FKLI futures broke out from a very strong support level at 1760 directly to an uptrend, but not all is well as we note the 200 day moving average is negative sloping and also 1800-1850 contains pretty difficult resistance. In order for the market to set up to try and break 1850, simple supports must have held, baby steps, starting with 1770.
Today we seem to have gotten that support level holding with a clear break above 1790 after a test below. The market is looking like it is on its way to testing 1850. In my last update, I did state the market is most likely looking to move higher from 1750, but the nature of the rally seems to be a slow large range movement upward based on today's market information. Movement is still decidedly upward for the short term though. Ultimately I do expect the market to hit 1850 in the next few months. Note* Although it may hit 1850, it may not follow through much higher.
FCPO is in a totally different camp. A move past the 200 day moving average saw prices drop like a rock. In order for FCPO to have a chance at reaching new yearly highs, the support at RM 2,080 must hold. A move below that will set the tone for this year as somewhat bearish or ranged and choppy.
So far though, the immediate sentiment is bearish, so careful trading!
A Chinese central bank adviser gave an upbeat assessment on the euro's long-term outlook and said global financial markets may have overreacted to the European sovereign-debt crisis.
Li Daokui, an academic adviser to the People's Bank of China, also told a financial forum on Friday that a major appreciationof the yuan is "impossible" because China's international payments are relatively balanced.
He repeated the official stance that the yuan float will be in two directions.
His views may not necessarily reflect the central bank's thinking, though he is at a position that his view can be heard by decision makers.
The comments came after the yuan rose to a modern-era high against the U.S. dollar on the eve of the Toronto summit of the Group of 20 industrialized and developing nations. Many analysts said the yuan would return to gradual gains in the week ahead, as Beijing won't be willing to see sharp rises in the yuan hurting local exporters.
A week ago, China removed its peg to the U.S. dollar, in place for nearly two years, returning the currency to a managed-float system that references the yuan to a basket of currencies that includes the euro. China's officials have said the move will help ease the pressure on the yuan to appreciate against the euro amid the euro-zone debt crisis.
China does what it wants for their own sake and doesn't really care about international pressure. They see the potential for the Euro weakening against the US dollar to threaten their exports. If they remained pegged to the US dollar, they lack tools to combat the Euro decline!
China moved to a float why? in order to have the flexibility to manage their currency against the Euro, NOT because the US wants to brand them a currency manipulator. Perhaps the Euro might rise in this case. I believe currency traders have caught on this idea. Euro shorts better be careful!
China's peg was released on the weekend, Wednesday Euro rallies while stock markets fall.
This is shaping out to be a battle royale! China and US versus the EU. Is China taking on more than it can chew in managing its currency against both US and Europe?
One of the biggest questions that deflationists have to answer versus the inflationists is:
who will buy all the debt issued by the government to keep interest rates down?
Inflaionists say that no one will buy this government debt and thus rates will go up and we will have inflation.
Deflationists have had trouble giving a credible sounding answer to this one. But it is important to address as low government rates are a basic tenant of the deflationist camp. I've had difficulty coming up with a reasonable answer to this myself and I'm skeptical of all ideas on deflation as well as inflation. I'm concluding that the debt issued by the government will be financed by savers.
The next question is when will this happen as it hasn't happened yet? Well, we have to consider China and foreign buyers of US debt. From Barrons:
the real question isn't whether the U.S. will pay back what it's borrowed from abroad. In essence, can foreign purchases of Treasuries keep up with the widening deficit? That's the question posed by Greg Blaha and Ryan K. Malo of Bianco Research in a note to clients.
Back in September 2007, foreign purchases of Treasuries equaled 270% of new issuance, they note, as they sucked up the available supply of U.S. government securities in sight. That was before the budget deficit exploded last year owing to the economic collapse and the cost of the federal bailouts. By September 2009, foreign investors were taking down only 16% of Treasury issuance.
Obviously, foreign purchase of debt is way down and will not be enough. Next, we consider the consumers/savers. The main reason why they have not been putting their money in treasuries is that some of them have been compelled to spend on cars and houses. They've been liquidating what little they have saved. Q3 GDP showed consumers saved 3.3% of personal income as opposed to 4.9% of income in Q2. [1] (Personal savings as a percent of income on line 34)
Anyhow, now we look at the other buyer, the Federal reserve.
