Surat Utang Negara sebagai “Safe Haven Investment”

Di koran Kontan dalam berita “Saham Ditinggal, Asing Ganti Menyerbu SUN” (Sabtu, 6 Agustus 2011) saya menegaskan: "Surat Utang Negara menjadi safe haven baru bagi investor asing di Indonesia".

 

Kutipan lengkapnya:

 

……

 

Pengamat ekonomi Siswa Rizali menilai, persepsi investor asing semakin positif terhadap obligasi Indonesia. "Obligasi dari emerging market dulu dinilai sama beresikonya dengan saham. Namun sejak krisis 2008, orang berpikir obligasi siapa yang paling aman dan bagus," kata dia.

 

Nah, di kelompok emerging market, obligasi Indonesia boleh dibilang sebagai yang terseksi. Selain menawarkan yield tinggi, Indonesia secara fundamental juga dinilai kuat.

 

Salah satu indikasinya adalah rasio utang terhadap produk domestik bruto masih sekitar 25%. "SUN menjadi safe haven baru," jelas dia.

 

Kenaikan harga SUN kemarin juga terdongkrak depresiasi nilai tukar yang membuat aset rupiah menjadi murah di kantong asing. Ini makin memicu belanja investor asing.

 

Yield SUN ke depan memang diprediksi akan terus turun, utamanya untuk tenor 5tahun-10 tahun. Namun, levelnya masih jauh lebih menarik dibandingkan yield obligasi Negara Jiran seperti Malaysia dan Thailand.

 

 

Kemudian Bloomberg (22 Agustus 2011) membuat berita “Emerging Bonds Show Ratings Don’t Matter as Yields Decline” yang isinya:

 

For the first time in five years, emerging-market debt is breaking its link with riskier assets and trading in sync with securities investors deem the safest.

 

Gains in local-currency debt of developing nations sent yields on the benchmark index to a nine-month low even as bonds of similarly-rated U.S. companies fell this month and the value of global stocks tumbled by $6.8 trillion on concern the economy may stall. Yields have diverged from the VIX index, known as the fear gauge for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index, for the first time since May 2006 and are moving in line with Treasuries by the most in five years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

 

“If we get a period of lower global growth, emerging- market local bond yields will continue to rally,” Michael Gomez, the Munich-based co-head of emerging markets at Pacific Investment Management Co., which oversees $1.3 trillion including the world’s biggest bond fund, said in an Aug. 17 interview on Bloomberg Radio. “That’s a good place to be.”

 

While developing-nation bonds sank with stocks and junk- rated company debt as investors retreated from riskier assets in October 2008 and May 2010, fund managers are now treating sovereign debt of Indonesia and Turkey as havens, similar to U.S. and German securities.

 

Demikian juga dengan The Morning Call (24 Agustus 2011) dari Standard Chartered Bank yang berjudul “Bond Versus Equity Currencies” menyatakan:

 

However, an equally important factor behind the declining correlation between equities and FX is the increasing importance of AXJ local bond markets. Since the global financial crisis, there has been a structural shift in portfolio flows towards AXJ local bond markets given much stronger credit fundamentals, strong currencies and higher yields. As a result, since the start of 2011, foreign holdings of the Indonesian, Malaysian, Korean and Thai bond markets have risen to 34.90%, 33.40%, 16.80% and 10.94%, respectively, from 30.53%, 28.40%, 13.70% and 8.89%.

 

 

Padahal di awal 2008, obligasi emerging market masih dilihat sebagai asset yang sangat beresiko (Bloomberg, “Western Asset, Pictet Buy Asian Bonds as Stocks Fall”, 7 Maret 2008):

 

``I don't believe in the idea of Asia as a safe haven,'' said Katayama, whose firm is part of Japan's second-biggest investment bank. Daiwa SB has trimmed its Asian bond holdings.