Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Ultra low interest rates in certain regions may cause global imbalance

To avoid present financial crisis developed countries like US, Japan, UK and European Countries are keeping ultra low interest rates [0.1% of Japan, 0.25% of US, 0.5% of UK and 0.25% of ECB (deposit) ] and more over governments & central banks of these countries flooding the their respective economies with lot of Quantitative Easing (QE) by printing more money as that is the last resort in monetary policy to boost the economy.

Countries opt for QE which are facing the problem of low inflation or threat of deflation and they might have already substantially lowered the interest rate nearer to Zero. So to boost the money supply in the economy central banks are compelled to print more money and purchase government bonds from different financial institutes like banks and NBFC (Non Banking Financial Services), in turn flooding these financial institutes with lot of cheap money.

Most of the economist and policy makers provide Keynes theory of "General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" basis for their move towards monetary easing and QE.

But Sir John Maynard Keynes proposed this theory in 1930s then world was not so globalized as it is today and world was facing double dip recession or popularly known as The Great Depression mainly due to some bad moves like liquidity tightening by FED and protectionism by global leaders.

Where as now world is more globalized than ever and we are era of "BUTTERFLY EFFECT" of Chaos theory. No country is no longer 100 percent closed economy, so no country can say it is totally delinked from rest of the world. Ultra low interest rates in these countries and QE is flooding their banks with cheap money. And this cheap money is leaking to emerging markets. This "HOT MONEY" is creating its ripple effects in commodity market, emerging country's stock markets and their macro economy.

Commodities like Copper, Silver are trading at their peaks in last 2-3 decades and Gold is trading at all time high.

And hot money from these countries is flowing to emerging markets like there is no tomorrow. For example Indian markets witnessed highest ever inflow of FIIs in September month in last 17 years, from the day FIIs allowed. More than 5 billion dollar hot money flooded in Indian markets boosting Indian markets 13% rise in September. Srilankan stock exchange "Colombo Stock Exchange" has given more than 100% return in one year from sub 7000 levels to 16000 odd levels.

Brazilian currency "Real" is appreciated a whopping 30% from March 2009. Indian currency appreciated almost 7% in last 6 months and currency appreciation is common problem to all emerging markets. Already US-China currency war is on and Brazil is shouting at its full strength.

Due to this their respective central banks will (or would have already started) intervene in forex markets by selling their own currencies leaving their local banks with lot of liquidity. This liquidity is in turn creating a pressure on inflation which is already high in certain countries like China and India.

Ultimately its a "ZERO SUM GAME". In past also lower interest rates in initial parts of 2000 (to avoid ill effects of dot com bubble burst) lead to asset bubble in US which caused present crisis.

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