Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Central Bank Balance Bullying: Investor Implications

Interest-Rates / Central Banks Sep 16, 2014 - 06:12 PM GMT

By: Axel_Merk

Interest-Rates

"Bullying" by the Fed, ECB, Bank of England and Bank of Japan has been in place for up to six years, forcing not-so-mighty central banks, savers and investors to deal with the consequences. Understanding the dynamics may help investors to navigate what's ahead.

First, let's get one thing straight: it matters little what you; we; or anyone in the blogosphere thinks policy makers should do. We are bystanders that have to deal with the consequences of their actions. The cheapest action undertaken by policy makers is to coerce the markets with verbiage. Their words matter, as they control the printing presses. Having said this, if the words are not followed by action, at some point, the markets may call their bluff.


Not all policy makers are created equal. Some grab the headlines simply because their leaders have access to a microphone, such as Christine Lagarde of the IMF. But the IMF only sets policies for countries that are receiving funds from the IMF aid program. For all practical matters, we would like to encourage anyone to tune out when Madame Lagarde tells the Fed or the ECB what to do. Similarly, the OECD just doled out some advice for the ECB, but - frankly - their input is rather irrelevant. Just as irrelevant as yours or mine would be.

Let's move a step up from the supra-national organizations to small countries. Now we are firmly in bullying victim territory. When large central banks unleash their printing presses, what are smaller countries to do? We have all been told never to blame the victim, but countries have a choice:

  • Take Switzerland. Think of a beautiful house in a bad neighborhood where everyone dumps their garbage in the back yard. To blend in, folks living in the beautiful house also dump their garbage in their own back yard. The beautiful house is Switzerland. The Swiss National Bank has been printing money to prevent the Swiss franc from rising, buying up euro and US dollar denominated securities, amongst others.
  • At the other extreme, take New Zealand. The brave island nation has raised interest rates, resulting in a significant currency appreciation, especially versus its bigger neighbor, Australia. For now, New Zealand is expected to take a breather in its rate hiking cycle.
  • Australia itself has kept rates low (at 2.5% much higher than many other countries), but is widely expected to start raising rates, likely in Q1 next year. To counter investors flocking to the Australian dollar, the Reserve Bank of Australia recently said, "the exchange rate ... remains above most estimates of its fundamental value".

And then there are the big boys - and girls, the bullies. When the Fed sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold. When the ECB or BOJ act, it sends ripple effects around the world. We are told extra-ordinary measures are temporary. Is seven years (since 2008) temporary? Pensioners have been deprived of income. Easy money has pushed up global real estate prices. Buying a home has become unaffordable to ever more people, even as rates hover at or near historic lows.

One could argue that we, as investors, are also "victims." But just as any country has a choice on how to react to the bullying of central banks, so does any investor. We can't print our own money, but we can choose where to place our money. Browsing through stories in recent weeks, one can read that the verdict is out: the bullies have been right. After all, stocks have gone up - a bull market creates many smart people.

Things must be great, what could possibly go wrong? Well, Bloomberg reported on Monday that 47 percent of stocks in the Nasdaq Composite Index are down at least 20% from their peak in the last 12 months. No, not all is well. We have argued for a while that the biggest threat we may be facing is that the policies we have in place are actually working, namely that we are getting economic growth. That's because throughout the world, we have mostly kicked the proverbial can down the road. Should we get economic growth, the cost of borrowing is likely to move higher, making it ever more apparent that we cannot sustain our deficits. Not in the U.S; not in Japan; and not in the Eurozone. But fear not, the bullies of the world may keep rates low. It's just that something has to give - we think it will be the currency, with the dollar and yen particularly vulnerable.

In our assessment, odds are high that the bullying will continue. That is, central banks won't allow asset prices to be reflected by fundamentals, but 'extraordinary' measures of some form will persist. For countries being bullied, this means they better be in it for the long haul.

For investors, they have to figure out how to navigate these waters. Many have simply gone along for the ride. And why not, if things go wrong, we can simply ask for another bailout, right?

We propose investors to consider what might be a better alternative: how about contemplating what might be a prudent policy for policy makers to pursue, then putting one's money on the long-term winner? Of course this requires answering the question: what does it mean for a country to win? You see, with both consumers and government heavily in debt, the U.S. might call itself a "winner" if it can devalue the value of this debt; the ones holding the bag are, after all, foreigners. Is a country a winner that provides the best social services? Is a country a winner that allows market forces to play out? Or is a country a winner that minimizes inflation or maximizes employment or GDP?

