Precio de dólar bajó al cierre ante menor demanda de inversionistas
El precio del dólar mostró una baja frente al sol al cierre de la sesión cambiaria de hoy, tras situarse en 3.504 soles, en línea con lo ocurrido en los mercados globales, ante una menor demanda de los inversionistas institucionales locales y extranjeros.
Efectivamente, el precio de venta del dólar interbancario (entre bancos) terminó en 3.504 soles, nivel inferior al de la jornada previa de 3.511 soles.
La cotización de venta del dólar en el mercado paralelo o casas de cambio se situó en 3.51 soles en horas de la tarde, mientras que en las ventanillas de los principales bancos se ubicó en 3.57 soles en promedio.
El Banco Central de Reserva (BCR) intervino directamente en el mercado cambiario vendiendo 58 millones de dólares.
Depreciación
En lo que va del 2016 el sol se ha depreciado 2.64 por ciento, teniendo en cuenta que el precio del dólar cerró hoy en 3.504 soles, luego de haber terminado el año pasado en 3.412 soles.
Según el ente emisor, el dólar mostró un nivel mínimo de 3.499 soles y máximo de 3.51 soles en la jornada de hoy, además de un precio promedio de 3.5039 soles. Andina
Publicado el Miércoles, 17 de Febrero del 2016
S&P Downgrades Saudi Arabia For Second Time In 4 Months, Also Cuts Oman, Bahrain
Submitted by Tyler D.
02/17/2016 12:54 -0500
For the second time in four months, S&P has downgraded Saudi Arabia.
In late October, the ratings agency flagged sharply lower oil prices and the attendant fiscal deficit (16% in 2015) on the way to cutting the kingdom to A+ outlook negative.
At the time, S&P projected the deficit would amount to 10% of GDP in 2016. That turned out to be optimistic as the shortfall is now projected to be around 13% and that's assuming crude doesn't fall below $30 and stay there.
Riyadh has cut subsidies in an effort to shore up the books, but between the war in Yemen and defending the riyal peg, there's no stopping the red ink, especially not while the kingdom remains determined to wage a war of attrition with the US shale complex.
Moments ago, S&P downgraded Saudi Arabia again, to A-.
On the bright side, the outlook is now "stable" (chuckle).
* * *
From S&P
Oil prices have fallen further since our last review of Saudi Arabia in October 2015, and we have cut our oil price assumptions for 2016-2019 by about $20 per barrel. In our view, the decline in oil prices will have a marked and lasting impact on Saudi Arabia's fiscal and economic indicators given its high dependence on oil.
We now expect that Saudi Arabia's growth in real per capita GDP will fall below that of peers and project that the annual average increase in the government's debt burden could exceed 7% of GDP in 2016-2019.
We are therefore lowering our foreign- and local-currency sovereign creditratings on Saudi Arabia to 'A-/A-2' from 'A+/A-1'.
The stable outlook reflects our expectation that the Saudi Arabian authorities will take steps to prevent any further deterioration in the government's fiscal position beyond our current expectations.
RATING ACTION
On Feb. 17, 2016, Standard & Poor's Ratings Services lowered its unsolicited long- and short-term foreign- and local-currency sovereign credit ratings on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to 'A-/A-2' from 'A+/A-1'. The outlook is stable.
At the same time, we revised downward our transfer and convertibility (T&C) assessment on Saudi Arabia to 'A' from 'AA-'.
We now anticipate a current account deficit, equivalent to 14% of Saudi GDP in 2016, compared with 6% of GDP in our October review.
* * *
Other Gulf oil producers got the knife as well as Oman and Bahrain were cut to BBB- and junk, respectively.
* S&P: OMAN CUT TO BBB-FROM BBB+; OUTLOOK TO STABLE FROM NEG
* BAHRAIN CUT TO JUNK BY S&P ON LOWER OIL PRICE ASSUMPTIONS
Here's the punchline from S&P: "We do not expect the agreement on Feb. 16 between oil ministers from Qatar, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela to freeze oil output."
We don't either.
Finally, we ask "who knew what yesterday?"
MXN Shorts Crushed After Mexican Central Bank Unexpectedly Hikes Rate By 50bps, Peso Soars
Submitted by Tyler D.
02/17/2016 - 12:29
It was already a torrid day for commodity currencies, among which the MXN, or Mexican Peso, which were surging on today's latest crude short squeeze and then as if pulling a PBOC with just one intention - to crush the shorts - the Mexican Central Bank or Banxico, dealt a crushing blow on anyone short the MXN when it announced an unexpected 50 bps rate hike in the overnight rate to 3.75%.
Quant Fund Carnage: Are Market-Neutral Funds Facing Another August 2007?
Submitted by Tyler D.
02/17/2016 13:05 -0500
For equity market-neutral funds, there is a phrase more chilling than "worst since Lehman" and that is the quant meltdown in "August 2007" that put many funds out of business. While the mainstream media remains focused elsewhere, the last two weeks have seen equity market-neutral funds 'crash' - and today it has gotten much worse - as momentum factors diverge and memories of the 2007 bloodbath come back as this forced unwind drives the current ramp.
As detailed at the time, during the week of August 6, 2007, a number of high-profile and highly successful quantitative long/short equity hedge funds experienced unprecedented losses.
The losses at the time were initiated by the rapid unwinding of one or more sizable quantitative equity market-neutral portfolios.
Given the speed and price impact with which this occurred, it was likely the result of a sudden liquidation by a multi-strategy fund or proprietary-trading desk, possibly due to margin calls or a risk reduction.
These initial losses then put pressure on a broader set of long/short and long-only equity portfolios, causing further losses on August 9th by triggering stop-loss and de-leveraging policies.
It appears more than one quant fund is aggressively deleveraging and/or unwinding...
Chart: Bloomberg
We have been explicitly focused on the HFRXEMN - hedge fund equity market-neutral fund index - since April 2009, warning at the time that the increasingly self-confirming equity trading community was, ultimately, an unsustainable and fragile condition...
As more and more quants focus on trading exclusively with themselves, and the slow and vanilla money piggy backs to low-vol market swings, the aberrations become self-fulfilling. What retail investors fail to acknowledge is that the quants close out a majority of their ultra-short term positions at the end of each trading day, meaning that the vanilla money is stuck as a hot potato bagholder to what can only be classified as an unprecedented ponzi scheme. As the overall market volume is substantially lower now than it has been in the recent past, this strategy has in fact been working and will likely continue to do so... until it fails and we witness a repeat of the August 2007 quant failure events... at which point the market, just like Madoff, will become the emperor revealing its utter lack of clothing.
While quant funds have many factors and many styles, one of the most popular in recent years has been 'Momentum'.
Momentum-trading is the magic-sauce that makes a genius out of every trader in a bull market. The last few years have seen 'strong' momentum stocks drastically outperform 'weak' momentum stocks. However, the last 5 weeks have seen the biggest unwind of this trade since records began... as it is clear that equity market-neutral funds models are blowing up and they are liquidating...
Chart: Bloomberg
And the last 3 days have ravaged it even more as the squeeze bounce has sent every Tom, Dick, and Day-trader piling into the worst of the worst momentum stocks:
Chart: Bloomberg
So while the ramp of the last few days feels great from a headline index perspective, not only is it a squeeze of the "most shorted" stocks but a forced liquidation unwind of Momentum Long/Short funds (i.e. buying back the weakest momo names) has exaggerated the rally. Sooner or later, if this continues, as in Aug 2007, the selling pressure (and liquidity suckout) will systemically weigh on all names.