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Senin, 26 Desember 2011 | 11:53 oleh Dyah Megasari, Bloomberg
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S&P umumkan review downgrade 15 negara Januari mendatang
kontan

LONDON. Standard & Poor’s dikabarkan bakal mengumumkan hasil review terhadap peringkat utang 15 negara zona Eropa Januari mendatang. Berita ini diperoleh dari sumber pemerintahan Eropa yang mengetahui secara langsung rencana lembaga S&P.

“Lembaga pemeringkat sudah mengisyaratkan itu,” jelas sumber yang enggan disebut namanya. Masih dari sumber yang sama, ia hanya dibolehkan memberi informasi ini pada negaranya. Meskipun 15 negara dinyatakan tengah di bawah pengawasan dan akan mendapat keputusan dalam waktu bersamaan.

6 Desember 2011, lembaga pemeringkat kelas dunia ini menegaskan tak ragu melakukan down grade secara massal dan belum pernah terjadi sebelumnya. Pemangkasan peringkat menjadi keputusan bulat jika para pemimpin Uni Eropa gagal memberikan solusi krisis keuangan yang menjangkiti kawasan.

S&P memberi sinyal, pengumuman akan rilis tak lama setelah KTT Uni Eropa berakhir.

Kamis, 22 Desember 2011 | 09:22 WIB
Rencana Pelonggaran Likuiditas Eropa Lemahkan Euro

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta – Euro kembali tergelincir terhadap dolar setelah Bank Sentral Eropa mengumumkan rencana pertama pinjaman jangka panjang untuk menguatkan permintaan obligasi Eropa. Mata uang euro turun dari posisi tertingginya di US$ 1,3198 ke level US$ 1,3023. Namun, pagi ini, euro ditransaksikan pada level US$ 1,3049.

Indeks dolar AS terhadap enam mata uang utama dunia dalam perdagangan New York semalam menguat 0,14 poin (0,18 persen) ke level 80,022. Namun, di pasar Asia hari ini, indeks dolar AS turun tipis 0,014 persen ke level 80,008.

Mata uang tunggal Uni Eropa itu jatuh setelah 523 bank di kawasan Eropa meminta pinjaman selama tiga tahun kepada Bank Sentral Eropa senilai 489 miliar euro (US$ 641 miliar). Pinjaman ini dikenal sebagai Longer-Term Refinancing Operations (LTROs).

Besarnya nilai pinjaman dari perbankan Eropa ini menimbulkan kekhawatiran bahwa bank akan menumpuk uangnya dalam kegiatan carry trade (meminjam uang dalam mata uang yang berbunga rendah dan mengalihkan ke dalam mata uang yang berimbal hasil tinggi). Yakni dari euro yang suku bunganya turun untuk membeli aset-aset dalam mata uang yang berimbal hasil lebih tinggi.

“Inti dari permasalahan ini adalah ke mana uang dengan bunga rendah ini akan dihabiskan,” kata Chris Fernandes, penasihat pelanggan corporate valas dari Bank of West. “Sebenarnya langkah ini positif untuk menambah likuiditas di zona Eropa, tetapi masih adanya harapan turunnya suku bunga ECB membuat euro kembali terpuruk terhadap dolar AS,” ujarnya. Pada dasarnya, kebijakan yang dilakukan bank sentral ini untuk mendorong pelonggaran kuantitatif.

Fernandes menilai hal itu merupakan quantitative easing (pelonggaran kuantitatif). Langkah ini bisa menjadi sentimen negatif bagi euro karena pasar akan kebanjiran likuiditas. “Tapi jika Anda melihat turunnya imbal hasil obligasi jangka panjang Italia dan Spanyol akan positif bagi euro,” ujarnya.

Direktur bagian suku bunga dan strategi TD Securities, Richard Gilhooly, mengungkapkan, investor pasang posisi beli saat ada rumor dan jual euro setelah faktanya keluar, membuat mata uang Eropa kembali melemah ke US$ 1,3.

Investor dan bank membeli agunan utang dan lainnya untuk menerima pinjaman dana murah dari Bank Sentral Eropa selama tiga tahun. “Pinjaman tiga tahun ini tidak akan sampai bulan Februari mendatang, namun kita telah melihat aksi ambil untung di euro,” kata Richard.

