The SGD strengthened to 1.4150 against USD overnight and that has pushed SGD INR to 48.02 mark. I am expecting INR to strengthen when the Indian markets open around 11:30 am Singapore time.
If you are looking to transfer money today then the next 2 hours is a good time using DBS Remit. The offered rate is 47.57 and is expected to fall down once the Indian markets open.
Disclaimer: These are my views and not investment/financial advice. I bear no responsibility for any decisions made by readers.
Its been a few months since I wrote about the pair as most of the discussions were in comments to previous posts, but today’s MAS decision warranted a new post.
There were ripe speculations that MAS is going to ease the monetary policy (which it did) and Singapore is headed for a technical recession. The economy expanded by a modest 0.1% much against the consensus of a contraction of 0.1%. The immediate impact on the exchange rate was a modest gain from 1.4025 overnight to 1.3960 as I write.
One would question that why has SGD strengthened even though the policy has been slightly eased? There are various factors at play:
MAS will continue with the policy of a modest and gradual appreciation of the Singapore Dollar Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (S$NEER) policy band. However, the rate of appreciation will be reduced slightly. There will be no change to the width of the policy band and the level at which it is centered, saying it would seek to slow the pace of the local dollar’s gains versus its trading partners.
Both Malaysia and Indonesia are key trading partners for Singapore and a greater than 5% jump in their currencies diluted any chance of SGD depreciation. The intent of MAS Is clear – it wants SGD to be slightly stronger than its trading partners.
Now if one looks at INR it appreciated very quickly in after the US job reports from the comfort that no fed hike is on the cards. It was good news for FII’s who can pump money in Indian Bonds and earn good interest rate. Many mistake this as FII investment in India because if one looks at the economic indicators they don’t look very good – be it industrial production. agriculture produce or job growth.
I have said this many times and would repeat again – the sooner INR falls towards 70 the better it is for India. The Indian exports are declining due to competition from other countries with weaker currencies and the day fed hikes the interest rate INR could dip 2-3% overnight and that is not a pleasant shock for the economy.
Anyway for now no major events are scheduled in the coming months other that the results of the BIHAR elections. I believe irrespective of the outcome the Rupee is scheduled to fall post-election results. If BJP wins there would be a knee jerk appreciation which will fizzle out as the economic data and realities will take center stage. If BJP looses then Rupee would immediately fall from a sentiment perspective.
So for the next few weeks I expect SGD INR to be range bound between 46-48.
As expected, MAS held off any more easing as the GDP numbers were better than expected, SGD quickly jumped back to below 1.36 and I expect it to go below 1.35 in days to come.
There are 2 very interesting and informative info graphics that were published in Business Times on 12th and 13th April that I am sharing with every one who are interested to know how does NEER work and monetary policy is administered.
Rupee is Overvalued and should depreciate – something I have been saying for 3-4 months now but for lack of time had not been able to do some research and share with everyone my thoughts behind the my assertion.
Reading the newspaper today I read Chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian’s view as told to Economic Times,
“I think we have to be opportunistic, when there is a chance to allow it to drift down maybe a little bit it drift down but when lot of capital is coming in intervene to keep it stable,” Subramanian had said. “I agree that there is a part of the community out there that wants a strong exchange rate, but that would be very detrimental to our exports”
The rupee has been stable against the dollar but has appreciated against a basket of currencies, severely effecting the exports competitiveness. India’s exports declined for third month running in February. Rupee has appreciated 22.4% against the euro in the current financial year. On a trade-weighted basis, and after adjusting for inflation, in February rupee was the rupee was over 24% overvalued against a basket of currencies of India’s six largest trade partners.
The below table shows the performance of Indian currency against major currencies and the Rupee has strengthened against every currency other than USD and Chinese Yuan, the direct impact of this strengthening is that exports to these countries be it Software, Services or Goods all become less competitive
Now lets look at the competition – Countries that export goods and services to the nations above – big ones being Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, Russia, South Africa and the currency of all these countries have depreciated against Indian Rupee giving an advantage to competition.
I think it’s a perfect time for India to weaken the Rupee while Oil remains low to boost competitiveness of exports and fill up our foreign exchange reserves. At the same time build oil reserves so that even when oil prices move up we don’t have to strengthen the currency in tandem to prevent the outflow of petro dollars.
The much talked about interest rate cut finally happened today. RBI Governor keeping true to his character surprised the markets with an earlier than expected cut taking India on a path different from Russia and Brazil where central banks have increased the benchmark rates in the past few weeks.
I must say it’s a brilliant move by the Governor to put the ball back into Finance Ministers court and push for structural fiscal reforms in the upcoming budget. The general sentiment has been that the higher rates are keeping India from growing which overshadows the fundamental issues of red tape, poor infrastructure and wastage in public expenditure.
The sustained fall in oil prices (thank Russia for occupying Crimea) has given India the much-needed window to push through reforms without being worried about stroking uncontrolled inflation.
