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Interest Rate Monitor. March 17, 2013. Brief Overview. International. MENA Region. Egypt rules out IMF emergency finance. US: Treasury yields drop after soft reading on consumer sentiment despite healthy growth in US retail sales. GCC News Highlights.
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Interest Rate Monitor March 17, 2013
Brief Overview International MENA Region Egypt rules out IMF emergency finance US: Treasury yields drop after soft reading on consumer sentiment despite healthy growth in US retail sales GCC News Highlights Eurozone: Slightly more open to expansionary fiscal policy; Unprecedented Cypriot bank deposit tax approved GCC interbank rates UK: UK recession seems more likely as output drops Comparative MENA Markets Japan: Kuroda approved as new BoJ governor Local Economy Markets overview New and analysis Major Indices: Dow Jones ends 10 consecutive gain • Interest Rate Forecasts • Inflation on the rise, though interest rates are trending downwards Commodities and Currencies: Dollar slides against rivals Central Bank Meeting Calendar Markets overview • Amman Stock Exchange Interest Rate Forecast • Local Debt Monitor The Week Ahead • Prime Lending Rates
US Treasury bond rates • An unexpected slide in U.S. consumer sentiment Friday deflated optimism over the economic outlook, pushing investors into the safety net of Treasury bonds. • The price rally sent the benchmark 10-year note's yield below 2%, again, and wrapped up a strong week for the U.S. government debt market.
US consumers are worried about future government spending cuts • US consumers are unhappy with government spending cuts and pessimistic about the job market, their finances and overall economic growth, a survey showed on Friday. • The Thomson Reuters/University of Michigan preliminary sentiment index for March fell to 71.8 from 77.6 in February. The gauge was projected to increase to 78. • Overall, people surveyed referred unfavorably to the government's economic policies, specifically the federal spending cuts worth $85 billion that are expected to come into effect this month. • Americans also felt the pinch of spiking petrol prices that drove up the cost of living, as the consumer price index jumped 0.7% February month-on-month, the biggest increase since June 2009, the Labor Department said Friday. • Core prices, which exclude the volatile food and energy sectors, increased 0.2%, after January’s 0.3% gain. • From a year ago, both overall prices and core costs gained 2%, which remains in line with the Fed’s target inflation rate, indicating that broader inflation pressures remained mild. • A recent drop in gasoline prices, meanwhile, points to temporary inflationary pressure and isn't likely to alarm Federal Reserve officials. February 2%
US retail sales still strong • Despite the softer consumer sentiment reading, data published on Wednesday shows that consumers shrugged off smaller paychecks and higher gasoline prices, and stepped up spending in February. • Retail sales rose 1.1% to a seasonally adjusted $421.4 billion, the Commerce Department said Wednesday. January's increase was revised up to 0.2% from a 0.1% earlier estimate. • The report shows consumers absorbing the combined strains of stagnant incomes, rising gasoline prices and a two-percentage-point increase in the payroll tax that went into effect at the start of the year. • Many sustained their spending by relying on credit cards and late-arriving tax refunds as well as saving less, a shift that sent the personal saving rate down to its lowest point since before the 2008 recession. • Core sales, which exclude autos, gasoline and building materials, and which many economists consider a better gauge of spending trends, increased 0.4%. • Moreover, data on Friday pointed to a rebound in factory output in a sign of strength in manufacturing. Industrial production rose 0.7% in February, after a flat reading in January, figures from the Federal Reserve showed Friday.
Tension ease in euro area’s bond market • Spanish bonds have climbed in recent sessions and the yield demanded by investors to hold 10-year Spanish debt instead of Italian bonds has almost vanished, having stood as wide as 0.75 percentage point in late February. Spanish yields were at their lowest levels in at least 14 months on Tuesday. • Although Spain remains in recession, unemployment is on the rise and the budget deficit as a share of output is more than twice the ratio forecast for Italy this year, Spanish debt is benefiting from a more stable political backdrop. • Nevertheless, with Spain saddled with chronically high unemployment and caught in a deep recession that looks likely to continue well into 2013, that trend seems to have started to reverse, as yields began to rise on Wednesday. • Spain's retail sales fell for a 31st straight month in January, data showed on Thursday, while the country's struggling banks came under more pressure from a court ruling making it slightly easier for Spanish homeowners to fight evictions.
