The sudden devaluation of the ruble did its black deed: frightened Russians began to feed with conversations on the topic “How much the ruble will fall” according to tradition after it fell strongly. So it was at the beginning of 2009, when he fell down for a short time below 36 rubles per dollar. Then the threat of impairment was seriously discussed up to 50 rubles per dollar. Instead, in the next two years, the rate grew up, and in the middle of the last summer for 1 dollar they gave less than 28 rubles. Revaluation instead of devaluation – this is what we got. And not as a result of the action of “free market forces”, which are independent of an independent examination, but thanks to the anti -crisis financial alchemy of the political tops of the leading countries of the world. Which of the financial analysts will take the liberty of saying that he knows better than others what the leaders of the Eurozone countries eventually agree on, how the republicans and democrats in the USA will share the future and what surprises the Russian government prepares? The foreign exchange market and our savings depend on politicians, and politicians do not depend on anyone.
Investment climate
The recent devaluation can only be confidently said that it began at the very end of July and that from then until the first numbers of October, the cost of the dollar increased by almost 18%. Yes, the impairment rate is comparable to the one that was observed at the end of 2008. That’s perhaps all. However, economists are ready to say more about this, but, unfortunately, the same thing. The theme is old, beaten: a bustard investment climate. Business does not believe in the future of Russia, changes rubles to foreign currency and buys assets abroad for it. This leads to the weakness of the ruble.
Among the main reasons for the aggravated nervousness of capital owners, until recently, it was most often called political uncertainty: it is not clear who will go to the presidents, what will be the configuration of power and economic policy on the results of the election. After the September decision to change formal roles in tandem, the formulations of the causes of the suffocating business atmosphere were corrected. Now experts say that Putin’s return will finally beat off love for the homeland from those who hoped to let them creepy, but still liberalization.
And about all this, experts reason in all this seriously, while, according to countless hundreds of request, there was no doubt that it was GDP – the chief chief in our country. What kind of disappointment of investors can we talk about if they always knew, who is who in Russia? It is also surprising how skillfully to the topic of the outflow of capital experts sewed “Case with Kudrin”. Say, we had almost one – the only “hardware weight” advocate of a healthy market economy and there is no one now, after its resignation, to fight for fiscal stability. Yes, the State Duma with silent humility will approve any decision that the authorities will present to her. If so far it has been Kudrin’s hands turned out to be conditionally healthy budgets, then can it really not be able to find another skilled “layout”?
Unfortunately, it just so happened that the resignation of Alexei Kudrin occurred just at the height of the devaluation of the ruble, giving rise to financial analysts once again to console the audience at least an understanding of the causes of what was happening. The problem is that the incorrect interpretation of the reasons leads to incorrect forecasts. We do not undertake to look for the truth, but just ask ourselves as a question: if in Russia the ruble exchange rate for August-early October fell by 18% allegedly due to a worsening invest-climate, why, exactly for the same period, Brazilsky sank by almost 20% of almost 20% real? And why is the Polish zloty depreciated by almost 19%? By the way, these are only some examples.
As for the specifically two of the mentioned currencies, the “climatic” explanation of their devaluation would look like blasphemy. Brazilia global investors have been praising for a breakthrough to market democracy for several years now. And there’s nothing to say about Poland: the country is a member of the EU, democracy and the market, more than enough. By the way, stock indices in Brazil and Poland, according to the MSCI Vagga family of indicators, from the beginning of the year, by October 10, by approximately 25 and 23%, respectively, in China and India, they lost 27%, in Germany – 17%, in Japan – 14 %, and in the USA – a little more than 5%. Against this background, MSCI SSIA Index with its minus of 23% does not seem flawed. In the past two months, our index has really decreased faster than others, but before that, most of the year was more stable, despite the general crying for capital flowing from the country.
Squeezed capital
Note that Russia is not at all like a patient bleeding. The “extra” capital is leaving. So, according to the Central Bank of the Russian Federation, in the first half of the year, a positive balance of account of current operations amounted to $ 56.3 billion. At the same time, the net – outflow of capital – $ 26.4 billion. The first indicator exceeded the second by almost 30 billion, which corresponds to approximately 2% of GDP for 2010. For comparison, in Brazil, the account of the account of current operations is minus $ 25.4 billion, while there was a net – an influx of capital of 67.5 billion. That is, for these two articles, $ 42 billion more came to the country than it took, which is equivalent to … the same 2% of the local GDP!
Meanwhile, our economy is growing faster. According to estimates and forecasts of the IMF, from 2001 to 2010 – GDP of Russia annually added an average of 4.9%, and in 2011-2013 this growth will be 4.1%. The corresponding indicators of the “correct” Brazil are 3.6 and 3.8%, and Poland – 3.9 and 3.4%.
If we talk about the third quarter with its “terrible” outflow of capital from Russia in the amount of $ 18.7 billion, then these figures are almost completely coincided with the amount of reduction in the country’s external debt, which decreased from $ 539 billion to 519 billion to 519 billion On October 1. Increasing foreign assets of Russian business for the specified period practically did not record. Thus, the outflow of capital is easily explained by the natural desire of domestic companies and banks to reduce the debt in foreign currency in anticipation of a possible second wave of global shocks.
So what caused the devaluation of the ruble? We repeat that it began at the very end of July, when it was successful, or, on the contrary, the drama with the ceiling of the public debt in the USA was unsuccessfully resolved and the whole world saw that the political elite of this country still realizes the perniciousness of building up the government by printing money. Soon, from representatives of the American Federal Reserve, a number of statements followed, which they made it clear: everything, there would be no more generous injections of “drawn” dollars into the financial system. But a significant proportion of global investors relied precisely on QE3, the third round of quantitative softening, remembering that the two previous ones provoked a rally in the market of risky assets – both currencies and securities. In other words, too many stood up “against the dollar”, and the appearance of signs of coagulation of the QE program led to the mass closing of such positions. The result is widespread depreciation of currencies in relation to the dollar.
How far it can go, only guys from the upper echelons of the authorities of three or four key countries of the world know. And in Russia one knows this – the only person who will decide what we need is a stable ruble for general calm or weak to support domestic exporters. And you and I know that in mid -October of this year, only about 6% more than 10 years ago gave only 1 dollar rubles for 1 dollar rubles. It’s like if since then the dollar has been strengthened every year to the ruble by an average of only 0.6%. Meanwhile, in Russian banks, stakes on urgent deposits in rubles, as a rule, exceed deposits in foreign currency by 2-3, or even 4 percentage points. So percentage income easily interrupts long -term microdivalvation.
