Fed tapering, my 2 cents worth

The world is looking forward to the US Federal Reserve’s decision to what they should do with their QE program. Well, I am not too bothered whether are cutting US$10 or 15 billion off their current program. This is the current consensus amongst economists. To me this is a non-event. Why? Any form of QE is a stimulus to the economy, whether it be US$1 or 100 billion. The US economy has been trying to recover from the global financial crisis. In fact, the bulk of that money has not been deployed to the real economy and instead sent financial assets to even greater heights.

This is because banks are afraid to lend to the main street firms except the very big names. And these guys do not even need cash in the first place. The Microsofts and Apples of the world have more cash than what they know to do with. In fact, they are borrowing to fund dividend payments at home as they do not want to attract tax should they repatriate their overseas income. This is the irony of the situation. All that hot money created by the Fed is screwing our markets.

Why am I not that concerned? The markets have long taken into account this eventuality. Our stock markets have been doing well due foreign money trying to find a home. In fact, the South East Asian markets have done well. They felt the pinch 3 months ago when these funds pulled back but have since seen fund flows coming back. Be very careful as this might be a very temporary recovery. The US economic recovery is slowly trying to gain ground, but I have not seen very solid numbers backing up a firm economic picture. If you want to know what signals to be watching out for, try non-farm payrolls stripping out all the one offs and window dressing. Events that will cause long term cost of borrowing to rise are indicators that I am watching very carefully.

I am seeing a lot of Chinese money coming in to support medium to large sized property transactions. I will share my observations as to why in the next blog. Quality commercial will be ok for the next couple of quarters but I do hope the government will monitor the residential sector very carefully. Or an unforeseen international economic event might cause mass panic given the exposure of Singaporeans.

For those investing in Singapore and Malaysia, I need to point out to you that both economies are not doing that great and companies will face challenges. Singapore’s non-oil domestic exports are not picking up and the newly elected PM of Malaysia are now contending with reining in the financial excesses pre election. The whole Iskandar region has done well with international money flowing in but deals are slowing drastically. In fact, many sellers have dropped their asking prices for land by as much as 20% in the last 3 months. Invest with your eyes open!

Tomorrow is Mid Autumn, I would like to wish you a Happy Mooncake Festival. This weekend is F1, so do enjoy the glamour and glitz. Many thanks for your many boxes of moon cakes, and I wish you health and wealth.

Till the next blog, take care and God bless!

Your Friend

Andy Ong
18/09/13