The 10 year treasury rates have been going higher as the fed slows their treasury purchases. The Fed ended their treasury purchase in August. The fed's balance sheet also reflects this action. An inflationist would say once the Fed stop purchases, the rates will go up and inflation will soar. This has been happening as of late, probably why gold is up and proving inflationists right so far. But this is only somewhat true for a short period while the consumer transitions to saving again. This is an inflation "head fake."
Fed Balance Sheet (notice the treasury purchase portion of assets has flattened)
Coincidentally, gold has gone a lot higher during this void where the fed ended their buying and the thrifty part of the consumer is spending. Make no mistake, though that consumers will soon return to their saving ways. Of course not all savers turned to consumers at the government's incentive. They are probably the ones to thank for keeping the rates as low as they have been. I imagine after all these stimulus measures have taken effect, the consumer will revert back to saving and de-leveraging and buying treasuries. When the consumer/saver returns to increasing their savings rate, the treasuries will once again increase increase in value.
While I'm not too sure when this will happen, I can't imagine it will take too long, maybe a couple of months. When we see people stop buying into stimulus programs, saving more in the BEA personal income and outlays reports, and the prices of treasuries start to firm up is when we will have the treasury asset class strengthen again for quite a while unless of course the government manages to whip out another carrot. Even then the US government has only so many bullets before people start to lose patience.
Two presenters: Head of economics, Malaysia and Equity Strategist
Key items:
The RPGT will be enacted on the opening date. As long as the property sold is before end of this year, you will not get taxed.
They see a higher chance for a slow recovery than a w or v shaped one.
Foreign investing in Malaysia is basically a small portion for big fund managers. Despite the insignificant FDI, we still tend to trade in line with other asian economies.
They see the economic recovery slow but equities are in a bull market but take some profits at this time.
Malaysia will decouple from the US and world economy at sometime in the future.
Credit Card service fees will likely stick: service tax of RM50 per card.
From my view, they are somewhat inconsistent at times. For instance, they are a buyer of equities but conclude that economic recovery will still be slow. They predict a decoupling from the world economy at sometime in the future, but I imagine they don't have a time frame on that.
My view is that we are in bear market rally and will bounce between highs and lows much like Japan did after their bubble burst. The decoupling will take a long time to happen, and will not happen for years, at least not as quickly as they are predicting. In the mean time, there is still money to be made or lost for a medium term investor.
Malaysia Airlines Cargo Sdn Bhd (MASkargo), the air cargo unit of Malaysia Airlines (MAS), has warned that revenue from its operations here could fall 20 per cent this year on lower yields and capacity.
Shanghai is the second biggest contributor to MASkargo's overall revenue, after Kuala Lumpur, accounting for some 30 per cent contribution.
The Chinese station saw revenue drop 50 per cent in the first half compared with the same period last year.
It handled some 50,000 tonnes of cargo last year. Parent MAS' capacity cuts on passenger flights in the first half of the year also affected MASkargo's bellyhold capacity.
MAS reduced its flights here to eight times a week from 14, while MASkargo trimmed its freighter service to 10 times a week from 13.
Song said that things were looking up now, based on China's trade figures which show signs of a recovery since September. This has enabled air cargo companies like MASkargo to gradually raise their freight rates again.
Quarter-on-quarter, Song expects MASkargo to post 35 per cent revenue growth in the fourth quarter.
The article had me fooled for a moment into thinking MAS will see china freight continue to decline, when in fact, it already has. Mostly, I see a recovery in growth q-o-q as pointed out by the last sentence. This is hardly newsworthy. If the Baltic Dry Index is any indicator, freight rates will not be as good going forward. China has been reported going on a massive commodity buying spree and while they mean good, it is way too early as this economic downturn has still a prolonged period to go.
It would not surprise me, next year, to see the same headline again as China retracts from its recent asset buying spree and realize that they have bought way too early in the economic cycle.
First, the most important point we must establish is that of inflation and deflation. We will probably see a period of deflation, the contraction of credit. Recent headlines (1 , 2) point to contracting debt in spite of the government taking on trillions in debt.
Furthermore, with capacity slack we will unlikely see the tightness in production needed for producers to raise prices. The final piece of evidence is that of rents in the United States are decreasing. This will show in the OER which is a huge weighting on the CPI. This will counteract any CPI increase due to commodities.
