Thursday, January 19, 2012

IMF wants to increase its resources to $1 trillion; Greece PSI deal nowhere in sight

According to IMF sources the organization intends to boost its lending capacity by 600 billion dollars in order to be better prepared to shield the global economy from the EU debt crisis. Eurozone nations will provide 150 billion dollars, while other EU member states might contribute 50 billion. Other G20 countries still remain undecided on whether to participate. This issue will be discussed at the upcoming G20 summit which will take place in Mexico on 25-26 February.

Already yesterday IMF head Christine Lagarde signalized a need for joining efforts in order to boost lending resources: “The biggest challenge is to respond to the crisis in an adequate manner and many executive directors stressed the necessity and urgency of collective efforts to contain the debt crisis in the euro area and protect economies around the world.”

Kathleen Brooks, Research Director UK EMEA at FOREX.com, thinks that convincing other countries to contribute might be a difficult task: “The knee jerk reaction to the IMF news is to be expected, however, could the markets be over-reacting? There is no commitment of more monies for the IMF, and the US and UK have already come out and said they won’t pay in any extra to the fund to prop up the Eurozone, so Lagarde has a tough round of negotiations to try and reach her $1 trillion target, especially since the current IMF war chest is only $385bn.”

Greece PSI deal still doubtful


On one hand, we had a Greek finance ministry official quoted by varies sources trying to reassure the market about Greece getting close to reach an agreement with private creditors by the end of the week, saying they could have a deal with the IIF very soon. The Financial Times also reported that Greece was nearing a deal with private-sector creditors on debt swap talks.

On the other hand, a total different story can be learnt if one is to check today's greek bond market performance, with yields still on the rise, suggestive that the market is not expecting a PSI (private sector involvement) deal.

The Financial Times, in a rather contradictory way, released another report later on the day, suggesting the deal is nowhere in sight: "Several hedge fund managers that hold Greek debt have said they have not been involved in the talks and will not be agreeing with the “private sector involvement” (PSI) deal – which centres on a 50 per cent loss on bondholders’ capital and a reduction in the interest they receive."

The report added: "Even members of the committee concede the process is unlikely to succeed in time for the crunch date: a €14.5bn bond repayment falling due on March 20."

Portuguese and German yields decrease at debt sale

Portuguese borrowing costs fell at the short-term debt auction held on Wednesday. The country managed to sell 2.5 billion euros worth of bonds out of the 3 billion euro target. The yield on April 2012 T-bills remained unchanged at 4.346%, the yield on July 2012 notes fell to 4.74% (vs 5.25%) while December 2012 papers yielded 4.986%.

Meanwhile Germany, which also auctioned debt today, sold 3.44 billion euros of 2-year bonds out of a target of 4 billion euros at an average yield of 0.17% (in comparison with 0.29% the country had to pay last month).

Fitch: Italy's rating might be cut by two notches

After declaring on Tuesday that Greece is inevitably heading towards a default, Fitch rating agency announced today that a two-notch downgrade of Italy is possible in the nearest future.

Alessandro Settepani, senior director for business and relationship management at Fitch in Italy said that: “A downgrade by two notches is one of the possible options. The committee will assess the rating of Italy on the basis of refinancing levels and measures for growth.”