Brazil’s Real
Slumping currencies and inflation risks in emerging markets are adding to pressure on central banks to raise interest rates. Brazil increased its benchmark rate this year more than any major economy to prevent higher prices from slowing consumption and investments. The real weakened beyond 2.4 per dollar for the first time in four years yesterday. Indonesia’s rupiah touched 10,728 today, its weakest level since April 2009.
Higher rates in turn would hit consumers in countries where cheap mortgages and easy credit have fueled housing booms.
“Southeast Asian consumers have taken on much higher debt in the last few years,” Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc analyst Sanjay Mathur wrote in a July 18 report. He said the largest increase was in Malaysia, where household debt increased by 20 percent of GDP between 2008 and 2012.
There’s a feeling that “the rest of the world’s getting a bit better and Asean’s had its sort of burst of credit-enhanced growth,” said Edward Teather, an economist at UBS AG who covers Southeast Asian markets from Singapore. “It’s raining already.”