2016 - Hope - Having only positive expectations
AS the ringgit trades with
a 4 handle to the US dollar, its spectacular depreciation over the years, in
particular since July 2015 is a classic case of ignoring the basics.
In 2015, there were too
many views to suggest factors affecting the ringgit but in fact it was the
trading arbitrage and lack of liquidity in the currency and local financial
system that was and is the main driver for the ringgit’s depreciation.
Some of the effects of
ignoring the basics, saw negative perception trades being played out, in particular
in the credit default swaps (CDS) market, giving rise to a shift in liquidity
from bond to credit default swap markets.
In situations such as this,
the CDS comes into play as CDS traders treat Malaysian debt papers close to
junk.
A favourite past time in
recent years have been the verbal barrage of “Malaysia
These concepts have been
interchangeably used on many occasions by market practitioners and policy
makers without having to pay heed that there is a world of difference in all
three.
When market mechanism and
the tools that are traded are skewed towards pricing in risk at levels that is
disproportion to fundamentals, market sentiment was swayed to the weak side and
this process is likely to repeat in 2016.
The price of crude oil has
declined significantly over the past few months. This means that public
finances are dependent on a volatile variable that is largely beyond the
authorities’ control. This poses a challenge to both macroeconomic management
and fiscal planning.
The volatility of oil
prices, and hence government revenue, tends to contribute to a pro-cyclical
pattern of government expenditure, and to abrupt changes in government
spending, which may translate into macroeconomic volatility and reduced growth
prospects in the near term.
With fiscal policy
uncertain, the Achilles heel of Malaysia
In the midst of the US
Federal Reserve Bank normalising monetary policy, deposits in Malaysia
When Malaysian corporates
were awash with cash due to easy external financing conditions, they increased
their wholesale deposits with local investment banks.
A rise in such deposits
allowed bank credit to expand. The problem is that such deposits are flighty
whereby a worsening of external financing conditions for corporates can make it
difficult for domestic investment banks to fund themselves at home, drying up
liquidity rapidly.
The deposits of
non-financial corporates are more pro-cyclical than other bank deposits, given
the exposure these corporates face when monetary policy is normalised by the US
Federal Reserve.
Thus for 2016, we should
not be surprised the local banking and financial sector come under acute
pressure from funding costs, narrowing of profit margins, resulting in an
increase in non-performing loans.
It is obvious that Malaysia
Bank Negara could
liberalise bank deposit schemes in offshore Malaysian financial institutions by
raising interest rates for non-resident Malaysians.
To spur banks to attract
more dollar deposits from non-residents, the central bank could exempt these
deposits from the cash reserve ratio and statutory liquidity ratio requirements
for a specific period.
Another proposal is to
establish a facility with interest rates that are between 200 basis points to
300 basis points above policy rates for financial institutions needing
liquidity.
The move should be also
seen as providing an avenue to remove any form of shift in deposits by large
corporates into foreign currency accounts. This limits the outflow of funds
from normal ringgit accounts to foreign currency accounts and curbs the
exchange of ringgit into foreign currencies.
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