Cosenza (Italy), 2 Novembre 2010
[Ringrazio il blog "Rischio Calcolato" per la pubblicazione di questo post sul sito web http://rischio-calcolato.blogspot.com/2010/11/australia-lha-fatto-ancora.html]
In maniera del tutto inaspettata, la Reserve Bank of Australia ha aumentato il tasso di interesse domestico al 4,75%. Dico "in maniera inaspettata" perchè - pur avendo avvertito nei miei precedenti post che il continuo afflusso di capitali europei in Australia avrebbe spinto le autorità australiane a stoppare l'inflazione importata, ammonivo anche che ogni eventuale scelta di aumentare i tassi di interesse avrebbe messo a repentaglio la stabilità del cambio Euro/Dollaro USA e, quindi, aggiunto un'ulteriore minaccia alla stabilità dei mercati finanziari.
Purtroppo, ancora una volta si dimostra come un paese preferisca agire da solo in maniera "unilaterale" e non-coordinata, pur di salvare la propria ecoomia: la qual cosa assume una rilevanza ancor più importante se si considera che nel documento preparatorio dell'imminente G20 di Seoul di Novembre (documento elaborato lo scorso mese di Ottobre), le principali Nazioni del mondo si sono accordate di stoppare le manipolazioni dei cambi.
All'apertura delle contrattazioni, il Dollaro Australiano ha segnato un deciso deprezzamento rispetto a tutte le principali valute internazionali. Occorrerà tuttavia vedere quanto a lungo dureranno i benefici effetti di questa mossa.
Nel frattempo, anche la Reserve Bank of India ha aumentato per gli stessi motivi dell'Australia i propri tassi di interesse, a dimostrazione di come esista un problema "pressione dei prezzi" nella fascia periferica dell'economia mondiale.
Ecco la reazione dei media internazionali:
- Marketwatch 1 Novembre "Australia hikes cash rate by quarter point": "SYDNEY (MarketWatch) -- Australia's central bank raised its key cash rate by 25 basis points to 4.75% on Tuesday. "The risk of inflation rising again over the medium term remains. At today's meeting, the board concluded that the balance of risks had shifted to the point where an early, modest tightening of monetary policy was prudent," said the Reserve Bank of Australia. The Australian dollar jumped 1.2% to 99.67 U.S. cents after the move".
- Marketwatch 2 Novembre "India ups lending, borrowing rates by 0.25 points": "HONG KONG (MarketWatch) -- The Reserve Bank of India on Tuesday raised its lending and borrowing rates by a quarter point each, as expected, to tackle inflationary pressures. The central bank raised its repurchase or repo rate -- at which it lends money -- to 6.25%, while increasing the reverse repurchase or reverse repo rate to 5.25%. It left the cash reserve ratio -- the amount of deposits that commercial banks are required to keep with the RBI -- unchanged at 6%. The U.S. dollar weakened a little bit to 44.39 rupees after the rate increase, from 44.42 rupees the previous day".
- Bloomberg 2 Novembre "India Central Bank Raises Rates Sixth Time This Year (Update2)": "India’s central bank raised interest rates for a sixth time this year in Asia’s fastest round of increases and said the chance of further policy tightening in the “immediate future is relatively low.”. [...] The central bank’s rate increase is aimed at slowing the fastest inflation after Argentina in the Group of 20 nations and at protecting the purchasing power of 75 percent of Indians who live on less than $2 a day. Consumer prices rose 11.1 percent in Argentina in September, while CPI for industrial workers gained 9.9 percent in India. "Inflation and inflationary expectations remain high,” Subbarao said at a press conference in Mumbai and cited surging asset prices for today’s move. He said India’s equity market is close to a record and residential prices in cities have risen “beyond the pre-crisis peak level. [...] Higher yields spurred an unprecedented $10 billion inflow into rupee debt this year. Overseas funds also poured a record $25 billion into Indian stocks on prospects of faster growth in the South Asian nation, strengthening the currency and driving the Sensitive Index, or Sensex, to near a record. Since Jan. 1, the rupee has risen 4.5 percent against the dollar while the Sensex has jumped 16.5 percent. [...]. The Reserve Bank said on Oct. 29 it would inject funds into the banking system by conducting special repurchase auctions to ease the cash crunch after overnight lending rates touched 12.25 percent the same day, the highest level since Nov. 1, 2008".
3 Novembre 2010: Nell'articolo di oggi dell'Irish Times "India and Australia raise interest rates" si parla esplicitamente delle stesse motivazioni da me esposte in passato a proposito di "impossible trinity". In particolare, ad un maggior "quantitative easing" delle economie avanzate corrisponde un maggior "quantitative tightening" delle economie emergenti, ovvero la necessità di un maggiore aumento dei tassi di interesse. La pressione sui prezzi conseguente al maggior afflusso di capitali in questi ultimi, è causa di una crescente impossibilità di garantire nello stesso momento la libera circolazione di capitali, tassi di cambio flessibili e il controllo della politica monetaria sui tassi di interesse.
Ecco l'articolo completo (in grassetto la conferma delle mie argomentazioni): "INDIA AND Australia raised interest rates yesterday amid rising inflation fears as the US Federal Reserve prepared to take aggressive monetary policy action to stimulate the US economy.
