Singapore dollar may become winner as MAS tightens

 

Bloomberg

Singapore’s dollar has established itself as Asia’s most resilient currency against the US dollar this year, and some strategists are betting on more strength if price pressures force the nation’s central bank to tighten its exchange-rate policy again next month.
Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Citigroup Inc and MUFG Bank Ltd are among banks that are bullish on the currency, underpinned by an expectation that the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) will extend policy tightening at its October meeting to help rein in core inflation that hit a 14-year high in July.
The predictions come as almost every major currency retreats against the dollar with the Federal Reserve set on an aggressive rate hike cycle. While the MAS’s stance has turned the nation’s currency into a winner against peers in Asia, it’s still down more than 4% against the greenback this year.
MUFG Bank puts the likelihood of additional tightening by the MAS next month at 50%, which could translate into a gain of more than 1% for the local currency versus the dollar over the following months, according to Jeff Ng, a currency strategist at MUFG Bank in Singapore. “Our call of a SGD rebound is premised on most of the Fed’s eventual rate hikes already being priced into markets now,” he said.
MUFG forecasts the Asian currency rising to 1.38 against the dollar by year-end. It closed last week at 1.4070.
Unlike most central banks that use interest rates, the MAS responds to rising core inflation by guiding the local dollar higher against a basket made up of the currencies of its major trading partners. The central bank focuses on the level of the Singapore dollar’s nominal effective exchange rate, referred to as S$NEER, which it allows to move within a policy band.
Still, even if the MAS does extend its policy tightening for a fourth time this year, there’s no guarantee the local currency will rally against the greenback — the Singapore dollar slumped to its lowest in more than two years earlier this month before paring its 2022 decline to 4.1% by last week.

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