Dôvody pre dolárové raly

Tri dôvody, prečo môže opätovne nastať dolárové raly. Obvykle doba, kedy je takmer každý naladený dolárovo negatívne, často býva práve ten správny okamih, kedy je treba začať do greenbacku investovať.

But no market, bear or bull, falls or rises in a straight line. And the US currency may be about to have a rally within that long-term downtrend. Here are three reasons why.

First, the dollar’s near-14% drop over the last seven months has spooked traders so badly, that they’ve taken out almost as many futures market ‘down’ contracts on the currency as when a one-year high in such bets was hit in August, says the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

In other words, lots of people are betting on further falls. On the surface, that sounds bad for the buck. But in fact, this mounting gloom could turn out to be a positive sign. When everyone goes bearish – and has sold out – that’s often exactly the time to buy.

Second, one group is certainly doing just that. Over the last three months, developing nations overall acquired even more dollars than during their previous peak-level buying in 2008, says Gary Smith at BNP Paribas Investment Partners. “The precautionary demand for foreign exchange reserves is higher, by a quantum leap”, he says. What’s more, these countries will want to keep adding to their dollar stockpiles “for years to come”, which will boost the US currency. As Capital Economics puts it: “The dollar is still entrenched as the world's dominant reserve currency and the near-term outlook, we believe, is for dollar strength”.

Third, the latest economic news coming out of the States isn’t very good. Friday’s weak data on jobs and manufacturing were just the latest signs that, excluding the artificial boost caused by government spending on the likes of the ‘cash for clunkers’ car scrappage programme, the US economy is going nowhere fast.

Again that might sound bad for the dollar. But in fact, when investors get the jitters about the lack of US growth, they look to revert to the dollar again as a ‘safe haven’. And, as the dollar rises, stocks tend to drop. That’s because people stop buying US shares and plump for cash, in dollars, instead. That’s bad news for stock markets.

“The global proxy for recovery and investor risk appetite has been the US stock market”, says Bryan Rich on The Market Oracle. “And a reversal in recent trends in financial markets bodes well for the dollar”.

Many dollar-quoted commodities will suffer too. A rising US currency would mean the prices of those commodities falling. That in turn will hurt the stock market valuations of the resource producers that have driven the big stock market rebound since March.

06.10.2009