Currencies
21 May 2019
(May 21): The Singapore dollar is poised to weaken further as the escalating trade war between the world’s two largest economies weighs down growth in the export-dependent city-state.
Poor export data that landed Friday underscore the downward pressure on the currency’s nominal effective exchange rate, which has quietly crept away from the upper end of the band that monetary policy makers ...
SINGAPORE (Mar 11): Citigroup Inc. is planning to join UBS AG with an electronic currency trading and pricing platform in Singapore, setting up systems to boost liquidity in Asia’s biggest foreign-exchange hub.
Singapore will become the fourth FX trading engine location for Citi, which also has systems set up in Tokyo, New York and London, the bank said in a statement Monday.
“The ...
(Mar 4): The end of the US-China trade war may throw up a surprise winner among Asia-Pacific currencies other than yuan: the Singapore dollar.
While traders have highlighted the Australian dollar, the Korean won or the Taiwan dollar as beneficiaries of a truce given the nations’ direct economic reliance on China, one metric shows that the Singapore dollar has the strongest link to the yuan ...
(Oct 11): Wall Street is bracing for the prospect that the US uses this month’s semiannual foreign-exchange report to label China a currency manipulator, escalating the trade standoff between the two nations at a time when rising bond yields are already denting riskier assets.
The scenario is viewed as possible -- though not probable -- given the yuan has tumbled more than 9% against the ...
(Oct 1): With little prospect of a restart for US-China trade talks, JPMorgan Chase & Co. now expects an escalation in tensions that will see higher American tariffs on all Chinese imports, sending the yuan sliding to its weakest against the dollar in more than a decade.
“JPMorgan has adopted a new baseline that assumes a US-China endgame involving 25% US tariffs on all Chinese goods in ...
(Sept 7): What’s the safe level of public debt for Indonesia?
That’s the debate raging in Indonesia as politicians ratchet up the tension ahead of campaigning for next year’s presidential election.
The currency’s selloff to levels not seen since the 1997-98 Asian financial crisis is only intensifying the political wrangling as President Joko Widodo’s opponents blame his debt-binge ...
JAKARTA (Sept 4): Caviar, chocolate and stretch limousines could get a whole lot more expensive in Indonesia as the government steps up efforts to curb imports and halt a sliding currency.
Authorities will publish a list of goods as early as Wednesday that will carry higher import taxes. About 900 goods were reviewed, including basic items like coffee, tea, ice cream, sausages, and ...
SINGAPORE (Sept 3): Fund managers are worrying that the worst has yet to come in Argentina’s peso crisis as big names in the bond market continue to take a beating, according to the Financial Times.
Based on FT calculations, funds of Franklin Templeton have lost US$1.23 billion ($1.7 billion) on just three of its biggest Argentine positions over the past two weeks.
The US ...
(Aug 28): Singapore’s dollar is approaching the upper boundary of its trading band as speculation mounts that the central bank will boost the exchange rate for a second time this year to combat inflation.
The currency last week reached a record high against a basket of major trading partners’ currencies, based on HSBC Holdings Plc’s model of the Monetary Authority of Singapore’s ...
(Aug 17): Malaysia's central bank said on Friday exporters will no longer be obligated to convert most of their proceeds into ringgit, relaxing a rule introduced in 2016 to boost onshore trading of the currency.
Bank Negara Malaysia also said it will allow companies more flexibility for hedging of foreign currency obligations and allow non-resident corporations to trade in ...