Arab states’ petrodollars are burning fast and that’s bad news for emerging markets, real estate and, above all, Asian securities. Gulf Cooperation Council countries have to refinance $94 billion of debt over the next two years, as reported by Bloomberg News on Sunday. As the price of oil drops, so do the foreign-exchange reserves of those nation’s central banks. That’s an indication that sovereign wealth funds built with petrodollars aren’t investing much lately. In fact, they’re selling. Such sovereign wealth funds are, naturally, key buyers of sukuk, or Islamic bonds. No surprise then that 2015 was the slowest for issuance of Islamic debt since 2011, and offerings last month were the least for any January in six years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It goes way beyond Sharia-compliant securities, however. Middle Eastern investors, especially the sovereign wealth funds and banks, are big backers of infrastructure around Asia and […]