Auction highlights: Spain’s borrowing costs ease while Italy’s rise after downgrade • Meanwhile, the yield on Spanish one-year paper fell on Tuesday at an auction to its lowest level since before Greece was forced to request its first bailout in 2010. • Following Tuesday’s success, Madrid announced an off-calendar long-term bond sale on Thursday, which saw solid demand, riding a wave of enthusiasm for its debt relative to Italy's that might soon ebb as investors look more closely at a gloomy economic backdrop. • Spain sold €803 million of paper due 2029, 2040 and 2041 more cheaply than in recent issues of the same bonds. The shortest yield fell to 5.224% from 5.787%. • On the other hand, Italian borrowing costs rose in the first bond auction since a credit rating downgrade last week that highlighted the economic risks of the country’s current political stalemate. • The Treasury in Rome sold €5.3 billion of a 2015 note and securities maturing in 2028 at higher borrowing costs.
Auction highlights: Ireland auctions 1st new 10 year bond since bailout • Reassured by Italian bonds' resilience to the political crisis and hoping the ECB backstop will keep supporting high-yielding assets, the euro zone's lower rated sovereigns appear to see a window of opportunity in which to issue debt. • Ireland sold on Wednesday its first new benchmark 10-year bond since soaring yields forced it to take a bailout in 2010. • Irish benchmark yields were slightly lower at 3.67%, compared with over 15% in mid-2011.
EU seems slightly more open to more growth-friendly fiscal adjustments • The European Council held a summit aimed at maintaining financial stability, ensuring sound public finances, fighting unemployment especially for the young, and working on long-term growth. • Ahead of the meeting the countries expressed their different views. France, Spain and Portugal demanded more time to meet their debt cutting targets whereas Germany, Finland and Austria required austerity. • The conclusions of the European Council partly gave into a slight change in thinking, with the communique endorsing ‘short-term targeted measures to boost growth and support job-creation, particularly for the young, and prioritizing growth-friendly investment’. According to Financial Times this phrase was hotly debated at the summit with particularly northern European countries objecting. • Nevertheless, divisions continue on how to proceed remain as German chancellor Angela Merkel emphasized that staying on the course of austerity is still a must. • Moreover, euro area finance ministers agreed to extend maturities on rescue loans to Ireland and Portugal, easing the terms on two recipients of European bailout aid in a show of support for their commitment to austerity.
Cypriot bank deposits to be taxed in an unprecedented move as part of bailout • Depositors in Cypriot banks will be hit with a one-off tax on their savings, as part of a €10 billion bailout for from the eurozone and the International Monetary Fund. • The deal, announced early Saturday, marks the first time in the eurozone's five-year-old financial crisis that depositors in bloc's banks will lose money. Accounts with more than €100,000 will be taxed at 9.9%, those with less at 6.75%, raising an expected €5.8 billion for the near-bankrupt nation. • Accounts held in Greek offshoots of Cypriot banks will also be spared. • Cyprus, which first applied for help last summer, has proved a major headache for the euro zone, mostly because of an outsized banking sector, which has swelled to eight times the size of the island's economy and was hit hard by a restructuring of Greek government debt last year. Allegations of money laundering and a general election in February also hampered bailout talks. • An initial assessment of Cyprus's finances in January concluded it needed more than €17 billion, including €10 billion just to stabilize its banks. That would have been an unmanageable burden for the island, whose annual economic output is less than €18 billion and shrinking, and would have pushed its sovereign debt to 145% of GDP. • As they struggled to bring down the rescue costs, eurozone finance ministers and the troika of the European Commission, the ECB and the IMF chose to go ahead with the deposit tax despite warnings it could unsettle savers and investors in other weak European countries.
