Category Archives: Finance

Finance, Forex, Remittances, SGD INR

SGD INR – Expected Trend till Mar 2013

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Its hard to believe that we are already in February of 2013 and that calls for me to keep up on my promise and share with you my thoughts on SGD INR movements in the near term.

The trend so far has been inline with what I had expected in Dec 2012 – The pair has maintained the range of 42-46 with a downward bias (Read more: SGD-INR: How does 2013 look like?) and trades at 42.99 as I write.

SGD INR made multiple attempts to breach the 45 mark but have been unsuccessful. In the meantime a few interesting developments have happened on the fundamental front.

RBI came out and cut the rates by 25 basis points to stroke growth and the financial markets have taken a more “risk on” approach. The former would result in NRE deposit rates being lowered in the long term and the latter would attract FII in to the Indian Markets chasing growth.

At the same time the Indian Finance minister has promised financial reforms and started with reducing the fuel subsidies which helps reduce the Indian Budget deficit. This is also positive for the Rupee.

On the SGD front the currency has lost 2% against the USD and now trades at 1.24 as compared to 1.22 late last year.

These factors combined have seen SGD INR soften below 43 mark.

The question which people ask often is that how low will the pair fall and will SGD INR reach 45 again?

My view is that in the short term the pair would increase and move to cross the Rs.44 mark – The US debt ceiling discussions are due soon and so is Indian budget for 2013.

The uncertainty on the policy front would result in INR weakening against the USD which would mean a weaker INR against the SGD.

The recent spike in Crude Oil prices would add to woes for Indian Rupee.

So in-case the recent drop of SGD/INR has left you scrambling like Oct 2012 then don’t panic – next few weeks should give you an opportunity to see the pair touching 44 again.

 

Enjoy the Holidays and wishing you a very Happy Chinese New Year!! Gong Xi Fa Chai

Finance, Investment

Good returns and Low Risks with Funds that Invest in Singapore Bonds

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With the low-interest rates in most of the developed economies in the world the bank deposits tend to yield low returns. Singapore is no different and one could get as low as .25% interest on Savings Bank accounts. Fixed deposits do slightly better and could yield up to 1.68% p.a.

This clearly is less than the inflation that the country experiences, below are a few funds that invest in short dated Singapore government bonds and have yields good enough to cover inflation.

As these funds invest in Singapore Bonds they carry relatively low risk. of course they are not as safe as a Bank deposit but the yields are favorable given the risk-reward ratio.

Fund Info

Lion Global Singapore Fixed Income fund has the lowest risk and yielded a positive return even in 2008 (during the financial turmoil). On the other hand United SGD fund gives occasional stellar returns like that in 2009 and 2012 yet still remaining largely in positive territory.

Nikko AM fund has managed to beat inflation in most years and is the one I prefer.

Bullion, Finance, Investment

2013 Gold and Silver price prediction by Leading Banks

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Just a quick consolidation of what leading banks are predicting for Gold and Silver in 2013. The table has been left blank where information could not be found.

2013 Forecast

The forecasts for 2012 can be found at the link –

Gold – http://www.lbma.org.uk/pages/index.cfm?page_id=142

Silver – http://www.lbma.org.uk/pages/index.cfm?page_id=142

The general consensus was for Gold to breach USD2000 and silver to stay above USD44 – neither of which has happened. Would be interesting to see if Gold and Silver can cross $2000 and $40 respectively this year.

Finance, Forex, Investment, Remittances

The Fall and Rise of Indian Rupee: 45 days to lows, 45 to recovery

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What a roller coaster ride the past 3 months have been!

The rupee was trading at 48.6 against in the US dollar on 31st Oct 2011 and precipitated to touch 53.70 on 15 Dec 2011, a 10% drop. These were the historic lows for the currency and with RBI’s policy changes the rate as I write is 50 against the dollar with RBI reducing the CRR rate and rupee gaining 7% from the lows.

Inflation, falling growth numbers, uncertainity in Europe (which by the way still exists) and political roadblocks to financial reform were stated as the reasons for the weakness. All the reasons held resposible for rupees weakness are still there. Yes, inflation has eased a bit but thats pretty much the only change.

Among numerous suggestions aired to aid the rupee was for RBI to conduct open market purchases in style of Indonesian Central bank which burnt 8-9% of its foreign reserves to stabilise the rupiah. RBI however refrained and relaxed rules to make term deposits attractive for Non Residents Indians – and NRI’s did bring in money into India.

Lets see how has rupee faired against the other currencies in the past 90 days

Surprised – right!! You did not expect to see these numbers, neither did I.

Interestingly after 3 months the INR has returned back to almost where it started against all major currencies and even managed a small gain against GBP and EUR

Against the USD the losses are paltry 2.6% which is close to long term volatility number. JPY on the other hand does come up as unexpected top winner against the Rupee with gains of 3.4%, but the real numbers are the ones shown in the last column.

Extreme volatility is what the data screams – with rupee having lost over 10% against USD and JPY and over 5% against the other pairs.

Question now would be are we expecting another such bout of swings in the market?

I would say unlikely unless a sovereign default event happens.

and how about the direction of Rupee?

