Что делать с рублем

Ситуация с российским рублем в настоящее время тревожная и трудно прогнозируемая. Непонятно, прекратит ли в ближайшем будущем рубль свое падение, или сейчас мы наблюдаем лишь самое его начало.

Центральный банк уже пошел на очень радикальную меру по укреплению рубля  – он поднял ключевую ставку по кредитам для банков, ставку недельного РЕПО, с 5,5 % до 7 %. Хотя всего пару недель назад глава ЦБ Эльвира Набиуллина пообещала, что ставка меняться не будет, ведь страна и так двигается в сторону экономического кризиса, а для роста экономике необходимы дешевые кредиты. Очевидно, что резко сменить политику ЦБ заставил обвал рубля – он ускорился, после того как Совет Федерации проголосовал за возможный ввод войск в Крым.

Также сгладить ситуацию на валютном рынке Банк России пытался за счет проведения валютных интервенций.

5 марта Эльвира Набиуллина сделала заявление, что Центральный банк не видит фундаментальных причин для обесценения рубля, в настоящее время на курс давят внешние факторы.

А вот эксперты кардинально расходятся в предположениях о дальнейших движениях курса рубля. Например, бывший министр финансов РФ Алексей Кудрин большого потенциала снижения рубля не видит и считает, что в среднем по году курс будет 35 рублей. Аналитики CitiGroup напротив, полагают, что российская валюта не сможет изменить отрицательный вектор движения, и ее курс неизбежно ослабнет до 37 рублей за доллар.

Понятно, что вопрос о дальнейшей судьбе рубля сейчас волнует очень многих. Мы не умеем заглядывать в будущее, а делать умозрительные прогнозы в ситуации полной неопределенности – дело неблагодарное. Мы, вместе с нашими клиентами, пережили множество нестабильных лет и критических ситуаций на рынке, и утверждаем, что даже  такой непростой период вы можете пройти без лишних волнений и сократить свои инвестиционные риски, воспользовавшись механизмом валютной диверсификации.

Валютная диверсификация подразумевает создание активов в различных валютах – например, часть в долларах, часть в евро, часть в японских иенах или даже в золоте. Так вы будете меньше зависеть от разного рода колебаний отдельных валют.

Ниже представлены диаграммы, отражающие динамику курса российского рубля к доллару, евро и бивалютной корзины (доллар-евро) за период с 2000 года.

График 1 - Динамика курса рубля к доллару

График 2 - Динамика курса рубля к евро

График 3 - Динамика бивалютной корзины

Состав  диверсифицированного валютного портфеля (подбор валюты и их соотношение) для каждого будет своим собственным, отличающимся в зависимости от целей, изначального размера капитала, готовности к рискам и т.д.

И если вы хотите определить для себя дальнейшую судьбу своих средств и не переживать относительно нынешних финансовых треволнений, мы подберем для вас оптимальный состав валютного портфеля для хранения накоплений - наши контакты.

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Cyprus - Small Island in Big Trouble

Cyprus: lovely island of sun, sea, sand which, you may have noticed, has been in the news for other reasons this week.

As things stand, senior Cypriot government officials are in Moscow attempting to stave off an economic crisis which affects not only this small Eastern Mediterranean island, but Europe's entire financial system.

I don't want to dwell on the politics of the crisis, how it came about or the rank hypocrisy of other European governments. I want to focus on the potential issues for depositors and personal savers.

I have always had a benign attitude to clients having monies in Cyprus bank accounts, although I had been warning those with deposits there of the ever increasing risk of a default since 2008.

My advice was always to keep large deposits in life insurance wraps instead.  Certainly, there is a trade off between instant liquidity of the bank account with the myriad of benefits of a life wrap, particularly the exemption for life insurance from the European Savings Tax Directive (meaning you can actually keep your bank account within your wrap, and not pay income tax on it).

However this last week has shown that for pure security of deposits, the life wrap scores much higher.

We only use life insurance companies who are incredibly secure, preferably with low levels of 'risk' insurance and these entities should always be based in locations with enshrined legislation giving a high protection of client assets, sometimes almost 100% protection, with no ceiling.

Compare this with the potential outcome of the Cyprus debacle, where the government, forced by the wonderful people at the ECB and IMF, have made a cash grab for ordinary retail deposits.

Cyprus - Small Island in Big Trouble

If this was anywhere else but Europe (say, Chavez's Venezuela), there would be a huge outcry in the western media.  Where is the security of the banking institutions?

Where indeed is the protection of the much lauded "depositors insurance scheme"?  Well, of course, the scheme only comes into play if the institution has defaulted.  Which they haven't.  Because they took the retail depositors money.  Not the money of the stockholders of the bank.  No.  Not the money of the institutional bondholders.  No.  Just the money from the ordinary Giorgios from the street.  Breathtaking.

Let's not mince words here.

If this goes through, it will mean the end of any semblance of bank depository insurance in Europe.  It COULD happen anywhere, it COULD happen to you.

There are already murmurings that if this crazy proposal goes through, it might be the tester for getting this out in other embattled economies, primarily those of the PIGS, although other countries mentioned include the Baltic states.

Just when it seemed that the European banking system was getting off its knees, along comes another 'whammy'.

Whilst Europe waits on the outcome of the negotiations this weekend, retail investors should be consulting their financial advisors as to what they should be doing to avoid any nasty surprises in the coming few months.

Whatever the immediate outcome there will undoubtedly be a run on the Cypriot banks when (when!) they reopen, and that will do untold damage to the islands' financial industry, the genie is out of the bottle.

Author: Alan McGregor

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Alan McGregor receives invitation to join GlobalScot business network from First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond

I have recently been invited to join the prestigious GlobalScot business network, which comes directly from the First Minister of Scotland, Alex Salmond.