Data revealed further decline in the euro area • Data continue to indicate that the eurozone economy is bracing for further contraction in the first quarter of 2013, as traditionally stronger economies such as Germany, Finland and France suffered a greater-than-expected drop in factory output in January. • Euro area industrial production declined 0.4% in January from December, when it rose 0.9%, Eurostat said on Wednesday. • Industrial production in Germany, France and Finland also disappointed in January as it declined 0.4%, 1.2% and 4.1% respectively after having grown 0.8%, 0.9% and 1.3% in December. • The decrease in January was driven by a fall in capital goods, which indicates that investments have not picked up. • The European Central Bank said last week it still expected a gradual recovery to begin during the second half of the year, even as it predicted the eurozone's gross domestic product would contract by 0.5%, rather than 0.3% as previously forecast. Eurozone GDP shrank by 0.6% last year. January -2.1%
UK recession looks more likely as output drops • British manufacturing output fell in January at the fastest pace since June, reinforcing fears that the economy has tipped into its third recession since the 2008 financial crisis. • Manufacturing output dropped 1.5% on the month in January – and by 3% in the 12 months to January, wiping out December's gain, the Office for National Statistics said, compared to forecasts it would be flat. • The decline in manufacturing, and downbeat GDP estimates, will add to pressure on Chancellor George Osborne to come up with measures to revive growth in his annual budget next week. • Britain's economy contracted in late 2012, endangering the government's plans to bring its spending in line with its earnings and contributing to the loss of the country's prized triple-A credit rating. • If economic activity shrinks again this quarter - as looks increasingly likely - Britain will be back in recession. • The National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR), which last month predicted that Britain would avoid a triple-dip recession, said on Tuesday it was now a close call. It estimated the economy shrank 0.1% in the three months to February. January -2.9%
UK inflation expectations on the rise • The pound fell to a 2-1/2 year low against the dollar on Tuesday, though the currency has since recovered some of its losses, and British government bonds rallied after the weak manufacturing data, which raised expectations for more bond buying from the Bank of England to shore up the economy. The yield on the benchmark 10-year gilt fell 0.06 percentage points to 1.94%. • Central bank officials are divided over whether the U.K. economy can absorb further stimulus without stoking inflation, which, at 2.7% annually in January, is already expected to rise further above the BoE's 2% target this year. • Inflation expectations, as measured by the difference between nominal and inflation-linked bond yields, rose to near 3.3% on Tuesday, levels not seen since September 2008. • The Chancellor is considering plans to change the Bank’s remit in the Budget to give it a more explicit growth target, with a team in the Treasury reviewing the current mandate. This would basically alter the 2% inflation target under which the BoE operates, allowing for further room for easing policies.
Japan: Kuroda approved as new BoJ governor • In Japan both the Lower and the Upper House have approved Haruhiko Kuroda as governor of Bank of Japan (BoJ). The two candidates for the deputy governor positions, KikuoIwata and Hiroshi Nakaso, have also been approved. • The new appointments will decisively shift the balance in favor of the doves on the BoJ board. • The new BoJ leadership will probably want to leave a mark in connection with the next BoJmeeting, where additional easing is now widely expected. • Meanwhile, Japanese core machinery orders fell 13.1% in January from the previous month, the government said Monday, the first decline in four months, as Japan's economic recovery has yet to gain momentum amid a recession in Europe and slower growth in China. The fall was much larger than a median forecast of a 1.4% decline. • Machinery orders are widely regarded as a leading indicator of corporate capital investment. • Machinery orders would have to grow 11.1% month-on-month in both February and March just to keep the levels of orders unchanged in January-March from October-December.