MARKETWATCH | VIVA B K

World GDP

Dec 20th 2011, 21:33 by The Economist Online

THE world’s recovery from recession is slowing, according to The Economist’s measure of global GDP, based on 52 countries. Third-quarter growth expanded by 3.6% across the world, down by 1.5% from the same period in 2010. The last 12 months have seen the developing world expand at about 7%. Developed countries, meanwhile, have been dragging their heels, weighed down by the euro crisis. Qatar and Ghana are predicted to be the fastest growers of 2011, with GDP increases of 19% and 14% respectively. At the other end of the spectrum, war-torn Libya and debt-laden Greece will both shrink by around 5-6%. In absolute terms, the world will produce $70 trillion worth of goods and services in 2011, according to IMF forecasts, up from $63 trillion in 2010. Around two-thirds of this will come from developed economies, a proportion that will shrink over time.

DECEMBER 21, 2011, 2:03 P.M. ET

Euro-Zone Banks Tap Big ECB Loans
By DAVID ENRICH

Hundreds of euro-zone lenders took out a total of €489.19 billion ($639.96 billion) in low-interest loans from the European Central Bank on Wednesday, as the currency area extended a massive financial lifeline to its struggling banking industry.

The ECB said 523 banks borrowed under the central bank’s newly activated three-year lending facility. The unexpectedly heavy demand for the loans highlighted the severity of the funding crisis, but simultaneously stirred hopes that the rescue will help defuse Europe’s two-year financial crisis—or at least prevent it from getting worse.

European Banks took €490 Billion from the European Central Bank’s Long Term Refinancing Operation. Could this provide the turning point in the euro-zone crisis? Simon Nixon and Geoffrey Smith discuss the latest developments.

Through the loan program, the Frankfurt-based ECB is trying to address a crucial weakness in the euro zone’s financial system. Nervous investors have essentially stopped lending to banks, fearful of their heavy holdings of government bonds and other assets that appear to be at growing risk of default.

If the dry spell persists into 2012, it could become a major problem. European banks face more than €700 billion in debt maturing next year, including more than €200 billion in the first three months, according to regulators and analysts.

ECB officials had feared that without intervention, many banks would cut lending to small businesses and households, strangling Europe’s already weak economy. The three-year loans, another batch of which will be available in February, are intended to avert such a scenario.

“It’s much better to have this funding locked in rather than praying the market reopens,” said John Raymond, an analyst with CreditSights in London. “I don’t think you can say it’s a game-changer…but it sort of slows down the vicious circle.”

The loan program appears to be the ECB’s main weapon, at least for now, in combating Europe’s crisis. The central bank has resisted pressure from politicians and market participants to aggressively buy euro-zone government bonds, arguing that such a move is outside its purview. But if the ECB eases fears about the Continent’s banks, that would go a long way toward relieving anxiety about many countries’ overall financial health.

Still, the lofty hopes of some leaders might be disappointed. Politicians including French President Nicolas Sarkozy have floated the concept of banks using the new ECB cash to snap up government bonds in financially shaky countries, where lackluster demand for their bonds in recent months has pushed their borrowing costs to unsustainable levels. But bankers and analysts play down the odds of that happening on a large scale, given the perceived riskiness of such bonds.

And the loan program isn’t without risks. Some experts and regulators worry that banks are growing even more addicted to central-bank assistance, making it harder for them to eventually stand on their own. At the same time, the loan program encourages banks in countries like Spain and Italy to grow even more entangled with their national governments—a phenomenon that has fueled today’s crisis.
Related Reading

Heard on the Street: ECB Buys Itself a Quiet Christmas

While the banks on Wednesday borrowed €489.19 billion, much of that was simply replacing other outstanding ECB loans that were coming due. Analysts estimated that Wednesday’s loans injected about €190 billion of new liquidity into the banking system.

Some experts said Wednesday’s ECB lending isn’t likely to fully quench European banks’ immediate funding needs. Nick Matthews, an economist at the Royal Bank of Scotland, said European banks face about €230 billion of debt maturing in the first three months of 2012 alone.

“This operation is not going to cover all the maturities,” he said.

Another €250 billion of European government bonds also need to be refinanced in the first quarter.

Traditionally, banks satisfied much of their day-to-day financing needs by issuing unsecured bonds to institutional investors around the world. But the market for such debt largely evaporated in July, when Europe’s crisis intensified. Investors haven’t regained their appetite.

In the second half of 2011, European banks have issued about €80 billion of senior unsecured bonds, according to data provider Dealogic. That compares with €240 billion in the same period last year and €257 billion in 2009.

So far, that hasn’t been an acute problem. Most banks satisfied the bulk of their 2011 funding needs in the first half of the year. They have been able to close any gaps by issuing safe but expensive secured bonds or by borrowing on a short-term basis from the ECB.

