Banks cut S'pore's growth

MAJOR investment banks slashed growth forecasts for South-east Asian economies, with one predicting an 8 per cent contraction in Singapore, as the weakening global economy hits the region's key export industry.

Goldman Sachs now expects Singapore's gross domestic product to fall 8 per cent this year from a previous forecast for a 4 per cent contraction hurt also by a slowing real estate market and shrinking investment.

It also cut its GDP forecasts for 2009 for four other South-east Asian economies. Among them, its sharpest downward revision was for Malaysia to shrink 3.5 per cent from growth of 1.7 per cent previously, while it saw Thai GDP slipping 4 per cent from a 0.8 per cent drop previously.

Indonesia's economy was expected to grow at a slower pace of 2.5 per cent from 3.0 per cent previously, and the Philippine economy was expected to shrink 0.5 per cent from a growth forecast of 1.8 per cent previously, Goldman said in a note on Thursday.

'We reiterate our view that Singapore has one of the highest exposures to weakness in external demand, because of its high ratio of exports to GDP and the high portion of exports-driven domestic demand,' it said.

HSBC lowered growth forecasts for Singapore to -7 per cent and for Malaysia to -3.5 per cent, from -5 per cent and +0.5 per cent previously.

Credit Suisse saw a 6.5 per cent contraction for Singapore, a 5.2 per cent contraction for Japan as frozen trade hits exporters, but 8 per cent growth for China given its policy stimulus.

Goldman's forecast on Singapore is the most bearish among private economists, although Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew told a Reuters seminar earlier this month the economy could contract by as much as 10 per cent in 2009 if exports continued to slide in the second quarter.

A poll of analysts by Reuters on Wednesday put the average forecast for Singapore at a 4.9 per cent contraction, in line with the government's official forecast and a survey of economists by the central bank.

Goldman saw the Singapore dollar at 1.64 to the US dollar within 3 months while HSBC expected a 2-3 per cent one-off shift downwards in the band, with scope to ease policy again. -- REUTERS

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

I'm an accountant, I hate my job, but seriously, I wouldn’t know what else to do

I was born to be a lot of things, but being an accountant isn't one of them. In my heart of hearts I have always known this, but for some stupid subconscious reason, I have always ignored it. Why? Well...um...err...I didn’t know what else to do. How many people faced with the same predicament of deciding on a profession upon graduating used “not really knowing what to do” as their guiding compass? Blink. Ten years have passed and you’re left wondering, how did I get here? In this cubicle? Doing something I cannot stand (and I’m not even honestly good at), with people I quite frankly don’t really care about? For me that was accounting, a profession that conjures numerous clichés, such as boring, bean counting, personality not needed, number crunching etc etc. These have now evolved and have been replaced by repetition, reconciliations, long hours, fudging figures, high turnover, Enron and even more reconciliations. R-E-S-P-E-C-T But please don’t get me wrong, I have the utmost respe
Read more

Three money managers who lived through the 1987 stock-market crash warn of danger today

Image
By  Philip van Doorn Published: Oct 31, 2017 1:49 p.m. ET SHARE   ‘I would take some money off now because ... there are clear signs of deranged valuations,’ says Gabelli fund manager Lawrence Haverty Getty Images A trader on the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 19, 1987 — Black Monday. When the stock market crashed on Oct. 19, 1987, investors panicked. It was an unfamiliar event — the previous decline of a similar magnitude occurred 58 years earlier, in 1929. Now, 30 years after Black Monday in 1987, there are professional investors still at work who lived through that fateful day. In interviews, three of them talked about their experiences, offered insights into warning signs and gave advice on how to handle major downturns. They are: •  Lewis Altfest , president of Altfest Personal Wealth Management, which manages about $1.3 billion for private clients. Altfest founded the firm in 1983 after working as a general partner and director of research at Lord, Abbett & Co. • 
Read more

Have We Reached a Top?

By James Kostohryz It's never been my position that the flow of fundamental news would turn from positive to negative overnight and in a total fashion. The world simply doesn't work that way. When I terminated my core long position a couple of weeks ago for reasons explained in�Ten Reasons the Countertrend Rally May Be Over,�I outlined a series of factors I believe may manifest in the later half of 2009 and the first half of 2010. Indeed, most of these factors will be more back-end loaded, as negative factors tend to build on one another and gain momentum in time through the medium of psychology and social mood. It's my view that the flow of economically relevant events�-- and perceptions of these events --are in the early stages of a transition. In this case, a transition means the flow of relatively good news will tend to wane somewhat while there's an uptick in relatively bad news. This is what one would expect at a top. However, it's to be expected that during t
Read more