The network, which consists of around 700 members, all of whom are senior international business leaders and, according to the First Minister, make "an invaluable contribution to Scotlands' continued growth".

Scotland is one of the leading countries of the global economy encompassing diverse sectors such as energy, digital sciences and, of course, financial services.

As a member of GlobalScot, I will have the opportunity to support Scottish companies looking to enter into Eastern Europe as well as helping advise Scottish Enterprise and Scottish Development Internationals when shaping the strategy of the financial services industry which is of vital importance to the country.

The First Minister considers the GlobalScot business network to be an "elite force for Scotland." 

More can be found about GlobalScot here. 

Author: Alan McGregor

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Bullish on Russia!

Today, I ran across an article in Market Watch, which argues a 'contrarian point of view' towards investing in Russia. An example of longer-term investment thinking based 'buy when there is blood in the streets', but the question is 'will there be blood or should we buy now?'

Russia's protests will create buying opportunity

By Matthew Lynn

LONDON (MarketWatch) -- Even in the chill of a Moscow winter, it now looks unlikely the Russian protests will end any time soon.

Last weekend, some 3,000 people gathered in the capital's Bolotnaya Square to demonstrate against rigged election results earlier this month. It was down on the week before. But with presidential elections scheduled for March, and with the country's leader Vladimir Putin running for office, it does not look as if the backlash against his authoritarian style of rule is going to subside any time soon.

The markets hate political turmoil -- and they hate it in Russia perhaps more than anywhere else.

In the run up to the elections, however, it may also create a great buying opportunity. Few countries in the world have as attractive prospects as Russia. If the country can move forward from post-Soviet authoritarianism, if it can liberalize its economy, and open up its society, then it should be able to grow as fast as anywhere.

In the Parliamentary elections at the start of the month, Putin's United Russia party won 49.3% of the vote. Most parties in the developed world would be pretty pleased with that result. But for Putin, who specializes in a heavily manipulated form of democracy, it was a disaster, stripping the party of its constitutional majority. In the far more important presidential elections scheduled for 2012, when he was set to resume the presidency he briefly allowed his sidekick Dmitry Medvedev to keep warm for him, Putin is no longer assured of an easy first-round victory.

No one at the moment thinks Putin is about to lose power. But his total domination of Russian politics may be coming to a close.

Not very surprisingly, the Russian market has taken a beating. It was already down significantly this year, along with all the emerging markets. It has taken another battering in the last couple of weeks. From a high of more than 2,100 back in April, the benchmark RTS index has dropped all the way back to slightly over 1,300 and shows little sign of steadying. If the protests planned for Christmas Eve attract a big turnout, expect the index to take another tumble.

No one needs any encouragement to take their money out of Russia at the first sign of political trouble. You hardly need to know much history to realize that there are few countries more likely to lose you everything.

Not this time, however. While Putin may have stabilized the country, he has increasingly modelled himself on Leonid Brezhnev, the 1970s Communist leader who presided over years of dull stagnation. Over the past few years, the economy has stagnated along with the political system. Wealth has been concentrated in the hands of a tiny mega-rich elite. A middle-class, broadly-based consumer and industrial economy has struggled to emerge.

Most outside investors assumed that under Putin the country was drifting back towards a form of mild authoritarianism. Money would be made by a few lucky investors in the oil and gas industries, so long as you had the right political connection, but there would be limited opportunities for wider investment in the stock market.

That could be about to change. Russia should be one of the most vibrant emerging markets in the world. It has vast mineral wealth, low debts, and a well-educated workforce. It has always been among the most culturally sophisticated and scientifically advanced societies in the world. This, remember, was the first country to put a man into space. The gaudy Russia of oligarchs and gangsters is relatively new -- underneath, it has always been a technical, advanced society. There is no reason why it should just be a resources-based economy. Russia's engineers, scientists and designers are the equal of any in the world.

It has even turned around its terrible demographics. In the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian birth rate dropped dramatically, way below the level needed to keep the population stable.

In the last three years, that has started to turn around dramatically. The Russians are having babies again. It has not quite got back to replacement level, but it looks to have escaped the demographic death trap, where a declining population, and a lot of old people, make it hard for a nation to sustain itself, let alone grow. The fertility rate hit a low of 8.7 births per 1,000 people in 2000 but is now up to 12.6, almost 50% higher (helped by a $9,000 bonus for the second and third child per family).

Its growth rates are the envy of most countries. This year has been a difficult year for most countries, but economists at the Royal Bank of Scotland expect Russia to grow by slightly more than 4% for the whole of this year. It forecasts growth of 2.6% for 2012, as it gets hit by the slowdown in the euro zone, but that is still a lot faster than most countries in the world will expand.

The investment bank Renaissance Capital points out that Russia's GDP per capita is about $15,000 on a purchasing power parity basis. At those kinds of levels of reasonable affluence, very few counties have ever slipped back into dictatorship. It is far more likely that it will make the transition from being a weak to a strong democracy

Putin probably won't lose in March. But he may see his dominance of the country significantly curbed. True, the Communists have been gaining in the polls. But most experts see that simply as a protest vote. Few people want to see Marxism back. More likely, European-style center right and center left parties will emerge.

None of that is reflected in the stock market. Russian stocks are down 18% this year, and trade on less than five times estimated earnings for 2012. Its fellow BRIC markets -- Brazil, India and China -- are trading at double that.

True, there will be turbulence ahead. As it moves towards a more democratic and open society, there will be bumps in the world. But if it can make that transition -- and everything suggests it can -- it will be one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. And one of the best to invest in as well.

Matthew Lynn is chief executive of Strategy Economics, a London-based consultancy.

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