Most likely, the path of least resistance is that of deflation. But whether consumer prices go up or down a lot is not the main driver of the market. The main driver is the contraction of credit. We're going to see credit contract and a lot of these debts won't be paid off due to people can't pay for their homes and businesses going bankrupt. This debt destruction will suck up all the extra dollars the fed has pumped in and more. We can see this happening already despite government actions to take on more debt.
What does this mean for the markets? Simply, demand for dollars is outpacing supply due to debt destruction. The dollar will most likely increase in value, and thus risky assets will have a hard time in this environment.
In the future, I don't see the Fed able to increase liquidity without backlash. Already the public is skeptical of the Fed creating more dollars so any more money created will be met with scrutiny. Short of another systemic failure or economic recession, I don't see massive credit creation in the future. Keep in mind, the Fed in it's most recent meeting has indicated that it will be stopping purchase of treasury securities, so it seems as if they are starting to slow down the liquidity programs.
KUALA LUMPUR: Khazanah Nasional Bhd is expected to gradually reduce its large stakes in government-linked companies (GLCs) after disposing of 5% of Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) last week.
Analysts said this long-overdue development bodes well for the Malaysian equity market as it would enhance the participation of foreign institutional investors.
They said the Malaysian government investment arm could afford to reduce its shareholdings while still retaining strategic stakes in the GLCs.
Already Permodalan Nasional Bhd and the Employees Provident Fund, which are viewed as friendly parties to Khazanah, hold huge chunks in the GLCs.
CIMB Investment Bank Bhd last Friday confirmed a report in The Edge Financial Daily that it had placed out 55 million shares, representing a 5% stake in MAHB, to institutional investors at RM3.30 apiece the day before.
The bank said the transaction price was a tight discount of 2.37% to the closing price last Wednesday. The off-market deals reduced Khazanah’s stake in MAHB from 72.7% to 67.7%.
The Edge Financial Daily report also noted that the transactions would be the start of a government paring down programme to attract foreign participation into the local market.
Following the report last Friday, POS MALAYSIA BHD [] saw a total of 25 million shares transacted in off-market deals at an average price of RM2.30 apiece. However, no buyer and seller details were known.
According to Khazanah Nasional’s investment holdings structure, it owns 32.21% of Pos Malaysia.
I'm not surprised that the government is reducing its stakes in GLCs. I mentioned that the Najib government will probably be pro-investment bank oriented. It's important to understand that this may or may not benefit the economy, but a liberalization of the financial sector is considered a general positive for the stock market.
Also the fact that the Prime Minister's brother, the head of CIMB, will probably benefit the most from these initiatives spells vested interest in Najib to pass more investment bank friendly policies and deals.
Malaysia’s economy contracted by 3.9 per cent in the second quarter from a year ago, less than expected, and pace of decline slowed from a 6.2 per cent drop in the first quarter, signalling the start of a slow recovery for this export-dependent country.
Economists in a Reuters poll had forecast gross domestic product would drop by 5.1 per cent due to poor demand for Malaysian exports, which account for 110 per cent of gross domestic product.
Central bank Governor Tan Sri Dr Zeti Akhtar Aziz told a press conference that the budget, due in October, would see a revision to government forecasts that the economy would shrink 4-5 per cent for the full year and that the drop would be less than that.
“We expect gradual recovery, and that this would be sustained,” she said. Asia’s economies are still feeling the effect of the global economic downturn and Indonesia’s economy grew 4 per cent in the second quarter from a year earlier, while Thailand contracted 4.9 per cent, easing from a 7.1 per cent drop in the first.
Malaysia is Asia’s only exporter of oil and gas and also has large commodity exports and the prices of both have fallen sharply from a year ago.
The government has said that it expects growth to pick up in the second half of 2009 with positive growth in the fourth quarter as a RM67 billion package of government spending and loan guarantees spread over two years kicks in.
The 6% rate of contraction in Q1 overshot due to inventories not being replenished. Q1 had a inventory loss of RM14 billion. Q2 inventories look more normal compared to the last eight quarters at a loss of RM 4 billion.
