Thursday, March 19, 2009

US Dollar: Inevitable Fall?

In their latest policy action, Fed has started buying US Treasury Bills from the market. Finally, they have realized to the reality that they are running out of ammunitions. And this is the first indicator that US economy may be in much deeper sh*t than everyone thinks it is.

The Fed ran out of ammunition as the rates were already hovering around zero. And to provide more incentives to the market, they were left with one last option - printing money. So, on one hand, the government is running huge deficits, and is issuing bonds to finance them. On the other hand, it is printing more $ to repay the same. This is as blatant a misuse of their stock currency status as is possible.

The world markets have reacted sharply to the news, and USD is down against all the major currencies. GBP and EUR are currently trading at YTD highs of 1.44 and 1.36. Initially, I had a view that economies of UK and Europe are in shambles, and we may see massive devaluation of their currencies. Now it seems that USD has also joined the club.

I think we may see USD weakening a lot from here. China, the world's largest investor in the US treasury has openly expressed their concerns over their holding, and going forward I see more of their investments going into EUR, GBP, JPY, and Gold. In addition, they might prefer investing in commodities rather than US T-bonds. And once this process starts, USD may fall off a cliff, literally.

I would be short USDINR at levels of 51-52, with a year-end target of 47. We may see INR weakening to 53-54 levels in the short term (on the back of fiscal concerns, and election uncertainty), but I think the issues with USD are much serious and long term in nature.

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