The question is that will this rate cut and structural reforms be enough to achieve the targeted growth? No, absolutely not. The other key factor, which should not be ignored, is the exchange rate of the rupee against other currencies. To recap the last year – Rupee has oscillated between 58 and 63.5 against the US dollar (I use USD as a benchmark because the other rates are nothing but a cross rate). The fall in rupee has been less pronounced as compared to its Asian peers like the Malaysian Ringgit, Indonesian Rupiah, Singapore Dollar, Korean Won etc. On the global front, the Yen, Euro and Pound have also dropped sharply against the USD resulting in net gains by the Rupee against these currencies as well.
While the gains in Rupee boost the feel good factor about the India story – is a sustained gain in Rupee the right thing for the Indian economy? My take is that RBI would not let Rupee gain beyond the 62 mark to keep the exports competitive. There was evidence of this when RBI was seen buying dollars in the last week when Rupee gained sharply. With a generally weaker Rupiah, Ringgit, Peso and Riel the Indian exports would face tough competition in areas like garments, IT services, food grains and other manufacturing. Also with Euro and Pound weakening the demand from European countries would decline if the goods are not priced competitively.
With crude oil staying below 50, I think RBI would target the Rupee around 65 against the USD (at-least that’s would I would do, if I were the RBI governor). That would be a roughly 5% decline from the current levels and will bring it at par with other countries with export competitiveness. A sharp gain in the currency would negate any benefit that the lower oil prices would have and I don’t think the RBI or the finance minister would want that.
We should not forget that infrastructure reforms do not happen overnight and take years to fully have the desired impact.
What would that do to SGD INR – 45 mark would remain as the strong support for the pair with upside of Rs.50, but of-course remitting money to India and investing in NRE deposits would always remain a good option.
Ever since the Prime Minister Modi came to power the feel good factor about Indian economy and India has increased dramatically. All Indians, including me, are rooting for improved Indian economy – infrastructure reforms, streamlining of tax code, improved law and order and not to forget getting back the black money stashed in overseas accounts. The expectation also is for the Rupee to strengthen as reforms kick in and help kick-start the much-anticipated economic growth.
The past few months have seen the pair oscillating between the 46-49 range and the volatility in the forex markets has been nothing short of a roller coaster ride. The pair dropped all the way to 46.5 after the elections and bumped back up towards 49 only to test 46.5 again as the oil prices slid in the international markets (I was expecting a 45 floor as mentioned in replies to questions in the previous post).
INR has weakened against the USD to 63 as I had written earlier in (SGD INR: Post Election Euphoria) but interestingly SGD has also weakened in tandem. At one point in time the fall in SGD was greater as compared to INR and caused SGD INR to test 46.5.
Oil has fallen dramatically in the past few weeks and raised concerns of Central Banks not being able to meet their inflation targets prompting talk about monetary easing. A falling oil is good for India’s Forex reserves which has lent some support to the Rupee. On the other hand though the market sentiment remained weak as India’s trade deficit widened to one-and-a-half year high of $16.86 billion in November due to over six-fold jump in gold imports. Trade deficit in November last year was $9.57
billion.
The key events in play as I write are:
Falling oil prices can make the FED hold on to rate hike and also bring strength to SGD as the safe haven theory comes back into play. My expectation is for the Singapore Dollar to appreciate back to sub 1.30 level and Indian rupee to move upto 65 level which would bring the SGD INR back at the magical 50 mark in time for Singapore’s 50th birthday
Time flies and it’s already June – I can’t believe that the last I wrote about INR was in February and whole world was speculating on the outcome of the Indian elections. I did not expect the BJP to win with a full majority given the polarisation of votes, combined with regional politics and was expecting a hung parliament.
Based on that I had predicted that the Rupee would fall back to the 63 mark against the USD and 50 against the SGD (SGD INR: A storm in making). However, to my delight, the BJP did get a full majority. This meant that the uncertainty of a hung parliament and issues cropping up from coalition government were instantly non issues.
The markets reacted favorably to a government formed by progressive and reform oriented leaders and pushed the Indian Sensex to all time highs of over 25,000 and Rupee appreciated quite quickly to the Rs.58 mark against the USD. With many a Indians residing in foreign countries who remit money to India the obvious question was – Is the rupee headed to 55 against USD and should I transfer money to India now?
My answer to many such questions was – “the fundamentals of the economy don’t change overnight just with a stable government and the real effect of policy changes would take months to materialise and I still expect Rupee to stay over the 60 mark against the USD”
One of the first places to start when looking at fundamentals is Implied Exchange Rate calculation. Over the past years the spot rate has tended towards the Implied Rate Line (chart below: using SGD INR)
and the calculation suggests that the SGD INR would move back towards the upward trending implied exchange rate line as the RBI is going to hold the interest rates steady – the inflation is still alarmingly high.
