【原创】汇率政策调整对钢市的影响

xck147

引用：

xiaoguang 发表于 2010-6-21 14:30
人民币汇改或将又一次推动全球商品涨价，全世界人民就指望中国商品涨价了，但中国商品就是涨不起来－－理由很简单：老百姓没钱了，老百姓仅有的那点钱都让房地产给祸害了。然，房地产仅仅只是个载体，官商勾结祸害百...

衷心期望小光老师多多发表如此旗帜鲜明的好帖！！！坚决顶！

luwei

renminbi revaluation and impact on metals prices
 on saturday, 19th june, the peoples bank of china (pboc) announced that it had decided “to proceed further with reform of the renminbi exchange rate regime and to enhance the renminbi exchange rate flexibility”. the announcement effectively ends the renminbi’s de facto peg to the
us dollar and paves the way for its appreciation against the greenback.
 to judge from initial moves in markets for commodities and commodity-related equities in trading on monday the pboc’s policy change is perceived to be positive for prices and many commentators have spoken to say that an appreciation of the renminbi is indeed fundamentally supportive of
commodities prices. in our opinion, however, the case is not so clear cut.
 first, it is important not to get carried away with this announcement, coming as it does only one week before a meeting of the g20 due to take place in toronto on 26th-27th june and at which the issue of the renminbi’s value will be high on the agenda. the announcement will presumably be referenced by the chinese as progress on this sensitive issue but it provides no further information
on the precise level or timing of any change. indeed, even by the standards of such official announcements, this one was especially vague. in our view, the renminbi will probably make only a small crawl upwards against the us dollar over the coming months. our current forecast is for the exchange rate to end the year at rmb6.6 : us$1 from rmb6.83 : us$1 currently.
 second, it is useful to reflect on what happened when exchange rate policy was last reset in china. fig.1 shows how metals prices moved in the three months after the announcement by the pboc on 21st july 2005 that it was moving to a managed floating exchange rate regime that was
accompanied on that day by a 2% appreciation of the renminbi against the us dollar and followed over the next three years by appreciation of a further 19%. we can see that price performance
among metals varied widely over this period, with some prices actually falling, which serves as
a useful reminder that each metals market is subject to its own supply-demand dynamics and
it is unlikely on this occasion that we will see metals prices move in tandem in the weeks following
china’s latest exchange rate policy adjustment.
thinking through the possible impact of the policy change on the evolution of metals prices over
the medium to long-term we would highlight four key points:
1. a rise in the value of the renminbi will make imports of dollar-denominated raw materials and energy less expensive in local currency terms. this could stimulate additional domestic demand for metals and lower local-currency energy costs, in particular, could act as a stimulus, ceteris paribus, for stronger economic growth. again assuming other factors are unchanged, stronger demand should support higher metals prices.
2. however, a stronger renminbi will make exports of metals and metal containing goods from china more expensive in us dollars. the overall impact will depend upon the proportion of production costs, such as power and labour, that are denominated in local currency terms whereas for those costs that are denominated in us dollars the opposite effect will apply. on balance, metals such as aluminium which are most power intensive may be most exposed
to a deterioration in the terms of trade, whereas for steel manufactured using imported iron ore (and perhaps increasingly imported coking coal) the impact may be more neutral.
3. related to this second point, a rise in the value of the renminbi will push up the cost curve of china’s producers. in those metals markets ╟ for example, aluminium, lead and zinc ╟ where chinese producers are the “marginal cost” suppliers to the market, a rise in the renminbi would be expected to have the effect of increasing marginal cost price support in these markets, potentially setting a new cyclical floor for prices.
4. the impact of any rise in the renminbi on the rate of economic growth in china ╟ and, indeed, on growth in other major economies ╟ will probably be of over-riding importance as this is the dynamic that will determine the aggregate level of demand for commodities in world markets. on the one hand, it could be argued that a rise in the renminbi should lead to slower growth by tightening monetary conditions in china. on the other hand, it could be argued that a rise in
china’s exchange rate will be beneficial by diffusing the risk of rising trade tensions spilling over into trade conflict in the short term and promoting a rebalancing of growth in both the chinese economy (towards stronger consumption) and the us economy in particular (away
from excessive consumption) in the medium to long term.
 vigorous and wide-ranging debate over this last point, in particular, will no doubt continue.
in our view, setting aside the timing of the announcement, the fact that china has announced a
change its exchange rate policy signals it is confident in the growth of its own economy (positive
for commodities demand and prices) and should help to reduce possible trade tensions to some
extent (positive for the world economic environment and, again, commodities demand and prices).
 however, any revaluation of the renminbi will not provide a panacea to the problems currently
facing the world economy. it is likely any change will be gradual with the result that we are
unlikely to see a sudden step change in commodities prices related to the renminbi. and, we
should remember that each metals market has its own supply-demand dynamics which will
ultimately determine its market clearing price.