STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Monday, 18 August 2014

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16. JPMorgan Sees Won Rising to Pre-Lehman Levels on Surplus

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-08-17/jpmorgan-s-lee-sees-won-rising-to-pre-lehman-levels-on-surplus.html

South Korea’s record current-account surplus will boost the won to levels prior to the 2008 global credit crisis, JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s Seoul branch manager said.

The won will climb past 1,000 per dollar as local equities attract inflows, Managing Director Lee Sung Hee said in an Aug. 14 interview, without specifying a timeframe. The U.S. bank’s Singapore-based strategist Daniel Hui predicts a 1.8 percent gain to 1,000 by end-December. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of 31 analysts is for a 0.7 percent decline to 1,025 in the same period.

The currency has advanced 3.1 percent this year as global funds pumped $27.7 billion into South Korean bonds and stocks. The central bank last month raised its 2014 forecast for the current-account excess to an unprecedented $84 billion from $68 billion. The Bank of Korea’s decision last week to lower borrowing costs in support of the government’s efforts to revive economic growth won’t deter capital inflows, Lee said.

“It would be difficult for the won to weaken given a current-account surplus of this size,” Lee, who is also JPMorgan’s head of global emerging markets in Korea, said in his office in Seoul. “Gains in the stock market will spur inflows, adding appreciation pressure on the won.”