisis

September 27, 2018

India & the Emerging Market Crisis

India’s financial markets are in the throes of this Emerging Market crisis. The Mumbai-based Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) is an over 30-year-old infrastructure lending giant that claims to have helped develop and finance projects worth $25 billion in Asia’s fastest-growing economy. The company recently defaulted on debt payments because it ran out of cash. This is illustrating what we have been warning about. As interest rates rise and the dollar, the first casualty will be the Emerging Markets (EM). Because interest rates were driven to absurdly low levels in Europe and the USA, those who need yield ran off to the EM field.

Central Banks cannot manage the economies anymore. We live in a porous global economy. The Fed buying back 30-years bonds to lower real estate loan yields was absurd. The false assumption was that only American owned such debt. But the dollar is the reserve currency. That meant that more than 40% of such debt resided outside the USA. Central Banks can no longer manipulate the economy using the demand side economic models. They drove capital rushing into the EM sector desperate for yield – especially state operated pension funds.

This is why we have a serious debt crisis on our hands. The greenback is STILL going to press higher against the rupee. Just look at the pattern. This is NOT an isolated high. We are looking at a significant rally still on the horizon for the dollar.

From Buenos Aires To Nashville: The Emerging Market Crisis Spreads From Periphery To Core

September 10, 2018

From Buenos Aires To Nashville: The Emerging Market Crisis Spreads From Periphery To Core

This is the last emerging market crisis story for a while, promise. But one angle – exactly how a plunging currency in a far-off place affects supposedly stable markets like the US – is worth exploring because it’s happening right this minute.

Let’s start with the choices facing an American or European investor who needs a decent return, but who finds that interest rates have fallen to the point where traditionally safe things like bonds and bank accounts no longer yield enough.

Such an investor has two choices: 1) Stick with what they know and accept sub-par returns (which might mean being fired if you’re a pension fund manager, or – if you’re a retiree – having to spend your golden years as a Walmart greeter), or 2) Branch out into more exotic but higher-yielding instruments and hope for the best.

Option number 2 has been pushed by financial planners and pension advisors for the past few years, with emerging market securities being the exotica of choice. The sales pitch went something like this: Developing country stocks are cheaper relative to earnings and dividend yields than their rich country counterparts, while their bonds yield quite a bit – frequently two or three times – more than US Treasuries for only marginally more risk, so they’re a great way to diversify while goosing returns.

Many, many investors swallowed this and bought emerging market stock and bond funds. And for a while they reaped the promised high returns, allowing retirees to spend time with their grandkids and pension managers to keep cashing their massive paychecks.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Emerging Markets: Nothing New Under the Sun

September 3, 2018

Emerging Markets: Nothing New Under the Sun

“That which has been is that which will be, and that which has been done is that which will be done. So there is nothing new under the sun.”

Ecclesiastes 1:9

The events overtaking Argentina and Turkey in recent months are textbook cases of an emerging market crisis. Both countries have racked up substantial amounts of foreign currency debt despite having limited foreign currency reserves, have high rates of inflation and are running budget deficits. Their situations are the same as Brazil in 2015, the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s and the Latin American crisis of the early 1980s. This article reviews the build-up for Argentina and Turkey, the break-down, the responses and who else is at risk.

The Build Up

Any review of emerging market crises has to begin with the lenders not the borrowers. There will always be countries, companies and consumers that want to borrow excessively and live it up, but they can only do so if there is a willing lender. This time around, ample liquidity from central bank quantitative easing and yield chasing fuelled by supressed interest rates kick started a global borrowing binge. There’s evidence of this right across developed and emerging market debt, as well as in government, corporate, consumer and financial sector debt.

Now that the US is normalising its monetary policy (quantitative tightening and raising interest rates) and Europe is reducing its quantitative easing, global liquidity is being reduced and yield chasing has pulled back slightly. Emerging market debt, European high yield debt and Chinese shadow banking are the first sectors to show this turnaround. These three sectors all started with high levels of risk and minimal compensation, an unsustainable imbalance.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why 1998 Was Different, and Same, to Emerging-Market Crisis Now – Bloomberg

December 16, 2014

Why 1998 Was Different, and Same, to Emerging-Market Crisis Now – Bloomberg.

Oil prices were tanking. Emerging-market currencies were in a freefall. Venezuela was mired in a financial crisis and Russia had sunk into a debt default and devaluation.

The year was 1998.

Emerging markets today look a lot like they did back then. Yet there have been key changes that could help most of them escape full-blown crises. Here’s a look at the similarities and differences between now and then.

Similarities

*Falling Oil Prices

Crude has dropped 48 percent since June to about $55 a barrel, squeezing exporters from Venezuela to Russia and Nigeria. Credit default swaps show a 97 percent probability that Venezuela will default on its bonds within five years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The Russian economy, which is under sanctions by the U.S. and the European Union over the Ukraine conflict, will contract as much as 4.7 percent next year if oil remains at $60, the central bank said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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