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\t\t<\/span><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n \n \t\t\u00a9 Thomson Reuters 2012 All rights reserved<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" * Stocks fall 1.5 pct as Greek bailout delay weighs * Hungarian bonds reverse gains * Russian stocks down 1.7 pct; rouble nr 2-wk low * Most emerging currencies decline By Sujata Rao LONDON, Feb 16 (Reuters) – Emerging market assets fell on Thursday, hit by Greece’s protracted battle to secure a new bailout, with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-8055","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8055","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8055"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8055\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8055"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8055"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8055"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}* Stocks fall 1.5 pct as Greek bailout delay weighs\n * Hungarian bonds reverse gains\n * Russian stocks down 1.7 pct; rouble nr 2-wk low\n * Most emerging currencies decline\n\n By Sujata Rao\t\n LONDON, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Emerging market assets fell\non Thursday, hit by Greece's protracted battle to secure a new\nbailout, with Hungarian government bonds reversing the bulk of\ngains posted a day earlier when the central bank moved to\nkickstart bank lending.\t\n Euro zone finance ministers on Wednesday failed to resolve\nall the issues surrounding a second aid package for Athens,\nputting off any decision on the matter until Feb. 20 at the\nearliest. \t\n That frayed market nerves with the Euro STOXX 50 volatility\nindex, Europe's main gauge of investor anxiety, rising 6\npercent to a one-month high.\t\n Stock markets fell worldwide, with emerging equities \n retreating almost 1.5 percent after the previous\nsession's 1 percent-plus gains.\t\n Most emerging currencies eased, with Asian trading seeing\nheavy losses on the Korean won and Malaysian ringgit while the\nRussian rouble and South African rand pulled back almost one\npercent to the dollar .\t\n But many analysts remain sanguine, seeing the pullback as\ntemporary, especially given the vast amounts of liquidity\ncentral banks in developed economies are injecting into the\nfinancial system.\t\n \"It is the Greek story that is triggering this turnaround,\nbut given the uncertainty about where we're going from here on,\nGreece is having a relatively limited market impact - we're not\nseeing the kind of moves we saw in December,\" said Lars\nChristensen, chief emerging markets analyst at Danske Bank.\t\n Emerging assets have chalked up hefty gains since the start\nof 2012 with stocks up around 14 percent and most currencies\nrising 7-8 percent against the dollar and euro. However the\nrallies have stalled in recent sessions amid fresh evidence that\nthe turmoil in the euro zone is far from resolved.\t\n On Wednesday, data showed a sharp slowdown in central\nEuropean economies - heavily exposed to the crisis - with the\nCzech Republic falling into recession.\t\n \"CEEMEA markets seem to be due for a correction. The most\naffected ones are likely to be the ones that performed the best\nup to now - Hungarian and Polish assets,\" BNP Paribas said.\t\n \t\n HUNGARY RETREATS\t\n In Hungary, bonds were boosted on Wednesday by new central\nbank measures to support lending via two-year loans in exchange\nfor collateral and mortgage bond purchases. Short-dated yields\nhad fallen 20-30 bps with the three-year yield falling to 8\npercent for the first time in 2-1\/2 months.\t\n But Thursday's risk-off mood took its toll and yields rose\n10-15 bps across the board.\t\n Stocks also gave up gains, with shares in biggest lender OTP\nfalling 3 percent after rising more than 2 percent on Wednesday\n. The forint, which touched a 4-1\/2 month high on\nWednesday, slumped 0.5 percent to the euro \t\n \"There are quite clear limits to how much the Hungarian\ncentral bank really can do in terms of monetary easing. This\n(the credit facility) is basically a form of quantitative easing\nand if they were to do any major UK-style scale QE then the\nforint would collapse and that would do great damage,\"\nChristensen said, citing Hungary's high exposure to euro- and\nSwiss franc-denominated loans.\t\n Hungary, keen for an aid package from the International\nMonetary Fund and European Union, has been trying to iron out\ndifferences with the lenders over controversial laws, especially\nthose seen as infringing central bank independence.\t\n Minutes of the last meeting of the country's central bank\nrevealed on Wednesday that last month's decision to hold\ninterest rates came about after Governor Andras Simor and his\ntwo deputies, who proposed a rise, were voted down by the four\nboard members appointed last year by the government.\t\n Central bankers said on Thursday interest rates would remain\nflat until the IMF\/EU aid deal is signed \t\n \"There are no rate hike expectations...now,\" a trader in\nBudapest said. \"If the government reaches the IMF deal, the\nmarket can easily slip into rate cut expectations and then\nanything yielding more than 8 percent can become attractive.\"\t\n Politics also will weigh in Russia where the rouble fell 0.7\npercent to 30.22, its weakest since early\nFebruary and lost 0.2 percent to the euro. \t\n \"The rouble faces resistance from profit-taking in short\npositions in foreign currencies. Elections are looming so the\nstrategy now is to buy (dollars) on dips,\" said a dealer in\nMoscow, referring to the March 4 presidential election.\t\n In Egypt, credit default swaps rose to a one-month high\nafter fresh protests over the deaths of 74 soccer fans piled \nmore pressure on the country's ruling generals. Shares fell 1\npercent as investors pocketed profits from the market's\n40-percent rally since the start of 2012.\t\n\t\n (Additional reporting by Alessandra Prentice in London; Sandor\nPeto in Budapest; Editing by John Stonestreet)<\/pre>\n