Malaysian bond market continues to be vibrant with a deep secondary market having an average daily trading volume of RM5.4bil year-to-date, an increase of 50% compared to the past three-year average of RM3.6bil.
TOKYO: Local emerging-market bonds have had a rough month, roiled by concerns that rising U.S. interest rates mean investors will pull money out of riskier markets to park more cash in the developed world. Those with the highest foreign ownership could be most exposed.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. analysts Mark Ozerov and Kamakshya Trivedi ran the numbers. The following markets were found to have high foreign holding ratios both relative to their peers across developing nations and to their own history:
• South Africa
• Indonesia
• Russia
• Colombia
By contrast, local-currency emerging debt markets that have seen a reduced overseas presence, “suggesting potential ‘catch-up’ space” to the Goldman duo, include:
• Brazil
• Mexico
• Malaysia
• Poland
Average external ownership of local emerging debt, at 22%, is little more than half the 40% for the developed world, and in the longer run, Goldman anticipates that gap will shrink.
Market access is improving in many countries -- China’s reforms are perhaps most notable -- and inflation rates have been coming down, increasingly anchoring price expectations. Goldman also cites a continuing trend of fixed-income diversification and reduced “home bias.”
But for now, “on the margin, higher foreign ownership does imply more sensitivity to a further sell-off in core rates markets,” Ozerov and Trivedi wrote in a note to clients Wednesday. - Bloomberg
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