It could help counter the FIIs pulling out funds, but apart from its costs, it prevents others from buying at lower prices. Ironically, it also helps FIIs get a better exit price.
CMD, Motilal Oswal, Financial Services
‘At one point or another, most countries in Asia have tried this when faced with a crisis, like the Asian crisis, and it helped restore confidence’
The recent sell-off in equity markets around the world has created a heightened sense of fear and panic amongst equity investors. Many have turned extremely risk-averse and continue to stay away from equities despite their being at historically low valuations.
The Indian capital markets have seen huge correction in the broad index (around 52 per cent) from its peak in January 2008. Foreign investors have sold stock worth $12 billion in 2008 and the total amount of portfolio investment remaining in India is in the region of $75 billion. The Indian rupee has weakened by around 18 per cent.
The process of global de-leveraging has led to sharp cuts of over 20 per cent in the last two months alone. While deleveraging is an inevitable outcome of the credit bust, the speed of this sharp correction has taken many by surprise. Such corrections have even triggered panic selling by unleveraged entities. As a result, many markets have become thin with few buyers and many sellers resulting in sharp drop in prices at much lower volumes. The sharp fall in asset values leads to a negative wealth effect which results in declining private spending and investment leading to a slowing in GDP.
To overcome this psychological damage to the Indian capital markets, the government can intervene through a market stabilisation fund. There have been several monetary measures to protect the credit market, but the Indian capital markets still seem to be under pressure from FIIs who are continuously redeeming huge funds from Indian capital markets as they need them to reduce their burden back home. This has led to sharp fall in the Index and a fall in prices of blue chip companies which is not reflective of their financial performance.
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Almost every south east Asian country has experimented with different versions of market stabilisation funds after the ‘‘Asian crisis’’ began in 1997. Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Taiwan and even China have all tried price stabilisation of some sort when foreign investment began to exit in a hurry. Such a policy was adopted by the Hong Kong Monetary Authority in 1998 to prevent the financial system from collapsing. Not only were they able to successfully stabilise the financial system and the economy, but they also profited from investments in stocks.
There has also been increasing demand for the banning of short selling by FIIs. Whilst such a measure could yield the desired outcome in the short term, from a long-term perspective, such interference in the free market mechanism would be viewed unfavourably by FIIs. The establishment of such a fund would serve the dual purpose of stabilising the markets and also act as a deterrent on excessive short selling by FIIs. The government should step forward more strongly in support of this falling market value of the Index, which also acts as an economic indicator for growth and an indicator for confidence of demand and investments in the economy. Setting up a stock market stabilisation fund will be an active measure from the government and will boost investor and consumer sentiment and hence, demand.
Chairman, IndAsia Fund Advisors
‘It would be better, and a lot cheaper, to stimulate demand by cutting taxes. For now, a liquidity fund for money-market mutual funds is a good idea’
Indian history is replete with calls for handouts for the undeserving. The plea for a government-funded market stabilisation fund to support the stock market is an egregious example of this kind. The idea cannot be supported by sound public policy and should be smothered. Equity shares by definition carry risks and the investors are fully aware of the risks. It is not the government’s job to chaperone its citizens.
Unlike in some other countries, the toiling masses have no stake in the equity markets through their pension or provident funds. The immediate beneficiaries of such a fund would be the “sophisticated” foreign institutional investors, and a sliver (about 2 per cent) of our population that invests in equities. How can this idea be sound public policy in India where, according to World Bank estimates in 2005, 809 million survived on less than $2 per day, the largest block of poor in the world?
Intervention in markets through a fund would simply alter the psyche of market participants, encourage recklessness amongst investors in the future, and deprive others who have the cash of the opportunity to invest at lower prices.
To be effective, the fund would have to be mega-billions in size. India does not have budget surpluses. Poverty alleviation, education, and economic development must necessarily have prior claims on budgetary resources. At this time of world economic turmoil, India needs to take measures to decouple from the global recession. Stimulating domestic demand is the surest way of insulating our country from job losses and economic pain.
The government must initiate a fiscal stimulus to complement the monetary measures taken by the RBI. A reduction of about 20-25 per cent in the incidence of service taxes and excise duties on all products except tobacco and petroleum items would give a fillip to domestic demand. It would cost about Rs 30,000-40,000 crore for a full year. This is far less in cost than the politically-motivated subsidies on petroleum products, and far more immediate in effectiveness than public expenditure.
If any government-supported fund is justifiable, it may be a Liquidity Support Fund, run commercially by banks, for the benefit of investors in money-market mutual funds that offer withdrawals on demand, to prevent a run on such funds. In the longer term, taking a cue from the burial of the stand-alone investment banks in the United States that were hybrid creatures, partly banks but without the oversight of banking regulators or benefit of lender-of-last-resort arrangements, there is need to re-examine the models of stand-alone mutual funds offering withdrawal on demand, and independent non-banking finance companies. A redrawn architecture of the financial sector could put such hybrid creatures under the umbrella of bank holding companies with adequate responsibilities on the holding companies.
The government is smugly driving forward looking at the rear-view mirror showing 7 per cent growth. It needs to act, but not by creating an equity market stabilisation fund. The government should look after the economy. The markets will look after themselves.