The decision by the ECB’s new president, Mario Draghi, to offer an unlimited supply of three-year loans reflects the growing recognition among regulators and bankers possibility that funding markets could remain shut well into the new year. If banks can’t replace their maturing debts, they are likely to compensate by reducing lending and other activities.

The ECB’s loans are attractive largely because of their price. The ECB will charge an interest rate that is the average of its benchmark rate over the three-year life of the loans. That rate is currently 1%. It’s likely to remain well below what most banks would have to pay to borrow from market sources.

The ECB didn’t disclose which banks borrowed under the new program, hoping to shield them from any potential stigma associated with the loans. “It appears that a very large majority of the large financial institutions” in Europe participated, said Laurence Mutkin, head of European interest-rate strategy at Morgan Stanley. “They’ve taken a lot of their issuance needs out of the market.”

One of the few banks to publicly confirm its participation was Italy’s second-largest lender, Intesa Sanpaolo SpA, which said it borrowed €12 billion. Ireland’s finance ministry said its banks also participated.

The loan program could further entwine the fortunes of Europe’s banks and governments.

In Spain on Tuesday, the government sold €5.6 billion of bonds in an auction that saw interest rates dive to 1.7% from 5.1% a month earlier. That is a sign of surging demand, which analysts say most likely stemmed from small and midsize Spanish banks buying the bonds in order to use them as collateral for this week’s ECB loans.

Such a trade could prove lucrative for the banks, given the considerable gap between the interest rates the Spanish bonds generate and the amount the banks are paying to borrow from the ECB. But it also means that Spanish banks are even more vulnerable to the Spanish government’s financial woes.

A similar phenomenon occurred in Italy. Fourteen banks this week issued a total of €38.4 billion of government-guaranteed bonds that will be eligible to serve as collateral with the ECB, according to a document released on Wednesday by the Italian stock exchange.

Those banks already have seen their stocks and bonds battered this year by investors who worry that they are holding excessive quantities of potentially risky Italian government debt.

“The bank-sovereign nexus still has not been successfully broken and if anything is being reinforced,” said Mr. Matthews, the RBS economist.
Zona Euro Setujui Tambahan “Bail Out” 150 Miliar Euro
| Tri Wahono | Selasa, 20 Desember 2011 | 04:34 WIB

BRUSSELS, KOMPAS.com — Pemerintah 17 negara zona euro, Senin (19/12/2011), setuju untuk menambahkan dana talangan atau bail out sebesar 150 miliar euro atau setara 195 miliar dollar AS kepada Dana Moneter Internasional (IMF).

Seperti dilaporkan AFP, negara-negara Uni Eropa masih berupaya mencapai target sebesar 200 miliar euro yang telah ditetapkan para pemimpin Uni Eropa pada pertemuan puncak 9 Desember 2011 lalu. Semua negara Uni Eropa secara implisit akan berpartisipasi untuk mengakhiri krisis dengan melaksanakan target yang telah dirancang.

Hanya Inggris yang menolak untuk turut berpartisipasi memberikan dana bantuan tersebut. Dalam konferensi jarak jauh yang berlangsung 3,5 jam, Menteri Keuangan Inggris George Osborne menyatakan bahwa Otoritas Keuangan Inggris tidak akan memberikan kontribusi apa-apa untuk bantuan yang hanya bisa dipakai negara-negara di zona euro.

Sumber Pemerintah Inggris menambahkan, “Juga kita tidak akan berpartisipasi dalam peningkatan sumber daya IMF yang hanya berasal dari negara-negara Uni Eropa tanpa partisipasi negara-negara G-20 lainnya di luar Uni Eropa.”
Sumber :
ANT, AFP

LONDON, Dec 19, 2011 (AFP)
European Union ministers will ask Britain to contribute 30.9 billion euros towards an International Monetary Fund (IMF) package aimed at rescuing the single currency, the Daily Telegraph reported Monday.

Britain will be asked for the cash injection, equivalent to $40.3 billion, when European finance ministers hold talks over the 200-billion-euro fund later Monday, an EU official told the Telegraph.

If Britain agrees, it would be the second biggest contributor to the package behind Germany and level with France.

However, British Prime Minister David Cameron, who blocked plans for EU treaty changes aimed at saving the currency, has repeatedly promised not to directly fund a bailout kitty.

Britain is already liable for 14.3 billion euros of loans and guarantees to Greece, Ireland and Portugal.