I am putting my money on a stable to moderately strong outlook. The RBI has held the repo rates, the CRR ratio has come down and with a weakened currency there should be a a bigger impetus on exports which should all be Rupee positive. However the political instability and global financial turmoil could more than negate any positive factors so 49 – 51 against the USD is what I would  be looking at till end of 1st quarter.

Finance, Investment, Remittances

NRE Deposit rates offered by Indian Banks

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Here is a compilation of NRE deposit rates offered by a few banks

Finance, Investment, Remittances

Now NRE Deposit yield 9.25%, and yes its Tax Free!!

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NRE or NRO – that was a constant questions NRI’s always had when investing in deposits in India.

NRO accounts got paid almost same interest rates as the term deposit rates for resident Indians whereas NRE rates were much lesser – almost a half of NRO interest rates (Banks could not offer more than 275 basis points above the global benchmark London Inter-Bank Offered Rate (LIBOR) on NRE term deposits). So if NRO account was fetching 9% then NRE account would get 4%. The catch of course was 2 critical components:

  • Interest on NRE deposits is tax-free whereas NRO attracts 30% tax
  • Both Principal and Interest in NRE account can be repatriated without any restriction but for an NRO account only interest could be repatriated

With the RBI move to deregulate the interest rates on NRE and NRO accounts on 17th Dec 2011 the stage was set for reform. After 10 days Banks came out and increased the rates on NRE deposits.

The comparison between a NRE and NRO deposit now is extremely compelling in the favor of NRE account.

So here is my recommended strategy

  1. Use a bank that has a favorable online remittance service to India. The 3 which I prefer are money2india.com by ICICI bank, Axis Remit by Axis Bank, QuickRemit by HDFC (you could use Kotak bank as well but I have not used their service). All the above banks usually take a 0.5%~1.0% cut from the inter bank exchange rate.
  2. Check the cost of conversion when converting back to Forex (Citibank and other foreign banks have usually charge up to 2% so avoid them)
  3. Open the NRE Bank account, if you don’t have one, preferably with the bank whose service you want to use to transfer money – get in touch with a relationship manager and negotiate a good exchange rate incase the bank has overseas branch

The only 2 downsides that I can foresee are:

  • Rupee continues the downward slide and the interest rate gains are wiped out by currency depreciation (the probability is low)
  • Finance Ministry introduces tax on the NRE account and bring it on par with the NRO account in the upcoming budget – if this happens then the yields would go down but the benefit of being able to repatriate money out of India would still remain
Finance, Investment

10% Stamp duty = 10% move in SGD

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The 10% additional stamp duty on all house purchases by foreigners in Singapore took everyone by surprise and thwarted the plans of buying a house for many a people. This was the second drastic attempt of the authorities to moderate the Singapore housing market after the sales tax charge of upto 16% on selling a house within 4 years brought about earlier in February 2011.

One would question why such an extreme measure was needed which made owning a house 10% expensive for foreigners.
A policy to gradually strengthen SGD has helped control the inflation since the start of the year. The exchange moved from 1.28 in Feb 2011 to 1.20 by Aug 2011 – a gain of 6%. This tamed the inflation  but did not have the desired effect to cool down the property prices.

On the flip side a strong SGD has impacted the exports of goods and services by making them more expensive. It would be worth mentioning that the Singapore Monetary authority uses Exchange rate as one of the means to implement its monetary policies.

Lets put some numbers around how exchange rate impacts the cost of housing and exports. Say someone wanted to buy a house worth 128,000 SGD in Feb 2011 (I know there is nothing available at this price) and there were others wanting to buy services worth the same amount. The cost in terms of USD would be 100,000 for either case.

Come Aug 2011 the same house was now costing 106,000 USD and the property markets were showing signs of slowing down. But the services that earn revenue for the economy and also generate employment had gotten expensive as well.

In the backdrop of slowing global economy organisations would look to move to cheaper destination to source the same goods and service. So to stay competitive something had to give way and in this case it was SGD. With the currency moving back to 1.28~1.30 range the situation turns back to Feb 2011 with the potential of housing market starting the upward journey again.

Housing is a cost of living for the residents of Singapore and rising rentals and property prices has contributed to employees looking for higher salaries to cover costs. Higher salaries again result in net higher cost for the employers.

So the next logical step was to introduce a deterrence for the foreign money chasing the Singapore property and here we have a property tax.

Possible Scenarios

The scenario could now play in 2 possible ways – Let the SGD move around the 1.30 mark or let it depreciate a little more to 1.35 range (same as 2008-2009 levels)

SGD stays around 1.30

With this new tax the same house now costs 110,000 SGD for a foreigner but the cost of services and exports stay put at 100,000.

SGD moves to 1.35 mark

If the SGD moved to 1.35 the same house would cost 104,000 USD. This would bring net cost of a house for a foreigner back to the Aug 2011 levels achieving the same impact as SGD trading at 1.20 against the USD but the exports and services would be only 95,000 USD making Singapore very competitive against other Asian countries plus the 10% revenue that the government earns from the tax could go towards benefitting the residents or tax subsidies to the companies.

