Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Western world QE is causing bubbles



QE is causing hot money to flow into foreign bonds. Here are two examples, foreign investors as of the end of July held 27% of Indonesia's local-currency government debt compared to 6% a year ago and 18% of Malaysia's local-currency government debt compared to 10% a year ago. According to today's Wall Street Journal story, the Asian Development Bank reported that foreigners are taking an ever bigger chunk of debt issued in local currencies. U.S. investors, in particular, figure they can make money in two ways—on relatively high interest rates on emerging-market debt, and on any weakness in the USD. In all honesty, it's not just foreign bonds, QE is causing hot money to flow everywhere, especially commodities. What they call reflation in the U.S., UK, Japan and any other country that goes down the path of QE can and will end up as inflation in emerging countries.

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