FXStreet (Córdoba) – According to analysts from Brown Brother Harriman, lower oil prices and generally negative Emerging Markets sentiment are likely to keep pressure on the Mexican peso in 2016.
Key Quotes:
“Mexico finds itself in the familiar position of coming under strong selling pressure when EM sentiment worsens. Lower oil prices are a problem for the economy, but manufactured exports to US have taken up some of the slack. GDP is expected to grow 2.3% this year and 2.8% next year. Domestic consumption remains robust, but has yet to feed into rising price pressures.”
“Indeed, price pressures are still falling, with CPI inflation of only 2.2% y/y in November. This is an all-time low. Core inflation is also falling. This does not make a compelling case for aggressive tightening by Banco de Mexico. Bloomberg consensus is for 75 bp of tightening over the course of 2016, with another 25 bp seen in Q1 2017.”
“The peso made a new all-time low against the dollar last week. Lower oil prices are a factor, but more important may be generalized EM sentiment since the peso typically suffers in bad times due to its role as a proxy for wider EM. The peso is freely tradable (and shortable), and so investors that are negative on Brazil or Russia can more easily express their views via the peso. MXN is in the underperforming camp, -14% YTD vs. USD. We believe the peso will make new all-time lows past 17.50 in the coming weeks.”
(Market News Provided by FXstreet)