Ever since Kazakhstan stormed onto the radar of market participants who, prior to last week, didn’t know the country existed, the world has awoken to the fact that a sharp and persistent decline in oil, that most financialized of commodities, comes with very real and far-reaching consequences.
For producers, crude’s slide strains budgets and pressures FX reserves and as we documented at length on Sunday in "Saudi Arabia Faces Another 'Very Scary Moment' As Economy, FX Regime Face Crude Reality [6]," nowhere is this more apparent than in Saudi Arabia where the country faces a fiscal deficit on the order of 20% and the first current account deficit in a decade.
The situation has some betting that Saudi Arabia will not be willing (or able) to retain the riyal’s peg to the dollar and as you can see from the 12-month forwards, it might be time for sellside FX strategists to reconsider their position that the currency regime isn’t likely to change anytime soon.
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