QE II - the personal impact and USD debt instruments

There has been plenty of coverage on the impact of QEII on the economy, on currencies, on stocks, on bonds, on commodities and so on. At a more personal level, how does it affect me?

The positives

1. the value of my investments went up: stocks appreciated, commodities appreciated

2. the risk of deflation (both longer term and shorter term) has been reduced. As the holder of a portfolio of risk assets, deflation would be a very bad thing for me

3. the decline in the USD and corresponding decline in the HKD (which is pegged to the USD) boosted the value of my non-USD/HKD denominated assets

4. the HKD peg to the USD is expected to create an influx of hot money. Combined with the continued low interest rates in the US, this means that it is likely that I will continue paying very low nominal interest rates and negative real interest rates for some time

The negatives

1. I am paid in USD: the decline in the USD amounts to a pay cut

2. the HKD peg to the USD means that there is an expectation of more money flowing into Hong Kong (among other places). Not only does this create the risk of an asset bubble, but it adds to inflationary pressures

3. some of our household spending is denominated in currencies other than the USD/HKD. QEII effectively means that the cost of overseas holidays, imported wine etc etc have increased. Not all of these costs are captured in general measures of inflation

4. the continued debasement of the USD (the world's largest currency) increases the risk of longer term inflation significantly

5. I am still accumulating assets. The increases in nominal prices of real estate, equities etc makes it more difficult to acquire assets at attractive prices

6. continued low nominal interest rates combined with increased inflationary expectations make bonds even less attractive going forward. Diversification across asset classes is now harder. This means that the risk to the private portfolio has also gone up

Conclusions

All in all, in the short term I am clearly a net beneficiary of QEII. However, over time the on-going effect of a pay cut and higher inflation (whether or not captured in CPI data) will erode those benefits. Also, the risks to my retirement have also changed - whether for better or worse being a complete guessing game.

Random thoughts on USD debt instruments

While there is no limit to the amount of money the Fed can create, there have to be limits to the amount of money investors are prepared to tolerate. Give (i) the ultra low interest rates for USD denominated debt instruments (ii) a Fed which is very publicly attempting to create inflation and (iii) the widespread belief that the US wants a weaker dollar, why anyone would want to buy USD debt instruments is totally beyond my understanding. The only justifications for buying that asset class in isolation are either a belief that the USD will strengthen or a belief that there will be a deflationary environment going forward.

Foster parents to a kitten

We recently acted as foster parents for a two month old kitten rescued by the SPCA. While our own cat (adopted from the SPCA in 2008) did not take kindly to the presence of the intruder or being denied access to part of our apartment, the experience was a good one. As expected, he spent most of his time hiding (either behind our bed or under a cabinet) and would bolt for cover whenever anyone came into the room. At night we could hear him running around, scratching furniture, unravelling the toilet paper, knocking things over and generally having fun. By the end of his stay it took very little effort to coax him out from hiding to play. I was tempted to keep him, but decided that it will take more work to get our own cat used to the idea of sharing her territory.

Yesterday I received a call from the SPCA to say that he had been adopted. Yeah!

Definitely an experience that was enjoyable and will be repeated.

RMB Bonds - revisited

As recently as September I asked myself whether RMB denominated bonds were a worthwhile investment . My conclusion was that while RMB bonds were fine for RMB which I already hold (which is not much), I could get better yields on equities so it didn't make a lot of sense to convert HKD into RMB in order to buy the bonds. I also felt that the China A50 Tracker fund was a better (although riskier) way to invest in the RMB. I purchased shares in some small caps and the China A50 Tracker fund last month - so far a good call, although the returns over a single month are not really that meaningful.

More recently, the market has rallied and (IMHO) the risk of investing in equities has gone up with the market. Also, with retirement getting closer, I need to start getting used to the idea that I need to have at least some of my money into low risk investments and accept the the correspondingly low returns.

The latest offering is from China Development Bank and offers a yield of 2.7% (which will get cut to around 2.5% after bank charges and FX conversion spreads) with a term of three years. It's not a great deal as the upside is limited, but it is better than leaving cash in the bank. Also, if I buy a series of these sorts of short dated investments with differing but generally short maturity dates (probably in a variety of currencies), this will form part of the cash/near cash asset allocation that I will need to have in place in retirement.

Accordingly, I have converted some more HKD to RMB (currently limited to a maximum of RMB20,000 per day) and made an application. I suspect that the application will be scaled back due to over subscriptions, but there will no doubt be no shortage of additional RMB bond issues.