Wednesday, May 16, 2018

Aren't bonds another way of speculating on the rupee?

"The risk of a rupee crash looms large," thinks VA Nageswaran. Why? The Reserve Bank increased the limit of External Commercial Borrowing, or ECBs, on 27 April. On 1 May, it increased the amount of short term government and corporate bonds that Foreign Portfolio Investors, FPIs, are allowed to buy, subject to a ceiling of 20% of their bond holdings. On 4 May, the RBI purchased government bonds worth Rs 100 billion through Open Market Operations, or OMOs, to increase liquidity. Total foreign debt maturing within one year is $120 billion. The RBI is increasing money in circulation through OMOs to keep interest rates down. "Therefore, market participants have correctly concluded that RBI is interested in holding down government borrowing cost." Shouldn't that be a good thing? "Between 2012 and 2013, the 10-year Indian government bond yield did come down from around 9% to 7.5%. But, if one expanded the window to the period between 2009 and 2014, the 10-years bond yield went from 7% in March 2009 to 8.8% in March 20114. In this period, the net RBI credit to government (and this, on paper, includes state governments too) ballooned from Rs 615.80 billion to Rs 6.98 trillion." With rising price of crude oil and rising US interest rate the rupee could crash as in 2013. Rising fuel prices will feed higher retail inflation, a falling rupee will increase price of imports, including oil, still further and higher outflow of dollars to pay for more expensive imports will increase the Current Account Deficit, creating a "triple whammy" for the Indian economy," wrote R Mahapatra. A depreciating rupee should boost our exports by making them cheaper but here India is losing out to other low cost nations, like Bangladesh and Vietnam, despite having a huge working-age population, wrote Agarwal and Chopra. To increase the rate of growth of the economy banks have to reduce their non-performing assets, NPAs, so that they can start lending again. But, bankers are reluctant to sell off $210 billion, or Rs 14 trillion, worth of NPAs because they are afraid of being accused of having accepted bribes to sell them cheap. So, they are content to let stressed companies go into liquidation, when they will be sold for a fraction of what banks could receive if they were sold as functioning concerns. RBI's decision to allow FPIs to buy more short term bonds will create "bond tourists", wrote Choudhury and Merchant. If FPIs move in and out of Indian bonds the rupee will become volatile which will create problems for Indian businesses. Foreigners are welcome. But what if they leave suddenly? 

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