The thesis that it is US dithering about interest rates and not events in China that is behind the recent market volatility has received strong confirmation from the events of the last week.
At the start of the week financial markets - Wall Street included - plunged on fears of a September rate increase.
An article however had appeared in the Financial Times over the preceding weekend, written by the former US Treasury Secretary Larry Summers (a contender for the post of Chair of the Federal Reserve Board before Janet Yellen’s appointment last year).
In the article Summers said raising interest rates would be a dangerous mistake.
On Twitter Summers went further still - calling for more quantitative easing (ie. electronic money printing).
As news of Summers’s comments spread, the markets recovered.
They got a further boost when on Tuesday William Dudley, a member of the Board of the Federal Reserve, also appeared to damp down prospects of a rate increase in September.
The markets responded with a spectacular recovery. In the last two days of the week oil prices surged by 15%.
Come the weekend and the pendulum in the policy debate in Washington swung back again. The monetary hardliners (who probably include Yellen) reasserted themselves, and the signals from the Federal Reserve Board went into reverse.
Comments made on Friday by Stanley Fischer, the Federal Reserve Board’s Vice Chair, suggested that an interest rate increase in September had not been ruled out after all.
This happened in conjunction with the publication of revised statistics of the performance of the US economy in the second quarter. These appeared to show the US achieving much higher growth than previously assumed.
Those who follow such things closely will know that there is a longstanding debate in the US about the reliability of US statistics.
I am not qualified to comment on this debate. All I will say is that because the reliability of the statistics is widely doubted, when a revision of the sort we have just seen comes along there is inevitably suspicion that it has appeared for some purpose - in this case to justify a rate increase in September. Whether true or not, it is what many people believe, and it has an effect on what they do.
Renewed concern the Federal Reserve Board will raise rates in September has had the predictable effect on the markets: they are all down, including oil which as I write this has fallen by 2.7% on the day.
The market volatility is causing concern around the world, including of course in Russia.
At the end of the last week the Russian government convened a meeting to discuss the volatility.
The calm comments by the participants - in particular of Finance Minister Anton Siluanov and Central Bank Chair Elvira Nabiullina, which we reproduce below - show confidence that the situation is in hand.
Siluanov said that he expects oil prices to remain low for some time. He also said Russia may have to adjust part of its budget spending to take account of this. There is no hint here of panic or crisis, just a calm acknowledgement of reality, and of steps being taken to deal with it.
As for Nabiullina, she appears to have no doubts about the underlying stability of the banking system, or of Russian banks’ and companies’ abilities to meet their foreign loan payments.
Nor is she concerned with defending the rouble at any particular level. Her goal remains what it has always been: reducing inflation.
Achievement of this goal obviously requires the Russian authorities to take steps to insulate the economy as far as possible from the price effects of the rouble’s fall. Nabiullina says as much.
The sharp fall in imports already caused by last year’s devaluation, and the ban on food imports from the EU, means that to a great extent this has already been done.
At this point it is possible to make one further important point.
The rouble’s value is closely connected to the oil price, and the rouble’s fall last year was caused by the fall in the oil price.
Whilst this has also been true of the fall the rouble experienced this summer, it is important to say that because Russia is an emerging market economy the rouble would have fallen this summer anyway, even if Russia had not been an energy exporter.
The currencies of all emerging market economies, including ones that are major manufacturing exporters such as Vietnam and South Korea, have fallen this summer.
Countries like Vietnam and South Korea are not energy exporters, so the fall in the oil prices is not the reason their currencies fell. The reason their currencies fell is because money has shifted from emerging market economies to the US in the expectation of a rate increase there.
It is the expectations of a US rate increase that is also behind the fall in the price of oil.
It was also the trigger for the fall of China’s admittedly overvalued stock market, as money left China for the US causing the stock market to crash.
When it comes to currency depreciations, China is the big exception that proves the rule.
Apart from a fractional and tightly managed devaluation, the value of the Chinese currency has held steady, not because China is any less affected by money flows to the US than other emerging market economies, but because China's currency is managed, and the Chinese with £3 trillion of reserves have the financial fire power to manage it.
In the absence of such management the Chinese currency would have depreciated along with the others - according to some estimates by between 10-15% against the dollar.
