美元強勢推動世界經濟進一步放緩

Recently Yahoo New on-line reported the following:

Dollar’s Strength Pushes World Economy Deeper into Slowdown

Sat, May 14, 2022, 2:00 p.m.

(Bloomberg) -- The soaring dollar is propelling the global economy deeper into a synchronized slowdown by driving up borrowing costs and stoking financial-market volatility -- and there’s little respite on the horizon.

A closely watched gauge of the greenback has risen 7% since January to a two-year high as the Federal Reserve embarks on an aggressive series of interest-rate increases to curb inflation and investors have bought dollars as a haven amid economic uncertainty.

A rising currency should help the Fed cool prices and support American demand for goods from abroad, but it also threatens to drive up the import prices of foreign economies, further fueling their inflation rates, and sap them of capital.

That’s especially worrying for emerging economies, which are being forced to either allow their currencies to weaken, intervene to cushion their slide, or raise their own interest rates in a bid to buttress their foreign exchange levels.

Both India and Malaysia made surprise rate hikes this month. India also entered the market too to prop up its exchange rate.

Advanced economies haven’t been spared either: In the past week the euro hit a new five-year low, the Swiss franc weakened to hit parity with the dollar for first time since 2019 and Hong Kong’s Monetary Authority was forced to intervene to defend its currency peg. The yen also recently toughed a two-decade low.

“The Fed’s rapid pace of rate hikes is causing headaches for many other economies in the world, triggering portfolio outflows and currency weakness,” said Tuuli McCully, head of Asia-Pacific economics at Scotiabank.

While the combination of slowing US growth and an expected cooling in America’s inflation will ultimately see the dollar’s ascent slow -- which in turn will take pressure off other central banks to tighten -- it may take months to find that new equilibrium.

So far at least, traders are reluctant to call a peak in the dollar rally. That in part reflects bets at the end of 2021 that the greenback’s gains would fade as rate hikes were already priced in. Those views have since been shredded.

Developing economies are in danger of a “currency mismatch,” which occurs when governments, corporations or financial institutions have borrowed in US dollars and lent it out in their local currency, according to Clay Lowery, a former US Treasury assistant secretary for international affairs who’s now executive vice president at the Institute for International Finance.

Global growth will essentially flatline this year as Europe falls into recession, China slows sharply and US financial conditions tighten significantly, according to a new forecast from the IIF. Economists at Morgan Stanley expect growth this year to be less than half of the pace in 2021.

As rates continue to rise amid on-going global volatility -- from the war in Ukraine to China’s Covid lockdowns -- that has led investors to leap for safety. Economies nursing current account deficits are at risk of more volatility.

“The United States has always been a safe haven,” Lowery said. “With rising interest rates both from the Fed and from market rates, even more capital could flow into the US. And that could be damaging for emerging markets.”

Outflows of $4 billion were seen from emerging economy securities in April, according to the IIF. Emerging market currencies have tumbled and emerging-Asia bonds have suffered losses of 7% this year, more than the hit taken during the 2013 taper tantrum.

“Tighter US monetary policy will have large spillovers to the rest of the world,” said Rob Subbaraman, head of global markets research at Nomura Holdings Inc. “The real kicker is that most economies outside the US are starting in a weaker position than the US itself.”

Many manufacturers say the high costs they are facing means they aren’t getting much of a dividend from weaker currencies.

Toyota Motor Corp. forecast a 20% decline in operating profit for the current fiscal year despite posting robust annual car sales, citing an “unprecedented” rise in costs for logistics and raw materials. It said it doesn’t expect the weakened yen to deliver a “major” lift.

China’s yuan has slid as record flows of capital pull out of the country’s financial markets. For now, it remains insulated from the wider dollar effect as low inflation at home allows authorities to focus on supporting growth.

But that’s causing yet another source of fragility for developing nations used to a strong yuan offering their markets an anchor.

“The recent abrupt shift in the renminbi’s trend has more to do with China’s deteriorating economic outlook than Fed policy,” said Alvin Tan, a strategist at Royal Bank of Canada in Singapore. “But it has definitely splintered the shield insulating Asian currencies from the rising dollar and precipitated the rapid weakening of Asian currencies as a group in the past month.”

In advanced economies, weakening currencies set up a “tricky policy dilemma” for the Bank of Japan, European Central Bank and the Bank of England, Dario Perkins, chief European economist at TS Lombard in London, wrote in a recent note.

ECB Governing Council Member Francois Villeroy de Galhau noted this month that a “euro that is too weak would go against our price stability objective.”

“While domestic ‘overheating’ is mostly a US phenomenon, weaker exchange rates add to imported price pressures, keeping inflation significantly above central banks’ 2% targets,” Perkins wrote. “Monetary tightening might alleviate this problem, but at the cost of further domestic economic pain.”