Stocks hobbled and Dow Jones ends 10 consecutive gain after a soft reading on consumer confidence
Central Bank Meetings Calendar Calendar for upcoming meetings of main central banks :
Egypt rules out IMF emergency funding • The IMF said on Monday that Egypt had the option of using the Rapid Financing Instrument, a lending facility designed to provide rapid and limited assistance to member countries. The RFI funds available to Egypt would total $750m, which could help the country scrape through until after parliamentary elections. • However, Egypt said on Tuesday it would not sign any "emergency" loan with the IMF, ruling out stop-gap funding to tide it over as it struggles with a soaring budget deficit and falling currency reserves. • Egypt has been seeking a full $4.8bn from the IMF instead in order to stave off a balance of payments crisis, but securing the aid would involve a commitment to austerity measures that are likely to lead to unrest at a time when President Mohamed Mursi is already struggling to maintain law and order. • Analysts point out that the IMF loan should provide much needed relief because it would unblock finance from other external sources so that the whole package would reach $14.5bn. • Balance of payment support has become urgent in recent weeks as the country, which imports a large proportion of its food and fuel, has depleted two-thirds of its foreign reserves. Those stand at $13.5 now slightly less than the critical level of three months’ import coverage. • The IMF’s top official for the Middle East is expected to visit Cairo this week to discuss Egypt’s economic program and the future the loan.
Egypt’s C/A deficit narrows while trade deficit grows • Egypt’s Central Bank announced that the current account deficit narrowed to $3.0bn between July and December 2012, from a shortfall of $4.1bn in the same period a year earlier. • This was due to remittances from Egyptian workers abroad, largely in the Gulf, which rose to $9.3bn from $8.0bn a year earlier, the bank said in a statement. Foreign direct investment recorded a net inflow of $301.4m down from $418.1m. • However, the trade deficit widened to $16.8bn in the last six months of calendar 2012 from a $15.6bn deficit a year earlier as imports picked up 3.6% but exports slipped 1.0%. • In other news, Egypt said on Wednesday it was lifting a $10,000 limit on the amount of hard currency foreigners can bring across its borders, easing some of the controls imposed in late 2012 as its economic crisis worsened. • Egypt had tightened currency controls in December, worried about sharp falls in its pound currency and a rush by Egyptians to withdraw their savings from banks. • Egypt will also increase a departure tax for foreigners from to $20 from to $15 starting on May 1. All this is done in an effort to boost foreign currency reserves.
GCC new highlightsGCC Sovereign Wealth Funds $1.7 trillion • GCC Sovereign Wealth Funds assets put at $1.7 trillion: According to Moody's investor service, strong oil prices have sharply widen the fiscal surpluses in Gulf hydrocarbon producers and this boosted the assets of their government funds to an all time high of around $1.7 trillion at the end of 2012. At the end of 2007, this stood at only $1.0 trillion. • In its report, Moody’s state that the GCC economies have benefited from large foreign-exchange inflows driven by oil revenues, adding that some of the windfall has been spent through the governments' fiscal accounts while the rest was placed in SWFs, reinforcing their financial strength. • All GCC countries are likely to have a positive net international investment position (IIP). It said the funds compare to an aggregate central government debt level of $2363 billion at the end of 2012. But it added that the debt levels vary greatly across countries, with Bahrain, the UAE and Qatar having government debt in excess of 20 per cent of their GDP, most of which is domestically funded.
GCC new highlightsGCC economic growth to moderate in 2013 • GCC economic growth to moderate in 2013 : GCC economic growth is set to slow to 3.6% in 2013 from 5.4% in 2012 as the three-year surge in regional oil production comes to an end, NBK said in its "GCC Economic Outlook". However, on the ground, business conditions are expected to remain solid as governments maintain elevated levels of investment and social spending, which will ultimately support confidence and private sector activity. • Over the medium-term, major economic reforms in areas such as the labor market, education, and competition policy are needed to enable the private sector to grow more independently of state support. In addition, despite healthy rates of economic growth, GCC inflation remains low. • Kuwait's records KD16.1 billion surplus: Strong crude prices allowed Kuwait to record a large surplus in the first nine months of the current fiscal year as was the case in the previous few years. The surplus, equivalent to 33% of annual 2012 GDP, was lifted by a combination of soaring revenues and comparatively softer spending growth. Total revenues climbed to KD 24.3 billion in the first nine months of FY 2012/2013, about KD 2.8 billion higher than a year ago. • Kuwaiti government plans to cut subsidies to all Kuwaitis, expats - VAT, income taxes soon: MP Nasser Al-Merri has recently proposed scrapping of subsidy to all Kuwaitis and expats and advised the government to instead improve the services and provide subsidy to Kuwaitis only on basic necessities such as electricity, water and fuel. In addition, he proposed implement value added and income tax. The state's budget for the fiscal year 2012/2013 lists the total government subsidy for consumer services at KD 6.3 billion, KD 3.1 billion of which goes towards electricity and KD 1.1 billion towards fuel.