As it is China is believed to have spent around $200 billion to prop up its currency over the last few weeks - a figure that dwarfs the amounts Russia spent to support the rouble during any comparable period last year.
Russia’s currency is volatile not because Russia’s economy is insufficiently diversified. It is volatile because like other emerging market economies whose currencies have experienced similar volatility this summer, Russia’s financial system is small and immature causing Russian companies to look abroad for financing and loans.
Until this changes the rouble will remain volatile however “diversified” the economy becomes. For this to change Russia needs to strengthen its financial system - something which is happening, but which takes time.
In the meantime, the Russian government has taken the precautions needed to protect the economy from the volatility, and it has every reason to remain calm.
The following report is taken from the Russian Presidential Website:
“Vladimir Putin: ……….
We are aware of the situation on the Asian stock markets and the international financial currency markets, and the situation with oil prices. All of this has its effect one way or another on our financial market. I would like Mr Siluanov to comment on these developments and give his assessments.
Finance Minister Anton Siluanov: Indeed, Mr President, in the past days we have seen greater volatility on the world financial and commodities markets. We see that stock markets have gone down by about 10 percent, prices of raw materials have also gone down, there has been a weakening of currencies, especially those of the developing countries and especially those that export primarily raw materials. The national currencies of those countries have lost 5 to 15 percent.
The reason, of course, is the increasing unpredictability of the Chinese economy’s growth. The Chinese economy is currently one of the major economies influencing world demand, including demand for raw materials. Among such reasons, we also see the overproduction of oil; there are constant excessive volumes of oil being produced, while demand is not growing at the rate that was expected earlier. We are also witnessing pressure on financial markets, expectations of increased rates from the Federal Reserve System, which, as we know, may lead to a withdrawal of capital from developing markets.
The drop in oil prices is undoubtedly having the greatest effect on the Russian financial market. During the past month, the prices went down by some 20 percent, about 10 percent in the past week alone. This inevitably had an impact on the financial market of the Russian Federation: the ruble lost about 10 percent, just as many other currencies in countries, as I have said, with developing economies; the stock market here has dropped by about 15 percent since early August.
We have already witnessed a similar situation with the exchange rate early this year, but a rise in oil prices then led to a strengthening of the ruble. We should not rule out a repeat of this development. However, analysts dealing with the oil market say the oil price drop may be long term and we need to prepare for such a possibility and work to ensure financial and budget stability.
Of course, Mr President, we will comply with all our budget commitments for this year. This year we will need to use the reserves that we have accumulated, but these reserves are not unlimited, and for next year and the following budget cycle we have to align our commitments with the new macroeconomic situation. The Government is currently working on such proposals and we will present them for your consideration.
Vladimir Putin: Ms Nabiullina, would you like to add anything?
Central Bank Governor Elvira Nabiullina: Overall, I agree with the assessment provided by Mr Siluanov, but I would like to say that the key factor affecting the ruble, which is the price of oil, is volatile. We have already seen this year that it can go up and down: this year alone there was a period when it grew by 23 percent and then dropped by 38 percent. Therefore, we can expect change any minute.
True, our financial system is part of the global system and is not protected from all the existing risks. However, we modelled various scenarios well in advance, knowing that a pessimistic one is possible, so that we could prepare. Thus, for instance, whenever possible we increased our gold and currency reserves to create a long-term basis for our financial stability and to strengthen our safety net.
We have introduced currency refinancing mechanisms. We envisaged a $50 billion limit on loans to banks to avoid excessive pressure on the currency market. We have spent $34 billion of that reserve, and we believe that the remaining $16 billion would be enough. At the same time, we decided that we would not refinance these amounts for banks that have used up their annual limits so they feel more comfortable.
Moreover, we have decided to loosen bank regulation to allow our banking system to adapt. We have curtailed a number of measures because the banks did not need them, and were planning to discontinue more as of October 1. However, now, depending on how the situation is going to develop, we are ready to retain those measures with certain modifications.
The main thing now is for the exchange rate fluctuations to have a minimal effect on prices. I mean that after the drop in the exchange rate early this year we managed to get inflation under control. For 16 weeks, weekly inflation was about 0.01 percent, with the exception of the week when we had our traditional rate increase. Therefore, we will continue in the same way to ensure a further drop in inflation.
via Vincent Varisano, Market Volatility - US Federal Reserve Dithers: Russia Stays Calm
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