So all in all the range I see SGD moving in next few months would be 1.27 to 1.34 against the USD depending on how the global events turn i.e. a 3% move either side of 1.3 mark against the USD

Finance, Forex, Remittances

Forty Breached, What’s Next??

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SGD finally breached the 40 mark against the INR and as anticipated in mid Oct all that was needed was some more chaos in the global financial markets and a move of INR to 52 against the USD and SGD claiming the 1.30 mark. Lots of movement – right?

So the obvious question which would come to mind is where is the pair headed next? Can it stay above the 40 mark? Can it march towards the 45 territory? or is it slated to drop back to 36-38 territory?

INR quickly precipitating to 52.7 mark and RBI not intervening was a surprise, people eagerly waited for an indication from the RBI governor and it finally came in the last week.

In Singapore on the other side  the inflation quickened pace predominantly attributed to weaker SGD but it did help exports.

Now the stage is set for some pullback – RBI governor relaxed rules on how much money the Indian companies could borrow in foreign markets and also increased the interest rates on the NRI accounts. Both the measures should help strengthen the Rupee as more Foreign money flows into India. The Interest Rates are still attractive @ 10% and make the deposits in India a good investment.

MAS on the other hand might let the SGD stay against the current levels to keep growth intact.

I am expecting the INR to slowly ease back to the 50 mark against the USD and SGD to hover in the 1.28 ~ 1.30 range with occasional bouts of spikes to 1.32/1.33 mark.

This should make the SGD INR pair volatile with base rate around 38.75 ~ 39.06 with occasional drops to 37.5.

Yes I am expecting a pull back!

There is an odd chance of INR moving to 55 against the USD if Italy defaults or some odd event happens in Europe. The key here would be the price of Oil for RBI, if the price falls substantially – RBI would not intervene in the market even if the rupee went all the way to 55, but if the current rates of 90$+ continues then RBI would be left with no choice but to sell some dollars and reign in the fuel price fuelled inflation

Finance, Forex, Remittances

If Singapore heads to a Technical Recession what happens to SGD INR??

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Market has been rife about Singapore heading into a technical recession in 3rd Quarter of 2011. Prime Minister has revised the overall growth outlook downwards in the National Day speech and there has been a steady decline in the Electronics Export and other trading activities.

A technical recession occurs when a economy experiences negative growth for 2 consecutive quarters. To spur the economic growth I would expect the fiscal authority to ease out the rise in Singapore dollar to make exports more competetive. Lets look at what happened in  the last technical recession of 2008.

The Singapore dollar depreciated 14% against the USD and moved from 1.35 to 1.54 in a span of 6 months!!

Now what does this mean for SGD-INR that is had a spectacular run of 9% annualised appreaciation in past 4 years?

Simply speaking the SGD INR is a cross pair between SGD-USD and USD-INR therefore a weakening of SGD against USD would result in a decline in SGD – INR. The current USD-INR rate is 46.25 and SGD-USD is at 1.203. To get a better view lets see what happened to USD INR in the same period where SGD fell against the USD

USD – INR moved to 51.5  from 42 in the same time frame which is a gain of 20%.

Scenario 1

Using the two gain numbers of 14% and 20% the USD-SGD pair should move to 1.37 from 1.20 as of today and USD-INR would touch 55.5. The cross rate usinf these calculations would come out to 40.51 for SGD – INR.

I am sure all who have SGD holdings would get all excited seeing the figure, but before getting too excited lets look at other possibilities.

Scenario 2

The INR going beyond 50 mark will spell trouble for the Indian economy specially if the Oil prices remain around the $80 mark and the Reserve bank of India would intervene to stem  the rise. So a possible future rate where the SGD weakens 14% the cross rate would come out to 36.50.

Scenario 3

Another possibility is that the SGD depreciates around 7-8% and moves to the 1.30 mark then SGD INR would be at the 38.46, assuming that INR moves to 50 against the USD which is also the current rate.

Now lets throw in the Interest Rate of 10% for Term Deposits in India – for a 6 month period from the current rate of 38.4 any money invested in India would yield 40.32 in target rate (tax free) which is close to the rates in scenario 1. On a post tax basis the amount would grow to yield 39.74.

So we have the facts lined up and no matter what the scenario is, repatriating money to India makes a lot of sense.

Finance, Remittances

Term Deposit Rates Finally breach the 10% p.a. mark

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Finally the barrier has been breached!! With the latest round of rate hikes by RBI to reign in the inflation the Term Deposit Rates or the Fixed Deposit Rate has gone past the 10% mark.

Karur Vysya Bank is taking 1 to 2 year deposits at the 10% mark – http://www.kvb.co.in/pdf/Term_Deposits/deposits_rates.pdf

And if you like the safety in state backing then State Bank of Travancore (SBT) is your best bet – taking deposits @ 9.6% for deposits as long as 10 years – http://www.statebankoftravancore.com/interests.htm. This is an extremely beneficial proposition. No other banks are taking deposits for more than 2 year time frame and offering the same rates as SBT.

So if you are looking for your money to double then “FIX” it now in a 7 year deposit