Translated material
Unregulated currencies
"Investors have taken note of the lack of agreement on currency imbalances in past meetings and that the US appears poised to enter the race to further ease monetary policy," Bank of New York Mellon currency strategist Neil Mellor told Reuters. "We'll end up with a second round of quantitative easing in one form or another, plus a currency imbalance," said MF Global market strategist Geoff Howe.
Against the Japanese currency, the dollar fell to a 15-year low, from 82 to 81.37 yen. Japan had a day off yesterday, but experts expect that the country's central bank will soon undertake another currency intervention to curb the growth of the yen. The Japanese currency is already above the levels at which the regulator resorted to intervention in September. However, the decline of the dollar is too rapid to be stopped for long by such a technique.
In anticipation of stimulus measures, stock markets rose yesterday. China's stock exchange indices were supported by rising prices for shares of commodity companies after good reports for the third quarter. Thus, the Shanghai Composite grew by 3.1%. Trading volume rose to a ten-month record value of 252 billion yuan ($38 billion) from 166 billion. The Hong Kong Hang Seng stock market index increased by 1.15%, to its highest value in 28 months.
American markets closed with growth of 0.2%. In the USA yesterday was a day off due to the celebration of Columbus Day, all government agencies were closed, and therefore the activity of the stock markets was low. The Russian RTS index added 1.37%, rising to 1588.29 points, the MICEX index - 1.19%, to 1482.11 points.
European markets showed optimism yesterday, despite the problems associated with the debt crisis. The Greek Finance Ministry is studying the possibility of extending EU and IMF credit support until 2015 due to the growing debt burden, Athens business newspaper Naftemporiki reported. According to the publication, in 2014 and 2015 Greece will have to repay about 145 billion euros in external debt, which exceeded 300 billion euros in 2009 and continues to grow rapidly. As you know, the IMF announced its readiness to extend the loan for Greece if the EU makes a similar decision. The head of the fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, praised the economic policy of the crisis-hit country. “The Greek authorities are doing exactly what they need to do to rein in costs and meet the terms of the agreement,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg. Germany is also confident that Athens will comply with the requirements of the EU and the IMF. “The rules imposed for Greece by the European Central Bank, the European Commission and the IMF are being implemented step by step,” German Finance Ministry spokesman Michael Offer said yesterday. - This requires a lot of effort on the part of Greece, which, in our opinion, started very well. We hope she can reduce the amount of debt.”
As part of the plan to save Greece, it was provided with a loan of 110 billion euros (eurozone countries allocate 80 billion euros, the IMF - 30 billion, Germany's contribution will amount to 8.4 billion euros this year and up to 14 billion euros in 2011-2012) . "Greece has borrowed heavily and is having trouble servicing its debt in the face of shrinking GDP and very weak growth prospects," said former IMF board member Domenico Lombardi. However, representatives of the IMF and the European Central Bank explained that the installment plan does not mean debt restructuring. “There is no reason for default,” says Mr. Strauss-Kahn.