Many investors saw a good opportunity to trade in currency divergence this quarter. The divergence is definitely there, it’s just the opposite of what many analysts thought would happen.
Following the announcement in Tokyo of a spending plan that the majority of financial specialists considered weak, the yen soared to a monthly peak on Wednesday. There were also important announcements across the pacific as the Federal Reserve indicated they will tighten up monetary stimulus, and a report released on Q2 growth was more disappointing than forecast, causing the greenback to continue its slide.
The paths for the yen and greenback seem to be upside down, opposite to the predictions of prominent hedge funds and other specialists in the past 30 days. The past week’s events have destroyed trader’s strategies of staying underweight on bullish yen bets and putting money on dollar increases.
“It looks like the major stimulus that everyone was expecting in Japan just didn’t happen,” said Michael Lane, Global Co-Head of the Investment Management Division at Shizuoka Capital Wealth Management in a phone interview.
“Helicopter money seems out of the question too and the Fed were far less hawkish than predicted, so where does that the leave the dollar-yen relationship? Probably, it will go even lower,” Lane added, and he is now forecasting the yen to increase further to 96 versus the greenback by December which would be a three year high.
The yen’s continued jump has thrown hedge fund strategies into disarray. Other experienced financial speculators have also lost out, many of whom dropped their net-bullish wagers on the yen by 50% in the last month. Meanwhile, the same investors were upping their net-bullish bets on the greenback to the most since the beginning of 2016.
The yen’s rise comes after the Japanese finance ministry made public a 5 trillion yen plan for extra spending in 2016, in their attempts to kick start the nations faltering economy whilst also trying to stay within the range of their fiscal health projections.
The funds added to the system are part of Shinzo Abe’s promised “28 trillion yen stimulus package” that he made public in a short statement to financial press last Monday. Many believe the announcement was designed to impress the public rather than help the economy.
The Bank of Japan last week expanded their exchange-traded funds program but decided to leave negative interest rates the same.