With several members of the 17-strong eurozone, of which Britain is not a part, under threat of credit rating downgrades, the key focus of the telephone conference will be boosting coffers to enable the new fund to come to the aid of floundering economies.

A government source told AFP on condition of anonymity that the so-called Eurogroup ministers will from around 1500 GMT “discuss what happens after the European summit of December 8 and 9″ on saving the eurozone.

At that summit, member countries announced plans to pump 200 billion euros into the warchest.

Eurozone members were to provide about three quarters, and other EU countries the rest. The aim was to allow the Washington-based IMF to come to the aid of eurozone countries in trouble, and the summit gave leaders 10 days to work out the details.

The eurosceptic wing of Cameron’s Conservative Party is urging their leader to resist attempts to make Britain pay towards any bailout of heavily-indebted eurozone nations.

“We did not agree any increase in bilateral resources last week,” a spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron said Friday. “We made very clear in that meeting that we were not contributing to that 200 billion euros.”

BRUSSELS, Dec 18, 2011 (AFP)
Eurozone finance ministers will hold talks on the debt crisis on Monday to flesh out plans made at a Brussels summit this month to save the European currency.

With several members under threat of credit rating downgrades, a key focus of the telephone conference will be boosting International Monetary Fund (IMF) coffers to enable it to come to the aid of floundering economies.

A government source told AFP on condition of anonymity that the so-called Eurogroup ministers will from around 1500 GMT “discuss what happens after the European summit of December 8 and 9″ on saving the eurozone.

European Union members who are not part of the monetary union will also take part.

At the recent summit, which saw Britain block plans for EU treaty change to save the currency, member countries announced plans to pump 200 billion euros ($260 billion) into an IMF warchest.

Eurozone members were to provide about three quarters, and other EU countries the rest. The aim was to allow the Washington-based institution to come to the aid of eurozone countries in trouble, and the summit gave leaders 10 days to work out the details.

Several countries have agreed to the move in principle, without saying how much they would be willing to contribute. Belgium has promised 9.5 billion euros, Denmark 5.4 billion euros and Sweden 11 billion euros.

But non-euro country Britain has refused to take part.

“We did not agree any increase in bilateral resources last week. We made very clear in that meeting that we were not contributing to that 200 billion euros,” a spokesman for Prime Minister David Cameron said Friday.

European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi said he was saddened by the spat between Britain and the rest of the EU over London’s refusal to join the fiscal package to solve the bloc’s debt crisis.

“Britain certainly has shown a capacity to undertake a fiscal correction of an extraordinary size,” Draghi said in an interview to be published in Monday’s Financial Times.

“My more general reaction to all this is that it’s sad. I think the UK needs Europe and Europe needs the UK.”

On December 7, ratings agency Standard and Poor’s placed major EU economies on watch for downgrades of their AAA credit ratings.

Fitch Ratings expressed doubt Friday that an envisaged European budget discipline pact would solve the debt crisis and warned it may soon downgrade six countries, including Spain and Italy.

All EU states except Britain agreed last week to draft a strict pact with penalties to ensure they cut budget deficits and reduce their debt, aiming to get it drafted and signed by March.

The pact will also be on the agenda Monday, as will Europe’s future bailout fund, the European Stability Mechanism (ESM).

British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg sought Sunday to draw a line under a row with France that erupted after the Brussels summit when the French central bank governor and senior ministers suggested rating agencies should be mulling a debt downgrade of Britain rather than France.

“It’s always a bit of a tug of war relationship, but history shows that France and Britain always do best when we pull in the same direction which is exactly what I hope we will do,” Clegg told Sky News television.

A poll showed that Cameron’s Conservative Party had opened up a wider lead on the opposition in the wake of the stormy EU summit.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, however, has not been so lucky — facing a crisis within her coalition allies over Europe.

A junior partner in Merkel’s two-year centre-right coalition, the Free Democratic Party, narrowly avoided disaster Friday when a bid by rebels to force it to change its pro-Europe stance failed.

Meanwhile, the chairman of one of the eurozone’s biggest banks, BNP Paribas, Baudouin Prot, said the euro will come out stronger from the debt crisis but urged governments to act quickly to put their plans into action.
Fragile and unbalanced in 2012
Dec 15, 2011 10:37 EST
reuters

eurozon recession | global economy

Nouriel Roubini
The opinions expressed are his own.

