Related items. Jan 22nd 2009 Like most things financial in the past year, nothing has gone according to plan. The sovereign funds that hold shares have suffered large losses. A recent paper by Brad Setser of the Council on Foreign Relations and Rachel Ziemba of RGE Monitor, a research firm, estimates that Gulf foreign-reserve funds and SWFs (the distinction is often blurry) lost $350 billion last year, or 27% of the value of their assets.
That is a similar fall to a typical pension fund. High-profile investments in struggling Western banks have been disastrous. Meanwhile the crisis has shifted priorities. Some countries, such as Russia, have depleted their reserves to defend their currencies from capital outflows. And just as Western governments are borrowing to fund bail-outs and stimulus packages, so many surplus countries are tapping their reserves of extra cash.
China Investment Corporation, a $170 billion SWF which invests at home and abroad, has been buying shares in domestic Chinese banks at the same time as Western firms such as UBS, Royal Bank of Scotland and Bank of America have been selling theirs. The $50 billion Qatar Investment Authority has also been buying stakes in local banks to shore them up. Heavy losses are hardly unique.
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But the hunger to buy assets may well fade, too. This is easiest to show for oil exporters. Mr Setser and Ms Ziemba estimate that with oil at $50 a barrel (comfortably above its current level), Gulf states' net purchases of foreign assets are likely to be close to zero, from a peak of over $300 billion annually, taking into account likely domestic government spending. With oil at $25, foreign assets would probably have to be sold (see chart). As well as its currency and corporate woes, Russia is expected to face a budget and current-account deficit this year, which may lead it to draw on its surplus cash.
The picture is less clear for Asian countries, which, led by China and Japan, account for about half of the world's foreign-exchange reserves and sovereign-wealth assets. Few expect China's current account to balance even in the medium term, but the country's surpluses are likely to stop growing so quickly and may even shrink before too long. Even if the SWFs do not become as big as some had projected, might they become more gung-ho, gradually moving out of safe investments like American Treasury bonds into riskier equities and alternative assets? Here the picture is clear: since the credit crisis began, they have become more risk-averse. Among the most cautious is China, which has been selling American agency bonds since their main issuers, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two mortgage giants, flirted with default in mid-2008. Instead it is buying Treasuries.
The Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority, with $500 billion-odd of assets, is being run even more conservatively than usual: between June and November the share of its funds held in gold, cash and deposits rose from 22% to 31%. The similarly sized Abu Dhabi Investment Authority has been cutting its equity allocation to the lower end of its target band of 40-55% of assets, and giving more to index-trackers and less to expensive active managers. This caution is not particularly surprising. As Mr Setser puts it, at times of crisis “the only thing you want from your foreign portfolio is not to have to worry about it”. Nor is it universal: Singapore has said that its two investment vehicles are now poised to “take advantage” of opportunities thrown up by the slump. But there are good reasons why surplus countries may think hard now before shifting their portfolios into riskier assets. Stephen Jen of Morgan Stanley points out that the crisis has reminded some economies, such as Russia and South Korea, of how large capital outflows can be; that makes it especially important to buffer reserves with risk-free liquid assets, preferably in dollars, which can be readily used for currency interventions.
And it seems likely that large capital inflows contributed to the overvaluation of Western assets. If and when oil exports and trade imbalances next reach a cyclical peak, it may make sense to park surpluses in low-risk assets until the boom subsides. The China Investment Corporation's website still says it is looking to hire investment professionals who it can offer “exciting” opportunities in a “fast-growing and dynamic institution” that runs “a global portfolio”. From being an understatement that now looks like an exaggeration.
Contents. General Information hosted by, published by in - narration Cover Information The Great British Story: A People’s History Season 1 The Great British Story: A People’s History is a documentary series presented by Michael Wood. He travels around the country as he explores the United Kingdom’s remarkable past, from the perspective of ordinary people. It’s wide-ranging, beautifully filmed and a bit sentimental, but also hugely informative and full of good humour. Nobody does this sort of thing better. Britannia. Michael Wood's history of Britain reaches the Battle of Hastings and the Norman Conquest, asking what life was like for the Anglo-Saxon peasantry in the decades following 1066.
To find out he joins the excavation of a castle at Mount Bures, Essex, and a community dig in the Suffolk village of Lord Melford. Moving on, he looks at the beginnings of trade and industry in Bristol, Wales and the Black Country, explores the battle for rights enshrined in the Magna Carta and considers how the nation was affected by the Barons' War and first Scottish War of Independence. The Great Rising. Michael Wood's history of Britain reaches the 14th century, when the Black Death killed more than half the population. He examines local records to track the plague across the UK, and investigates how it led to the Peasants' Revolt, an uprising by agricultural workers. The 15th century saw the rise of a new middle class - Michael visits the oldest primary school in Britain - from 1437 - to find out how education played a major role in people's changing fortunes. Along the way, he also crawls down a sewer in Lavenham, Suffolk, for a spot of hands-on history, while letters from a Norfolk village provide a medieval woman's take on love, marriage and men.
Lost Worlds and New Worlds. As the second half of the series gets under way, he examines how Henry VIII's founding of the Church of England in 1534, followed by the dissolution of the Catholic monasteries, transformed the country's religious landscape, setting the tone for a century of sweeping change.
He traces the rise of industry and commerce in Bristol and Scotland, discovers evidence of one of Britain's first black communities, and finds an artefact that sheds light on the Elizabethan conquest of Ireland - before explaining how a radical religious movement in Nottinghamshire laid the foundations for transatlantic migration. The Age of Revolution. Michael Wood explores how civil war split Britain during the 17th century, beginning his journey in Dublin, where he examines artefacts of the 1641 Irish Rebellion, before travelling to Co Down to find out about the Ulster-Scots.
Back in England, he explains how communities in the West Midlands were divided by the violent conflict between Parliament and the Crown, and visits a local history project that is unearthing evidence from a Cornish battlefield. He also charts the origins of revolutionary movements including the Levellers and Diggers, which he believes laid the foundations for modern British democracy. Industry and Empire. Michael Wood explores the many ways in which the Industrial Revolution transformed society during the 19th century, as towns and cities grew while the rural population shrank and Britain became the world's first industrial power. He discovers how this economic shift affected workers, visiting communities in Dorset and Wiltshire, as well as the site of a former slum in Manchester, and investigates the roles of slavery and colonialism in driving British expansion.
He also travels to mines and factories that thrived during the period, and learns how the ideas of Enlightenment thinkers revolutionised the way people viewed the world. Modern Britain. Michael Wood concludes his survey of the past 2,000 years of British history by charting the dramatic changes seen during the 20th and 21st centuries.
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He assesses the impact that two world wars had on communities across the country, explores the spread of multiculturalism over the past 50 years and charts Britain's transition into a post-industrial economy. Finally, he assesses the future of the United Kingdom, and explains what he believes British citizens can learn from their shared history. Screenshots.