The good news is we will have inventory replenishment going on and will push up future GDP numbers. It could go to -3% in the following quarters. The bad news is we don't have a lot of upside until about 4Q of 2009. I expect negative growth for Q3 and maybe even growth for Q4.
THE 3/5 MGS spread has fallen to about 80 basis points (bps) since it peaked at 128 bps on March 12, 2009. However, it is still very high compared with its 5-year simple average of 30 bps or 10-year simple average of 38 bps.
In this paper, we argue that the 3/5 spread will narrow in the next one to two weeks, after which it will widen for a period of three to four months and may even exceed the 128bps high recorded in March.
Chart 1 shows the actual historical 3/5 spread movement of the current MGS benchmarks (MH8/12 and MH4/14) since the former became a benchmark, while Chart 2 shows the movement of the three- and five-year benchmarks’ yields.
3/5 year bond spread
The rest of the article addresses how to trade the bond and upcoming spread, but I'll just note some information which the spread may narrow or widen. Maybank predicts the spread will narrow for a couple of weeks and then widen for a couple of months. Essentially, they are saying that the riskier 5 year bond will still lower in price and produce higher yields.
I tend to agree for this in the longer term outlook of 6-12 months and even more as Malaysia is in the midst of a giant fiscal stimulus which they would finance through issuing bonds. But, we might have a period of flight to more safe assets first and a lot longer than Maybank will be predicting.
At the same time, a lot of people who have made back quite a bit of money are parked on the sidelines waiting for the market to go down. It is possible, the market has more to run up from even this particular high point.
When we do see that, yield spread will probably widen quite a bit for a pop before coming back down for a longer than 1-2 week period, and possibly go back up again a year or two from now. It is too early to call how long the flight to safety will be, from a couple of months to more especially if economic data is weak.
The June employment report suggests that the alleged ‘green shoots’ are mostly yellow weeds that may eventually turn into brown manure. The employment report shows that conditions in the labor market continue to be extremely weak, with job losses in June of over 460,000. With the current rate of job losses, it is very clear that the unemployment rate could reach 10 percent by later this summer, around August or September, and will be closer to 10.5 percent if not 11 percent by year-end. I expect the unemployment rate is going to peak at around 11 percent at some point in 2010, well above historical standards for even severe recessions.
The other element of the report that must be considered is that, for the summer, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is still adding between 150,000 and 200,000 jobs based on the birth/death model.We know the distortions of the birth/death model – that in a recession jobs created within firms are much smaller than those created by firms that are dying. So that’s distorting downward the number of job losses. Based on the initial claims for unemployment benefits, it’s more likely that the job losses are closer to 600,000 per month rather than the figures officially reported.
The other important aspect of the labor market is that if the unemployment rate is going to peak around 11 percent next year, the expected losses for banks on their loans and securities are going to be much higher than the ones estimated in the recent stress tests. You plug an unemployment rate of 11 percent in any model of loan losses and recovery rates and you get very ugly losses for subprime, near-prime, prime, home equity loan lines, credit cards, auto loans, student loans, leverage loans, and commercial loans – much bigger numbers than what the stress tests projected.
There are also signs that there may be forces leading to a double-dip recession, sometime toward the second half of next year or towards 2011. If oil prices rise too much, too fast, too soon, that’s going to have a negative effect on trade and real disposable income in oil-importing countries (US, Europe, Japan, China, etc.). Also concerns about unsustainable budget deficits are high and are going to remain high, with growth anemic and unemployment rising. These deficits are already pushing long-term interest rates higher as investors worry about medium- to long-term stability. If these budget deficits are going to continue to be monetized, eventually, toward the end of next year, you are going to have a sharp increase in expected inflation - after three years of deflationary pressures - that’s going to push interest rates even higher.
For the time being, of course, there are massive deflationary pressures in the economy: the slack in the goods markets, with demand falling relative to supply-and-excess capacity. The rising slack in labor markets, which are controlling wages and labor costs and pushing them down, implies that deflationary pressures are going to be dominant this year and next year.
