Thread: Dollar defies recipe for currency collapse

Dollar defies recipe for currency collapse

The US Federal Reserve is printing money. The US government is also spending wildly today so there won’t be a depression tomorrow. It sounds like a recipe for currency collapse. Yet the dollar keeps picking up. And the trend seems unlikely to change soon. What’s going on? Well, consider the competition.

By Ian Campbell, breakingviews.com
Last Updated: 4:08PM GMT 10 Mar 2009

Start with the dollar’s predecessor as reserve currency – the pound. At $1.38, it is close to setting what would be 20-year lows against the dollar, less than a year after it set quarter-century highs.

Let us count the woes. The banks have big foreign liabilities, the deficit-ridden UK government has taken on most of the risk in the banking sector, and the Bank of England is going to add £75bn in fresh notes to the pool of sterling assets. Who wants them? Not foreign investors.

Hawkish ECB risks central bank fight on rates

Euro bank's hawks take a poundingThe euro, Icarus-like last summer, also looks to be heading fast for the soil. Eurozone growth is bad. Its banks are in trouble. How to avoid an unfortunate roast of Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain is the question. But now add Belgium, Italy and Austria, whose banks are among the worst affected by eastern Europe’s implosion.

In Frankfurt, Jean-Claude Trichet, head of the European Central Bank is not in favour of easing. In Berlin, Chancellor Angela Merkel is not keen on bailing. The zone is sinking.

Just like Japanese exports – down by an annual 46pc in January. The yen’s rise last year was in part technical. Hedge funds advocated shorting Japan. Then it became time to drop those risky yen shorts and run for cover. But Japan’s fundamentals are now exposed and none too pretty. Recession is intense.

US fundamentals are dreadful, too. But policy-making could hardly be more activist. It is in essence a huge gamble on recovery. For now, the world would rather take that gamble and buy the multitude of treasuries the US government is issuing than contemplate anything else. The reserve currency will forge ahead. Unless the world starts to think the big US wager is going to be a losing one.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/brea ... lapse.html

Authorities lose patience with collapsing dollar

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard
Last Updated: 2:44AM GMT 28 Feb 2009

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Jean-Claude Juncker, who is calling for Washington to take steps to halt the slide of the dollar

Jean-Claude Juncker, the EU's 'Mr Euro', has given the clearest warning to date that the world authorities may take action to halt the collapse of the dollar and undercut commodity speculation by hedge funds.

Momentum traders have blithely ignored last week's accord by the G7 powers, which described "sharp fluctuations in major currencies" as a threat to economic and financial stability. The euro has surged to fresh records this week, touching $1.5982 against the dollar and £0.8098 against sterling yesterday.

Will Uncle Sam let the dollar collapse?"I don't have the impression that financial markets and other actors have correctly and entirely understood the message of the G7 meeting," he said.

Mr Juncker, who doubles as Luxembourg premier and chair of eurozone financiers, told the Luxembourg press that he had been invited to the White House last week just before the G7 at the urgent request of President George Bush. The two leaders discussed the dangers of rising "protectionism" in Europe. Mr Juncker warned that matters could get out of hand unless America took steps to halt the slide in the dollar.

Read more by Ambrose Evans Pritchard
World central banks last intervened eight years ago - with mixed success - buying euros in September 2000 to support the fledgling currency through its worst crisis.

David Woo, currency chief at Barclays Capital, said the Europeans and Americans are talking past each other. Whatever the G7 wording, Washington is happy to watch the dollar slide. "They are not going to worry unless there is a knock-on effect on US equity or bond prices. So far that hasn't happened. There are no signs that the dollar decline has turned disorderly," he said.

European industry has managed to live with the high euro so far, but the damage of major currency shifts can take years to surface. "The moment will come where the exchange rate level will start to cause serious harm to the European economy," said Mr Juncker.

Louis Gallois, head of the Airbus group EADS, said his company is already taking dramatic steps to shift plant to the dollar-zone. "The euro at its current level is asphyxiating a large part of European industry by shaving export margins," he said.

The European Central Bank revealed in its monthly report that foreign direct investment (FDI) into the euro zone has contracted by €269bn over the last two years. Foreigners are gradually winding down operations. This will have powerful long-term effects.

George Soros, the hedge fund baron who "broke" Europe's exchange system in the early 1990s, said yesterday that the euro could never anchor of the global system. "I don't think the euro can replace the dollar as the main world currency. The euro is not a truly attractive alternative," he said.

Mr Soros said the dollar would reclaim its crown eventually, but for now the financial crisis is leading to a flight from all paper currencies, causing a dash for gold, silver, and oil futures.

Otmar Issing, the ECB's former 'High Priest', said the single currency had started well but could face a "disastrous outcome" if the eurozone failed to embrace a flexible market system. "The 'single-size' monetary policy would simply not fit at all. In such a scenario, the single currency would risk straining cohesion " he warned in a new book, 'The Euro'.

This is already occurring. North and South have diverged further. While Germany and Holland have prospered under the strong euro, most of southern Europe and Ireland is in trouble. Current account deficits have reached 9.2pc of GDP in Spain and may touch 15pc in Greece. The European Commission's economists fear that the loss of competitiveness against Germany over the last decade may have passed the point of no return. At best, these countries face years of belt-tightening as their property booms deflate.

Silvio Berlusconi, Italy's newly elected premier, has called for a change in the ECB's mandate, proposing a dual mission akin to the US Federal Reserve's mandate to promote growth as well as fighting inflation. He has the support of France's Nicolas Sarkozy.

A key reason for the 30pc rise in the euro agasint the dollar over the last two years has been the move by Asia central banks and Mid-East wealth funds to parking huge sums of newly acquired wealth in European bonds as an alternative to the dollar.

BNP Paribas said Asian surplus countries and commodity exporters have accumulated $1,160bn in reserves over the last year alone. US Treasury data shows that only 19pc of this was invested in dollar assets. This is a sharp break with past practice. A large chunk of the money was invested in euro-zone securities. The question is whether China, Saudi Arabia, and others, have now reached euro saturation.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/mark ... ollar.html