Column : Liquidity or solvency?

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: in respect of short-term financial instruments, mutual funds have the ability to carry the assets at amortised cost rather than market value. Second, some of the really distressed paper does not trade at all and this makes the valuation judgmental. SEBI has allowed greater freedom to mutual funds to mark down the valuation of debt paper by using higher discount rates rather than the rating based spreads that were mandated in the past. This is a good step, but its usefulness depends on the voluntary decisions by funds to mark down the net asset values of their funds.

Solvency problems should be addressed at the earliest possible stage because the longer the corrective action is delayed, the greater the eventual costs of solving the problem. It is necessary to move swiftly to triage financial intermediaries into three categories: those that are financially sound, those that need to be recapitalised or restructured and those that should be shut down. This requires price discovery for stressed assets. Indian policy makers should therefore move swiftly to put in place structures similar to what the Americans and Europeans have done in the last couple of months to restore the health of the financial sector.

A strong financial sector is essential to confront the challenges of a slowing world economy. Unlike during the Asian crisis, this time, emerging economies face a shrinking world market for their exports. The threat of a “beggar thy neighbour” policy of competitive currency depreciation is very real.

The Korean won today trades lower than it did as it was emerging out of the Asian crisis in 1999. The news coming out of China is also quite bad, and the Chinese seem determined to boost their economy through all possible measures. At some stage, these measures will probably include a depreciation of their currency. To make matters worse, many East European currencies are also in danger of going into free fall, and some of them could be formidable competitors in the IT and BPO industries despite a language handicap.