GCC Economic News HighlightsMixed inflation readings for GCC area • Annual inflation in the United Arab Emirates rose to 0.73% in February, up from 0.43% in January, mainly due to higher food and beverage prices, according to the country's national bureau of statistics. • While the food and beverages components posted a rise, the increase was mitigated somewhat by a slight fall in housing prices, data showed. The housing category makes up nearly 40% of the U.A.E.'s CPI basket. • U.A.E.'s economy minister in January said he expects inflation to range between 1% and 1.5% this year. Inflation in the U.A.E. has remained subdued in the past few months, but a strengthening economy is expected to boost demand--especially in the housing sector, which may eventually lead to higher inflation, some analysts say. • Rising rents, food prices push inflation rate up to 3.2% in Qatar: Year-on-year inflation rose to 3.2% in February with house rent showing a disturbing upward trajectory, rising 4.8% since February 2012, official data released last week shows. Rents, clubbed with fuel and energy, have a share of 32% in consumer expenses, though, show no increase month-on-month. Entertainment (recreation and culture) made the largest dent in household and individual's budgets as they became 7.6% more expensive in a year since February 2012. Medical care also increased by 2.2% YoY. • Saudi Arabia's Cost-of-Living Index Up 0.2% in February Vs January: Saudi Arabia's monthly cost-of-living index rose 0.2% in February compared with the previous month, the Saudi Central Department of Statistics and Information said in a report on Saturday. The rise was mainly driven by increases in the prices of foodstuff and beverages, home furniture, and vehicles.
Comparative MENA Markets For the period 10/03 – 15/03
Local interest rates forecasts and major developments • Our interest rate forecast for 2 years government bonds was revised lower mainly due to reverse dollarization which results in higher excess JOD liquidity. • Foreign reserves have also continued its upward trend reaching $ 8.30 billion last week.
Inflation surged above 7.0% during the first two months of the year • According to figures released by the Department of Statistics, inflation rates reached 7.23% during the first 2 months of 2013, compared to the same period last year, where inflation was around 3.5%. • Among the main commodities groups which contributed to this increase were: • Transportation (20.30%) • Fuel and Electricity (24.90%) • Meat and Dairy (8.20%) • Fruits and Vegetables (20.50%) • Rent (2.60%) • As for February, inflation increased by 7.75% year-on-year, up from 6.7% in January. • Forecasts by international agencies expect crude oil prices to fall throughout the 4 quarters of the year. • Despite that, after recent talks with the IMF, the Jordanian government is still expected to increase electricity and water tariffs during the second quarter of the year, which would cause upward pressure on inflation rates. • Therefore, inflation rates are expected to remain above 7.0% during the upcoming months.
Downward Pressure on Interest Rates • Recently, it seems that interest rates are trending downwards. During the last couple of 3-year government bond auctions, the yield fell to 8.52% and then 8.46%, even though coverage ratios remained high at 1.95 and 1.93, respectively. • This indicates that interest rates are expect to fall in the upcoming months. • This year, the government is expected to depend on external borrowing instead of internal to meet financing needs. Of all borrowing, external borrowing will make up 65% this year. In 2013 Sum of new issuances: JD 822 million Sum of bonds redeemed till today: JD 895 million Jordanian Government Net: JD 73 million
Amman Stock ExchangeFor the period 10/03 – 14/03 ASE free float shares’ price index ended the week at (2070.8)points, compared to (2059.9)points for the last week, posting a decrease of 0.53%. The total trading volume during the week reached JD(71.4) million compared to JD(78.9) million during the last week. Trading a total of (86.3)million shares through (32,279)transactions The shares of (179) companies were traded, the shares prices of (69) companies rose, and the shares prices of (79) declined.
Local Debt MonitorLatest T-Bills As March 17, the volume of excess reserves, including the overnight window deposits held at the CBJ JD(2,116) million.
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