Moscow Exchange to start trading Armenian dram till 2020

October 9, 2017 By administrator

The Moscow Exchange plans to start trading the Armenian dram against the Russian rouble till 2020, Dmitri Piskulov, the Head of currency market development at the exchange told Vedomositi newspaper.

According to the source, the Moscow Exchange is gradually expanding a list of currencies it trades, to include national currencies of Vietnam, Iran as well as Turkish lira in 2018.

Piskulov said the decision to start trading new currencies is driven by the market demand, the economic relations and the political process with the respective states.

The exchange, previously known as Micex-RTS, now trades the Russian rouble against the dollar, the euro, the British pound, the Swiss franc, the on-shore and off-shore Chinese yuan, the Belarussian rouble and the Kazakh tenge.

California, Once Compared to Greece, Now Trading Better Than AAA

August 10, 2017 By administrator

(Bloomberg) — Seven years ago, California was “the next Greece.” Today, the state’s bonds are trading better than AAA.

As the Golden State benefits from record-breaking stock prices, Silicon Valley’s boom and a resurgent real estate market, demand for tax-exempt debt in the state with the highest top income tax rate in the U.S. is “insatiable,” said Nicholos Venditti, a portfolio manager for Thornburg Investment Management. Spreads are so tight that Venditti has stopped buying California bonds for his national fund.

“They’ve gone to a level that just seems ridiculous,” Venditti said. “It just seems unsustainable for any long period of time.”

If demand for California bonds is insatiable, supply is meager. Over the next 30 days, almost $4 billion more bonds are set to mature or be paid off earlier than planned issuance, leaving investors with more cash to invest.

An investor Tuesday bought about $1.1 million of state general obligation bonds maturing in six years at a yield of 1.33 percent, or 4.3 basis points below AAA rated bonds with the same maturity. California bonds are rated AA- by S&P Global Ratings and Fitch Ratings and Aa3 by Moody’s Investors Service.

f the market turns and spreads widen, investors holding California bonds may be “hit disproportionately hard,” Venditti said.

“It’s got to widen out quite a bit to get to a reasonable level relative to Kansas or Texas,” he said.

After the Great Recession, California was so strapped it took to issuing IOUs and drew comparisons with Greece. Now, flush with cash from the tech economy and record-breaking stock prices, California has boosted budget reserves to $8.5 billion and made an extra $6 billion payment to the state employee pension. At the local level, assessed values have recovered, bolstering property tax revenue.

“You have a whole swath of tech employees, tech investors, who are now trying to protect that substantial wealth from Uncle Sam,” Venditti said. “So they’ve gone out and they have bought up every municipal bond.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Martin Z. Braun in New York at mbraun6@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Christopher Maloney at cmaloney16@bloomberg.net, Dave Liedtka.

Source: http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/california-once-compared-to-greece-now-trading-better-than-aaa/ar-AApJl9o

Russia replaced the European Union as a trading partner of Armenia

August 15, 2016 By administrator

russia-armenia-economy For the first time since the mid-1990s, Russia overtook the EU as a trading partner of Armenia in the first half of this year, the Armenian official statistics show.

The National Statistical Service (NSS) announced this month that Russia accounted for 26.4% of foreign trade of Armenia in this period, compared with the share of 25.3% in the EU.

The NSS said that the Russian-Armenian trade increased by 12.4% to nearly $ 600 million thanks to a near doubling of Armenian exports to Russia. Trade of Armenia with the EU member states increased by less than 2%.

The EU has become the largest trade partner of Armenia a few years after the breakup of the Soviet Union. It has since been the major supplier of industrial equipment, cars and some of the South Caucasus countries consumer goods. Europe has also been the main destination for Armenian export products, such as base metals and refined diamonds.

In the late 1990s, the EU would hamper already about a third of trade in Armenia with the outside world. The NSS figures show that this proportion has remained largely unchanged in the next decade.

In contrast, the share of Russia in the Armenian foreign trade declined steadily, to finish at only 11.5% in 2004.

These business models began to change slowly in 2012 amid an increase in Armenian food exports to Russia and falling international price of copper and other nonferrous metals, the main source of export earnings of ‘Armenia. The controversial decision of President Serzh Sargsyan in 2013 to join the trade bloc led by Russia, instead of signing a free trade agreement reaching with the EU, seems to have only accelerated this trend.

The commercial importance of Russia to Armenia has continued to increase, even after a sharp depreciation of the Russian ruble has caused a 18% drop in trade between the two countries last year. The fall of the commerce of Armenia with the EU was even stronger.

According to the NSS, EU exports to Armenia collapsed by over 30% in 2015, reflecting a decrease in consumer spending in the country, which in turn was caused, in large measure, by lower remittances from Armenians working in Russia, hit by a recession.

The first half of 2016, Armenian exports to Russia jumped nearly 90% to $ 168 million. Alcoholic beverages, prepared food and fresh agricultural products constituted the bulk of these shipments.

Russia has always been the main export market for food processing and agriculture of Armenia. The accession of Armenia to the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) clearly more ease their access to this huge market.

In comparison, exports of Armenian non-ferrous metals other than gold, fell by over 10% between January and June. Even so, exports for the first half of Armenia to the EU have increased by nearly 12% to $ 230 million, which means that the EU remains the largest export market despite falling behind Russia in the overall foreign trade of the country.