We believe in the old adage that the best short-term policy may be a good long-term policy. That's true if for no other reason that businesses are more likely to invest if they know what policies will be in place in the future. As such, we encourage anyone to look at which countries have sustainable policies. Having said that, any such assessment has to be put in the context of valuation because the best values are sometimes found with countries that are about to turn the corner, meaning the market may re-price better times ahead. Putting money with a country pursuing "good" policy rather than one pursuing "bad" policy may sound well, but will an investor benefit? And if so, what does it mean to put money into a country? Does one buy the currency, stocks, or bonds?

Since we put this in the context of central bank bullying, let's consider a "good" policy to be sound monetary policy. Sound monetary policy, namely one that fosters price stability, may bode well for a currency. In the context of other central banks trying to debase their currencies, it may lead the currency of a country pursuing sound monetary policy to appreciate. Those fighting the hardest against currency appreciation may win the currency war, but impose losses on those buying the currency.

The call for currency debasement is usually associated with the fear that a strong currency suffocates a domestic economy. As such, at first blush, equity markets in such a country might be at risk. But small countries can have rather odd mixes of domestic versus international revenue for large players. Take New Zealand for example, whose fate is mostly dependent on soft commodities (notably milk powder exports to China); or Switzerland that houses headquarters of various multinational companies, although much of the revenue is from abroad. Many of these countries also have sophisticated currency-hedging operations in place. Importantly, we believe the countries that embrace their strong currencies and adjust accordingly will be better equipped as the bullying of large central banks may continue.

The good news about the recent run-up in the dollar is that it may provide an opportunity for investors to diversify outside of the dollar. Notably, just as the dollar has appreciated with rising equity prices of late, the dollar may not be the safe haven should equity prices fall back down to earth. Given that a downturn in equity prices in the U.S. may drag down equity prices worldwide, investors might want to consider staying on the cash side of things, outside of the dollar, thereby embracing currency risk as a potential opportunity.

Today, September 16, 2014, please join me for a "fireside chat." We will make most of the hour available for you to ask questions. Please register to participate. We no longer record our webinars (the regulatory overhead is too much hassle), so join live to get answers to the questions you always wanted to ask.

If you haven't done so, also make sure you sign up for Merk Insights to receive analyses like this one straight to your mailbox.

Axel Merk

Manager of the Merk Hard, Asian and Absolute Return Currency Funds, www.merkfunds.com

Rick Reece is a Financial Analyst at Merk Investments and a member of the portfolio management

Axel Merk, President & CIO of Merk Investments, LLC, is an expert on hard money, macro trends and international investing. He is considered an authority on currencies. Axel Merk wrote the book on Sustainable Wealth; order your copy today.

The Merk Absolute Return Currency Fund seeks to generate positive absolute returns by investing in currencies. The Fund is a pure-play on currencies, aiming to profit regardless of the direction of the U.S. dollar or traditional asset classes.

The Merk Asian Currency Fund seeks to profit from a rise in Asian currencies versus the U.S. dollar. The Fund typically invests in a basket of Asian currencies that may include, but are not limited to, the currencies of China, Hong Kong, Japan, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

The Merk Hard Currency Fund seeks to profit from a rise in hard currencies versus the U.S. dollar. Hard currencies are currencies backed by sound monetary policy; sound monetary policy focuses on price stability.

The Funds may be appropriate for you if you are pursuing a long-term goal with a currency component to your portfolio; are willing to tolerate the risks associated with investments in foreign currencies; or are looking for a way to potentially mitigate downside risk in or profit from a secular bear market. For more information on the Funds and to download a prospectus, please visit www.merkfunds.com.

Investors should consider the investment objectives, risks and charges and expenses of the Merk Funds carefully before investing. This and other information is in the prospectus, a copy of which may be obtained by visiting the Funds' website at www.merkfunds.com or calling 866-MERK FUND. Please read the prospectus carefully before you invest.

The Funds primarily invest in foreign currencies and as such, changes in currency exchange rates will affect the value of what the Funds own and the price of the Funds' shares. Investing in foreign instruments bears a greater risk than investing in domestic instruments for reasons such as volatility of currency exchange rates and, in some cases, limited geographic focus, political and economic instability, and relatively illiquid markets. The Funds are subject to interest rate risk which is the risk that debt securities in the Funds' portfolio will decline in value because of increases in market interest rates. The Funds may also invest in derivative securities which can be volatile and involve various types and degrees of risk. As a non-diversified fund, the Merk Hard Currency Fund will be subject to more investment risk and potential for volatility than a diversified fund because its portfolio may, at times, focus on a limited number of issuers. For a more complete discussion of these and other Fund risks please refer to the Funds' prospectuses.

This report was prepared by Merk Investments LLC, and reflects the current opinion of the authors. It is based upon sources and data believed to be accurate and reliable. Opinions and forward-looking statements expressed are subject to change without notice. This information does not constitute investment advice. Foreside Fund Services, LLC, distributor.

Axel Merk Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in