Translation

(彭博社) - 高美元引起借貸成本飆升並引發金融市場波動，推動全球經濟進一步陷入同步放緩 - 而且幾乎沒有見到喘息的機會。

自 1 月份以來，一個受注重的美元指標已上漲 7% 至兩年高點，原因是美聯儲開始採取一系列激進的加息措施來抑制通脹，而投資者在經濟不確定的情況下買入美元作為避風港。

貨幣升值應有助於美聯儲降低價格並支持美國對國外商品的需求，但它也可能推高外國經濟體的進口價格，進一步推高其通貨膨脹率，並削弱它們的資金。

對於新興經濟體來說，這尤其令人擔憂，它們被迫要么讓本幣貶值，要么進行干預以緩衝跌勢，要么提高自己的利率以支撐其外匯水平。

印度和馬來西亞本月都出人意料地加息。印度也進入市場以支撐其匯率。

發達經濟體也未能倖免：過去一周歐元觸及五年新低，瑞士法郎自 2019 年以來首次跌至與美元平價，香港金融管理局被迫干預以捍衛其貨幣掛鉤。日元最近也承受了二十年來的低點。

豐業銀行亞太經濟主管 Tuuli McCully 表示： “美聯儲的快速加息讓世界上許多其他經濟體感到頭疼，引發投資組合外流和貨幣疲軟。”

雖然美國經濟增長放緩和美國通脹預期降溫最終將導緻美元升值放緩 - 這順帶會減輕其他央行收緊貨幣政策的壓力 - 但可能需要數月時間才能找到新的平衡點。

至少到目前為止，交易員不願稱美元反彈見頂。這在一定程度上反映了人們在 2021 年底押注美元的漲勢將會消退，因為加息已經被消化了。那些觀點後來被打破了。

前美國財政部負責國際事務的助理部長, 即現任國際金融研究所執行副總裁Clay Lowery 表示，發展中經濟體面臨 “貨幣錯配” 的危險，即政府、企業或金融機構借入美元並以當地貨幣借出時會發生這種情況。

根據 IIF 的一項新預測，隨著歐洲陷入衰退、中國急劇放緩以及美國金融狀況顯著收緊，今年全球增長將基本持平。摩根士丹利的經濟學家預計，今年的增長速度將不到 2021 年的一半。

在全球持續動蕩的情況下 - 從烏克蘭戰爭到中國的 Covid 封鎖 - 利率繼續上升，這導致投資者尋求安全。維持經常賬戶赤字的經濟體面臨更大波動的風險。

Lowery 說: “美國一直是避風港”; “隨著美聯儲和市場利率的利率上升，更多的資本可能會流入美國。這可能對新興市場造成損害。”

根據 IIF 的數據，4 月份新興經濟體證券流出了 40 億美元。新興市場貨幣大跌，新興亞洲債券今年下跌 7%，超過 2013 年恐慌反應期間的跌幅。

野村控股全球市場研究主管 Rob Subbaraman 表示: “美國收緊貨幣政策將對世界其他地區產生巨大波及的影响”; “真正的意外發現在於，美國以外的大多數經濟體一開始就處於比美國本身更弱的地位。”

許多製造商表示，他們面臨的高成本意味著他們沒有從貨幣貶值中獲得太多好處。

豐田汽車公司預測，儘管年度汽車銷量強勁，但本財年的營業利潤將下降 20%，理由是物流和原材料成本 “空前”上升。它表示，預計疲軟的日元不會帶來 “重大” 提振。

隨著創紀錄的資本流出中國金融市場，人民幣已經下跌。目前，它仍然不受更廣泛的美元效應的影響, 由於國內的低通脹使當局能夠專注於支持增長。

但對於習慣於強勢人民幣為其市場提供錨點的發展中國家來說，這又是另一個脆弱性來源。

加拿大皇家銀行駐新加坡策略師 Alvin Tan 表示： “最近人民幣走勢的突然轉變, 更多是由於中國經濟前景惡化有關，而不是美聯儲的政策”; “但它肯定會破壞亞洲貨幣免受美元上漲影響的屏障，並導致亞洲貨幣作為一個整體在過去一個月裡迅速走弱。”

倫敦 TS Lombard 首席歐洲經濟學家達 Dario Perkins 在最近的一份報告中寫道，在發達經濟體中，貨幣貶值給日本銀行、歐洲央行和英格蘭銀行帶來了 “棘手的政策困境” 。

歐洲央行管理委員會成員Francois Villeroy de Galhau 本月指出， “歐元太弱將違背我們的價格穩定目標。”

Perkins寫道: “雖然國內 ‘過熱’ 主要是美國的現象，但疲軟的匯率增加了進口價格壓力，使通脹率大大高於央行 2% 的目標”;  “貨幣緊縮可能會緩解這個問題，但代價是進一步加劇國內經濟痛苦。”

So, the soaring dollar is propelling the global economy deeper into a synchronized slowdown by driving up borrowing costs and stoking financial-market. That’s especially worrying for emerging economies, which are being forced to either allow their currencies to weaken, intervene to cushion their slide, or raise their own interest rates in a bid to buttress their foreign exchange levels.

 

Note: In the financial world “Taper Tantrum” refers to the 2013 collective panic reaction that triggered a spike in U.S. Treasury yields when investors learned that the Federal Reserve was slowly ending its quantitative easing (QE) program.