Although both countries’ central banks cited domestic pressures on inflation as the main reason for the rises, the Reserve Bank of India also drew attention to fears that a new round of quantitative easing in the US and elsewhere could flood emerging markets with fresh capital, putting pressure on rising asset prices. “While the ultra-loose monetary policy of advanced economies may benefit the global economy in the medium-term, in the short-term it will trigger further capital inflows into emerging market economies and put upward pressure on global commodity prices,” said Duvvuri Subbarao, the central bank governor.
The Fed is today expected to announce a more gradual approach to quantitative easing, unlike the “shock and awe” used during the financial crisis, with initial purchases of $500 billion.
In a research note yesterday, HSBC warned that emerging markets were struggling with what it called an “impossible trinity” – an inability to allow free flows of capital while simultaneously maintaining a grip over interest rates and exchange rates. That meant that “the more the west pursues quantitative easing, the more the emerging world, via capital controls, will pursue quantitative tightening”. Economists said a less aggressive approach from the Fed should moderate US dollar weakness. However, the Reserve Bank of Australia’s surprise decision to lift its official interest rate by 25 basis points to 4.75 per cent lifted the Australian dollar by as much as 1.2 per cent to a record $1.003.
– (Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010)"
3 Novembre 2010: Benissimo, a quanto pare la vicenda dell'aumento dei tassi di interesse in Australia ha fatto emergere con chiarezza l'interezza del problema. Ora anche sul Financial Times di ieri si ripropone nell'articolo "Emerging markets braced for flood of new money" la tesi da me abbondantemente anticipata su questo blog da mesi: gli squilibri nei tassi di interesse mondiali renderanno necessaria l'introduzione di controlli sui movimenti di capitale e tassi di cambio fissi...in pratica, la fine della politica monetaria indipendente e dell'autonomia delle banche centrali.
Ammonivo di qesta possibilità già nel mio articolo del 2005 "The Bug in the European Monetary Architecture: Can a Collapse Still Be Avoided?". Ora, puntualmente, pare ci troviamo di fronte ad una profezia che si auto-avvera.
Di seguito riporto l'articolo completo del Financial Times (in grassetto le parti che confermano le mie argomentazioni):
"After QE2, QT2? Quantitative tightening – or measures by emerging market countries to counter the sometimes pernicious effects of capital inflows – began even before it became clear that the Federal Reserve was preparing another massive bout of quantitative easing.
Now with the prospect of yet more money sloshing around the global financial system in search of higher returns, a string of governments in Asia and Latin America are expected to consider introducing capital controls to stem the side-effects of inflows.
Emerging markets are affected in several ways by the so-called carry trade, in which money moves from low- to high-interest environments. Such inflows put upward pressure on exchange rates, making exports less competitive, and threaten the possibility of a 1997-style balance-of-payments crisis if flows suddenly reverse. Inflows also exacerbate inflation, particularly if central banks are leery of raising interest rates for fear of attracting yet more “hot money”.
According to a research note published by HSBC on Tuesday, one of the unintended consequences of loose monetary policy in the US and Europe is the likely proliferation of capital controls across the developing world. Emerging markets are struggling with what it calls the “impossible trinity”, an inability to allow free flows of capital while simultaneously maintaining a grip over interest rates and exchange rates. “The more the west pursues quantitative easing, the more the emerging world, via capital controls, will pursue quantitative tightening,” it said.
In Asia, following Brazil’s reintroduction of taxes on capital inflows, Thailand was the first out of the blocks. Last month, it imposed a 15 per cent withholding tax on capital gains and interest payments for government and state-owned company bonds as a way of discouraging inflows. On the other side of the ledger, it has removed limits on overseas investment and eased restrictions on lending to foreign borrowers in an effort to encourage outflows by domestic investors.
Indonesia and South Korea are both considering measures. Budi Mulya, deputy governor of Indonesia’s central bank, told the Financial Times that the bank was considering extending controls to reduce the potentially harmful effect of sudden movements in hot money. Last week, Kim Choong-soo, governor of South Korea’s central bank, raised the prospect of introducing measures, including the reintroduction of a withholding tax on bonds, to reduce surges in capital, saying: “Regulation of capital flows can be an effective policy tool.”
Richard Yetsenga, currency strategist at HSBC and one of the authors of the report, said QE2 could exacerbate a problem that had its origins in a reassessment of risk after the collapse of Lehman. “Quantitative easing is the whipping boy, but it is not clear how much it is to blame for the reallocation of savings,” he said.
Indonesia, for example, had seen very strong capital inflows long before quantitative easing was dreamt of outside Japan. In 2005, foreign holdings of local currency-denominated government bonds were below 5 per cent, he said. By the time Lehman collapsed, this had already risen to 20 per cent, only to jump again, to nearly 30 per cent, in the subsequent two years.
Whatever the causes of upward pressure on exchange rates and inflation in emerging markets, Mr Yetsenga said, capital controls had “definitely become less taboo” as a countermeasure. Even the International Monetary Fund had dropped its strong objections, he said.
In an interview with the Financial Times last week, Lee Myung-bak, president of South Korea, said policies aimed at stemming excessive capital flows should be considered within the framework of international co-operation. Each country had to “take into account their own domestic needs”, he said, rejecting the suggestion that unilateral action could be regarded as undermining collective action to rebalance the global economy and avoid a currency war.
The Korean government likes to draw a distinction between capital controls, aimed directly at mitigating pressure on the exchange rate, and what it calls macro-prudential policies whose purpose is to prevent volatile capital movements. But Korean policy experts conceded that the huge flows generated by quantitative easing made it harder and harder to differentiate between the two.
.Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web".
Matteo Olivieri
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