But eventually, large budget deficits and their monetization are going to lead – towards the end of next year and in 2011 – to an increase in expected inflation that may lead to a further increase in ten-year treasuries and other long-term government bond yields, and thus mortgage and private-market rates. Together with higher oil prices driven up in part by this wall of liquidity rather than fundamentals alone, this could be a double whammy that could push the economy into a double-dip or W-shaped recession by late 2010 or 2011. So the outlook for the US and global economy remains extremely weak ahead. The recent rally in global equities, commodities and credit may soon fizzle out as an onslaught of worse- than-expected macro, earnings and financial news take a toll on this rally, which has gotten way ahead of improvement in actual macro data.
I pulled some interesting sections from RGE Monitor's article by Nouriel Roubini regarding the current US job numbers.
Last month's job losses were quite decent at 360k compared to the trend of 500k job losses a month. But this blip might be explained by the distortions caused by the birth/death model that the BLS is recently employing. Adjust 360k by 150-200k jobs a month, we are back at 500k job losses a month, about where the trend currently is.
Higher unemployment has a huge effect on the stress tests., so bank losses will get larger. Analysts using the stress test results for their earnings projection will need to adjust for higher unemployment.
Deflationary pressures will be around for this year and next, adding on to the idea that the recent commodity rally looks like a head fake.
And this "W" shaped recovery a lot of economists are talking about seems more like a recovery with ups and downs instead of a double bottom. The recovery will be weak, recessions will now be weak, basically, a stagnant economy. Inflation might rise further into the future.
Roubini had recently been in China and met officials there. We talked about the bind that the world economic slowdown had created for China’s leadership—not despite but because of its huge trade surpluses and foreign-currency holdings. Many Chinese commentators have blamed American overborrowing and excess for dragging them into a recession. But even they realize that the very excess of American demand has created a market for Chinese exports. Chinese leaders would love to be less dependent on American customers; they hate having so many of their nation’s foreign assets tied up in U.S. dollars and subject to the volatility of American stock exchanges. But for the moment, they’re more worried about keeping Chinese exporters in business. To do that, they want to prevent their currency from rising. And for reasons laid out in detail in a previous article (“The $1.4 Trillion Question,” January/February 2008 Atlantic), the mechanics of finance require them to keep buying U.S. dollars and entrusting their savings to the United States. “I don’t think even the Chinese authorities have fully internalized the contradictions of their position,” Roubini said.
I agree. But I can report that for these past six months, virtually every economic conference I’ve heard of in China and every special supplement in a Chinese business publication has been devoted to the changes the country would have to make in order to reduce its vulnerabilities.
This was released on June 25, 2009 coinciding with what I wrote on how I doubt the export model will change. From what I highlighted, it's obvious the Chinese are just huffing and puffing, even Roubini acknowledges. I think China will be all talk until they actually do something substantial which could involve lifting the currency controls and not buying so much US debt.
Lets see if they will be able to take the tough medicine. If not, I see no reason to change my outlook. All this talk about a new super currency may help, but it all comes back to whether China will continue to grow through pushing exports. Nothing wrong with growing through exports, but keeping output artificially higher by manipulation has consequences.
Furthermore, China has not shown signs of trying to stop securing cheap sources of commodities evidenced by their pursuit of large multi-national commodity suppliers such as Rio Tinto. They must think that they can buy entire value chain and keep all the profits for themselves! I think it's not so easy. This is a good thing because the world needs to help keep China in check from overproducing. The world needs sustainable, healthy growth as opposed to the binge-style of growth over the last few years.
Currently, China has been buying up lots of commodities. I believe they think that commodities is one of the most important investments they can make. But likely most of the purchases at this point is speculative and probably unneeded unless they are willing to let the supplies sit their for years.
The major reason commodities will do well over a longer period of 5+ years is mainly because nothing has really changed. China will continue to dump exports and piggy back on the the US and other developed nation's economies. They will find it harder to do so as time goes on as they will have to manage their currencies with other developing nations besides the US.
As you can tell, this is not a really healthy or effecient way of running an economy. By force feeding products to developing nations, we have a problem. The other economies don't really need the exports. By making exports cheaper than they are supposed to be through currency manipulation, quantity of products supplied to the world grossly exceeds what is effecient.
But alas, nothing is perfect. If nations can't play fair with each other, it will show with commodity prices. To keep this oversupply of products gravy train going requires an equally sizable oversupply of commodities. So this is a nice gutcheck against those countries who piggy back through export oriented economies.
