Category Archives: Currencies

South Korea Guarantees $100 Billion in Bank Debt

South Korea announced a series of drastic measures intended to halt a run on its currency. From Bloomberg: South Korea will guarantee as much as $100 billion in bank debts and supply lenders with dollars to stabilize the financial markets. The government will also provide tax benefits for long-term equity and bond investors, while the […]

Renminbi to Fall Next Year?

One of the trades that looked like a no-brainer was betting on continued appreciation of the Chinese renminbi. In fact, so strong was the confidence in this outlook that China suffered from large-scale hot currency inflows (as recounted ably by Brad Setser) despite the official obstacles. A top investment bank in China is now forecasting […]

"Fed Leads Unprecedented Push by Central Banks to Flood Market With Dollars"

The reader/investor who sent the link to this Bloomberg story provided the comments below. Not he does not resort to capital letters casually: THIS IS HARD TO BELIEVE. THOSE CB’S DON’T HAVE UNLIMITED $’S, SO IF TRUE, THEY WILL BE BORROWING THEM FROM THE FED VIA AN EXTENSION OF FED SWAP LINES, THE FOMC HAS […]

Initial Vote of Confidence in EU Announcement: Euro Rallies

Although it is way too early to be certain, the foreign exchange markets appear to be responding positively to the plans to shore up the banking system announced by EU leaders earlier today. Since many European banks funded some of their balance sheets in dollars, a fall in the dollar would also offer some direct […]

A Glimpse Into the Abyss

I must confess a certain fondness for the apocalyptic sort of financial writer, provided they don’t lose anchoring with reality and fall into the tinfoil hat category. Nouriel Roubini is the case example of an economist who favors a baroque, melodramatic style, and despite sounding more than a tad unhinged at points, he has proven […]

Hypo Bank Rescue Fails, Threatening Lehman Scale Bankruptcy, Future of Euro

Hypo Real Estate, Germany’s second largest real estate lender, teeters on the verge of collapse. The bank has a €400 billion balance sheet, which would make for a failure of a similar scale to Lehman’s (Hypo’s footings are roughly $550 billion, while Lehman’s were $660 billion as of its last balance sheet date). Even though […]

"Asia Needs Deal to Prevent Panic Selling of U.S. Debt"

It has been conventional wisdom that China, Japan, and other countries that run trade surpluses with the US, which means they fund our overconsumption by buying assets like US Treauries, would never restrict the flow of credit to us because it would lower their exports and hurt their growth. We’ve long been leery of the […]

Quelle Surprise! Traders Say Dollar May Be "Crushed" By Bailout Plan

Our mantra of late has been that the serial bailout plans from the Treasury and Fed will undermine the US’s AAA rating and exact a considerable toll on the dollar. Indeed, Liam Halligan tells us in the Telegraph today that “Default by the US government is no longer unthinkable.” Bloomberg reports that this view is […]

Emerging Markets Outflows Highest Since 1995

Note the not-pretty pattern. The flow of funds out of emerging markets has reached the high-water mark of the period leading into the Asian, then Russian financial crises of 1997-1998. However, after recovering from the damage of this period, emerging markets as a whole enjoyed a period of strong growth. In theory, their economies are […]

Korea: On Verge of a Currency Crisis?

The news of a possible investment by the Korean Development Bank in Lehman is overshadowing far more important developments, at least as far as most Koreans are concerned. The won is on a rapid slide, in a worrying parallel to the Asian currency crisis of 1997, and some other currencies in the region are under […]

Nikkei: EU, Japan, US Discussed Coordinated Intervention to Support Dollar

You can tell a long weekend in approaching in the US. Most of the interesting news tonight is from Asia, although in this case, via the Financial Times. Reader Matt D waxed eloquent in comments yesterday about FT reporter Krishna Guha, who provided insight into the Fed staff’s reading of the tealeaves, which was more […]

Japan’s Net Sales of Foreign Debt Reaches Record

Although one robin does not make a spring, the increased reluctance of Japanese retail and institutional investors to hold GSE debt is worrisome. Bloomberg reports that Japanese retail and institutional investors are unloading foreign debt due to currency volatility and are particularly leery of Fannie and Freddie securities. Admittedly, as Brad Setser has pointed out […]

What Global Rebalancing (aka The End of Foreign Funding Spree) Looks Like

A very useful post comes from Robert Dekle, Jonathan Eaton, and Samuel S. Kortum at VoxEU. The authors steer clear of the “when will global imbalances end” question (as in when will China, Japan, Taiwan, and the Gulf States tire of funding our current account deficit) to focus on one at least as important: “what […]

US Export Boom Leaves Manufacturing Largely Behind

We have been skeptical of the idea that a weak dollar would be the boon for US manufacturing that many thought it would. The reason? The best possible outcome would be to see a resurgence in manufacturing, since manufacturing has higher potential for productivity gains than does the service industry (although getting back some of […]

"Dollar surge will not stop America feeling the effects of a global crunch"

Despite the resurgence of the dollar, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard remains unconvinced that things in the US are now as rosy as the new found (albeit guarded) optimism suggests. He comes by his view without disputing the view that the dollar rally has legs. I’m not very optimistic about that. Why? A drinking buddy with amazing connections […]