The outlook for the global economy in 2012 is clear, but it isn’t pretty: recession in Europe, anemic growth at best in the United States, and a sharp slowdown in China and in most emerging-market economies. Asian economies are exposed to China. Latin America is exposed to lower commodity prices (as both China and the advanced economies slow). Central and Eastern Europe are exposed to the eurozone. And turmoil in the Middle East is causing serious economic risks – both there and elsewhere – as geopolitical risk remains high and thus high oil prices will constrain global growth.

At this point, a eurozone recession is certain. While its depth and length cannot be predicted, a continued credit crunch, sovereign-debt problems, lack of competitiveness, and fiscal austerity imply a serious downturn.

The US – growing at a snail’s pace since 2010 – faces considerable downside risks from the eurozone crisis. It must also contend with significant fiscal drag, ongoing deleveraging in the household sector (amid weak job creation, stagnant incomes, and persistent downward pressure on real estate and financial wealth), rising inequality, and political gridlock.

Elsewhere among the major advanced economies, the United Kingdom is double dipping, as front-loaded fiscal consolidation and eurozone exposure undermine growth. In Japan, the post-earthquake recovery will fizzle out as weak governments fail to implement structural reforms.

Meanwhile, flaws in China’s growth model are becoming obvious. Falling property prices are starting a chain reaction that will have a negative effect on developers, investment, and government revenue. The construction boom is starting to stall, just as net exports have become a drag on growth, owing to weakening US and especially eurozone demand. Having sought to cool the property market by reining in runaway prices, Chinese leaders will be hard put to restart growth.

They are not alone. On the policy side, the US, Europe, and Japan, too, have been postponing the serious economic, fiscal, and financial reforms that are needed to restore sustainable and balanced growth.

Private- and public-sector deleveraging in the advanced economies has barely begun, with balance sheets of households, banks and financial institutions, and local and central governments still strained. Only the high-grade corporate sector has improved. But, with so many persistent tail risks and global uncertainties weighing on final demand, and with excess capacity remaining high, owing to past over-investment in real estate in many countries and China’s surge in manufacturing investment in recent years, these companies’ capital spending and hiring have remained muted.

Rising inequality – owing partly to job-slashing corporate restructuring – is reducing aggregate demand further, because households, poorer individuals, and labor-income earners have a higher marginal propensity to spend than corporations, richer households, and capital-income earners. Moreover, as inequality fuels popular protest around the world, social and political instability could pose an additional risk to economic performance.

At the same time, key current-account imbalances – between the US and China (and other emerging-market economies), and within the eurozone between the core and the periphery – remain large. Orderly adjustment requires lower domestic demand in over-spending countries with large current-account deficits and lower trade surpluses in over-saving countries via nominal and real currency appreciation. To maintain growth, over-spending countries need nominal and real depreciation to improve trade balances, while surplus countries need to boost domestic demand, especially consumption.

But this adjustment of relative prices via currency movements is stalled, because surplus countries are resisting exchange-rate appreciation in favor of imposing recessionary deflation on deficit countries. The ensuing currency battles are being fought on several fronts: foreign-exchange intervention, quantitative easing, and capital controls on inflows. And, with global growth weakening further in 2012, those battles could escalate into trade wars.

Finally, policymakers are running out of options. Currency devaluation is a zero-sum game, because not all countries can depreciate and improve net exports at the same time. Monetary policy will be eased as inflation becomes a non-issue in advanced economies (and a lesser issue in emerging markets). But monetary policy is increasingly ineffective in advanced economies, where the problems stem from insolvency – and thus creditworthiness – rather than liquidity.

Meanwhile, fiscal policy is constrained by the rise of deficits and debts, bond vigilantes, and new fiscal rules in Europe. Backstopping and bailing out financial institutions is politically unpopular, while near-insolvent governments don’t have the money to do so. And, politically, the promise of the G-20 has given way to the reality of the G-0: weak governments find it increasingly difficult to implement international policy coordination, as the worldviews, goals, and interests of advanced economies and emerging markets come into conflict.

As a result, dealing with stock imbalances – the large debts of households, financial institutions, and governments – by papering over solvency problems with financing and liquidity may eventually give way to painful and possibly disorderly restructurings. Likewise, addressing weak competitiveness and current-account imbalances requires currency adjustments that may eventually lead some members to exit the eurozone.

Restoring robust growth is difficult enough without the ever-present specter of deleveraging and a severe shortage of policy ammunition. But that is the challenge that a fragile and unbalanced global economy faces in 2012. To paraphrase Bette Davis in All About Eve, “Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be a bumpy year!”

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