The export model has taken a gut check, but there are no indications that countries will change their growth through exports philosophy so the picture for commodities is still strong. Also contritbuting to this is monetary abuses by nations. So once the monetary abuses abate or the world has an oversupply of commodities, we will probably see the commodity prices come back down.
The other way the commodity picture might turn bad is for world nations to start paying down debt. Most nations, though aren't doing the right thing as all they can think about is spending their way out of a recession. Most countries' leadership lack the mettle to take the tough medicine and would rather put it off for later. As long as we have this, the outlook for commodities looks good.
"Live by the sword, die by the sword" prevails as a prominent theme throughout the recent financial crisises. China has its part to blame in fattening the US economy by providing cheap exports and fueling their consumption binge.
No one should really depend on China to bring their economies back from the brink. China's prosperity depends in large part on the US prosperity. Their whole financial system is basically built on exporting everything they possibly can to the US. So whoever would depend on China utlimately also depend on the US. I can think of several southeast asian countries that fit the mould.
The countries which piggy back on others through exports enjoyed some fantastic propserity will also share some fantastic pains during this global recession. Those countries will never be decoupled from global growth as long as exports make up a large portion of their gdp.
Some economists fear excessive stimulus will lead to hyperinflation in coming years. Does this worry you?
Although the size of the stimulus programs and injections of liquidity around the world are cause for concern, and commodity prices have moved sharply higher. Excess capacity still exists in many industries. This, combined with high unemployment rates, should act to contain inflation for the foreseeable future.
I'm going to agree with this, and to add to this we are still going to see a decrease in prices for the housing portion of inflation. This will suppress the cost of living. But low inflation or deflation doesn't mean that commodity prices will be low as well. Their prices can act on their own individual demand and supply situations.
Capacity is a tricky thing as well. Certain industries that haven't really gone through a big growth cycle might not have excess capacity. Any industry related to housing probably has lots of excess capacity. Perhaps tech might not have so much excess capacity as their boom years happened in pre-2000 and they probably have worked a lot of it off.
So, this is my point, when looking at inflation from this kind of a "surgical" perspective, due to all this liquidity sloshing around, we will see certain industries and commodities outperform relative to others.
This outperformance will not necessarily be due to growth of the industry or demand for the commodity, but relative lack of capacity to produce more combined with the excess liquidity being channeled there.
The uproar against US policy will probably give way once the rally subsides. The US dollar will go stronger and bond yields will go down again. Only in the next true expansion will we start to see more backlash, but that is still quite a ways away. There is still massive capacity in the system.
I'm thinking that the recent rally has run its course. It's semi obvious from the way news anchors and websites have been advocating the rally as the real thing.
But the tipping point is the way everyone is critizing the US dollar and debt being worthless, etc now that economic recovery has begun to sink in. Even some of the fed governers are a bit spooked by the fall in long term bonds and have openly said that they should think about raising rates.
Most people now have decried that US debt is now worthless. US debt has its problems we all know, but this stupidity that people criticizes the hand that feeds them is almost more than I can bear.
Back a few months ago, when the financial crisis gripped everyone in fear, the US was the only one really doing enough to help the world with massive montetary stimulus. No one was criticizing them. Now when everything is begining to look fine and dandy, everyone wants to take potshots at the US monetary policy.
Malaysia has underperformed the recent rally to much avail. While markets in the US have rebounded nicely, why hasn't Malaysia done so?
The short answer is that the market is extremely illiquid. Malaysia has a very anemic stock market due to the investors generally shunning Malaysia as there are more vibrant markets in the world. It will take nothing short of genius for the world to see Malaysia as a fantastic place to invest. Clearing red tape is not enough. I'm talking about doing something really innovative for Malaysia to be a fantastic place to invest again.
But do not despair at the current market rally. It is a bear market rally. People are jumping the gun at thinking the economy will see the bottom. We have seen the explosions and smoke coming from the volcano, but the lava has yet to flow all the way down. Unemployment will continue to increase in the US. GDP will remain negative for this whole year as nonresidential investment gets trashed (it hasn't yet as long projects are still being completed). And if we get growth, it will be slow. It won't make up for inflation.
We are only some 9 months into this bear market. The stock markets only started collapsing about summer of last year. This bear market is being billed as one of the biggest recessions of all time so I think recovering in 9 months is slim. The odds look in favor of another bear market downturn off this rally.
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