BAKU, Azerbaijan, Dec.9
Trend:
The gold and currency reserves of Kazakhstan made up nearly $32.5 billion in Nov. 2020, compared to $33.6 billion a month earlier (by $1.1 billion), Trend reports referring to the country’s National Bank.
According to the bank, the main reason for the reduction in reserves was a record monthly drop in gold prices over the past 4 years from $1,876 to $1,772 per ounce, or by 5.5 percent.
Successes in development of vaccines (against COVID-19), as well as recovery in business activity around the world, have led to a drop in demand for gold as a defensive asset.
The gold portfolio in the gold and foreign currency reserves decreased by $1.2 billion in November. However, in December, the gold price began to recover and today has reached the level of $1,870 per ounce. One of the reasons for the growth was the weakening of the US dollar before introducing a new package of fiscal incentives in the US.
The currency part of reserves grew by $100 million due to the growth of correspondent accounts of the second-tier banks.
According to preliminary data, assets of the National Fund equaled $58 billion as at the end of Nov. 2020, growing by almost $1.7 billion month on month,” the bank said.
As noted above, the news about the success in development of vaccines, as well as positive data in the quarterly reports of the world's leading companies, were positively received by the financial market participants. As a result, there was a significant increase in the main stock indices. So, the return on the index of global shares of MSCI in the reporting month made up 12.8 percent.
Against the backdrop of optimism in the markets, the National Fund's investment income in November amounted to $2 billion, over $1.6 billion of which came from the portfolio of stocks. Investment income since the beginning of this year has reached almost $3 billion.
In order to fulfill obligations on the allocation of a guaranteed transfer to the republican budget in the amount of 230 billion tenge ($550 million), in the past month the sale of the National Fund’s foreign currency assets for about $541 million was carried out. At the same time, foreign exchange receipts to the fund made up $198 million.