Other factors that would be playing against the Indian Rupee would be:
1. Crop losses due to el Nino weather changes
2. Increase in price of crude if the tensions in Iraq escalate
3. Global slow down in the background Ukraine crisis and escalation in South China sea
As I write the Indian rupee has already crossed the 60 mark against the USD and 48 against the SGD and I maintain that the INR would move towards the 63 and 50 mark against the USD and SGD in coming months.
SGD INR has been holding strong over the past few weeks and even though INR has appreciated roughly 10% against the USD the appreciation against SGD has been roughly 5%.
Historic lows were 69 and 53 against USD and SGD and the currency trades at 62.5 and 50 as I write. SGD has shown stregnth as with its safe haven appeal.
The Long term implied rate for SGD INR tracks at 47 mark. Looking at long term trends the spot exchange rates tend to track back towards the long term implied rates.
In the short term I expect the pair to hover around the Rs, 50 mark with the direction being decided based on international events.
The US debt and budget talks finally reached a resolution yesterday, the congress passed the bill and the much feared US default was averted and the financial markets breathed a sigh of relief. Interestingly the Indian Rupee has been pretty flat both pre and post the US saga.
The drop to 69 against the USD on 28 August was the low point for the Rupee and it steadily regained lost ground in September (Rupee Doing a Bungee Jump – Time to bounce back?) and hovers around 61 as I write.
I often ask myself what has really changed in the past month but can’t find a fundamental reason for the pull back. My take is that it was a technical pull back with Rupee being oversold. Yes one could say that RBI got a new Governor in Raghuram Rajan and that helped Rupees cause, but if changing governors could help the Rupee strengthen by 15% then maybe RBI should abandon monetary policies and use governors to set the direction of the currency :).
Looking at the fundamentals nothing really has changed in the past 2 months – RBI did come up with a FCNR scheme, increase the duty on import of Gold and television sets and a benchmark rate increase. The FCNR scheme is reported to attract 10 billion USD in deposits which would add no more than 3% to the foreign currency reserves. The increase in duty on gold has got the premium over spot soaring in indian markets and made gold smuggling attractive and the increase in duty on television sets has made travel to Thailand and Singapore less attractive – believe it or not bringing in television sets from overseas trips was a great way of subsidizing foreign travel.
On the policy front nothing really has changed in India and no progress is expected until after the next elections in 2014. On the global front there is still a lot of uncertainty and the fear of Quantitative Easing (QE) taper is still there. The general consensus is for no taper before late march 2014 but its an event that will happen sooner or later.
With all the uncertainty and political wrangling I expect the Rupee to remain directionless to the year-end.
63 should act as the pivot against the USD with a variation of 5% either side – a range of 60-65 would be the order. However against the SGD things should be slightly different with 50 acting as a strong magnet.
Now don’t tell me you haven’t wondered if SGD can fetch 50 Rupees per dollar 🙂 and I have to admit that with the current rupee weakness it does not look like a impossible number to achieve.
What’s transpired in past 2 months is nothing short of shocking…personally I never thought that the INR could go past the 60 mark against the US Dollar but then I did not expect the Indian Government to bring in the food security bill, in its current format either, which would cost 3.8% of GDP.
The GDP has already been shrinking and GDP growth is estimated to be well below the 6.5% mark as targeted earlier. With rampant red tape blocking foreign investment, tax evasion and upcoming elections the picture doesn’t look to change dramatically in the near future.
On 8th July the rupee breached the 61 mark against the USD and forced the RBI to step in with measures to stem the fall. Since then rupee has stayed below the 60 mark with a weak undertone.
On the other hand the Singapore economy posted a 3.7% growth for the second quarter of 2013. It was more than 15% growth on a quarter by quarter basis. The results looked good but the guidance does not suggest that the trend would continue.
In the meantime, to moderate the housing market, the Singapore government has come up with total Debt Servicing framework which promotes prudent borrowing practices. The SGD in the same time touched 1.28 and has sea-sawed between 1.25-1.28 mark.
So here is what I think is going to happen – The Singapore dollar would weaken towards the 1.30 mark against the USD. This would do well for the Singapore’s exports and the tourism industry. With the weakening of SGD there are rumours that the borrowing rates would slowly increase to keep the housing markets in check. I personally feel that the debt servicing framework is the first step to ensure residents don’t over leverage while buying a property and get in trouble when the interest rates move up.
So as always million dollar question remains what happens to the SGD INR 🙂
My take is that with INR at 60 and RBI showing resolve to not let is fall below and SGD hovering around the 1.26-1.27 mark the mean price for SGD would remain at 47. If the SGD weakens to 1.30 as expected and Rupee settles at 58 SGD INR should march back below the 45 mark.
However if the RBI measures fail to have an impact the Rupee could weaken to 63 against the USD, mainly on account of rising oil prices which are the biggest drain on India’s foreign reserve. If that scenarios plays out then their is little to stop the SGD INR to touch the 50 mark.
However if I look at the Big MC Index the Rupee is undervalued by almost 60% using the purchasing power parity – more on that another day
Aditya Ladia 