MONEY MASTER

LONDON: Financial markets are betting that Russia, South Africa, Turkey and Colombia could all be next in line for "junk" debt status after Standard and Poor's stripped Brazil of its investment grade. As well as those now teetering on the investment grade/junk cusp, China, Chile, Malaysia, South Africa, Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand, Israel, Saudi Arabia and much of the Middle East are also priced for rating cuts according to some data. Brazil's downgrade had long been expected following recent scandals and its slump towards recession, but it has sharpened the focus on who could be next. Slumping commodity prices and the prospect of rising global interest rates are adding to some liberal helpings of ugly national politics and laying bare a number of countries' failure to reform in the good times. S&P's Capital IQ unit has what it calls Market Derived Signal (MDS) models that show credit default swap markets currently expecting a major wave of EM...

The Employee Provident Fund (EPF) continue to see positive return in their investment income. In comparison to a year earlier, the investment income saw a 9.73% increase in the second quarter of 2015, on a higher equity and real estate portfolio. EPF maintains their performance for 1H2015 The 1H15 income increased to RM22.04 billion from RM19.23 billion a year earlier.  “Despite very challenging conditions, our performance for the first six months of 2015 was strongly supported by our well-diversified portfolio and the strengthening of the USD had also enhanced the returns from our international investments. “While we were able to maintain the previous quarter’s momentum, we are currently seeing greater volatility in the financial markets. The anticipation of interest rate hike in the United States as well as economic slowdown in China and other emerging countries are the prevailing concerns. It will be challenging for the EPF to sustain the first half’s moment...

BNM International Reserve The Malaysia's BNM International Reserve has dropped again from US $ 96.5 billion in July 31st to US$94.7 billion as at end-August 2015, down 2% or US$2 billion month-on-month to its lowest since July 2010.  The figure reflects a third straight decline on the BNM International Reserve but it was higher than it was in mid August 2015, when it was at just US$94.5 billion. It shows a US$200 million increase from the mid of August low. The central bank has issued a statement, stating that the reserves are sufficient to finance 7.4 months of retained imports and is 1.0 times short-term external debt.