BLBG : Dollar Advances Against Pound as Fed May Signal Stimulus Exit
Sept. 21 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar advanced to a two-week high against the pound on speculation U.S. policy makers will this week signal they may withdraw economic stimulus measures, boosting the appeal of the nation’s assets.
The dollar rose versus 13 of the 16 major currencies before a U.S. report economists said will show an index of leading indicators gained a fifth month, backing the case for the Federal Reserve to wean the economy off support. The yen was near a three-week low versus the euro after Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii edged away from comments last week that were interpreted to mean he would let the yen rise. Trading was likely to be light as Japan starts three days of public holidays.
“There’s a risk the FOMC will indicate at some point they will start withdrawing their stimulus to the economy,” said Joseph Capurso, a currency strategist in Sydney at Commonwealth Bank of Australia, the nation’s largest lender by assets. “The catalyst for the dollar strengthening on a sustained basis is likely to come from the FOMC.”
The U.S. currency rose to $1.6231 per pound as of 1:01 p.m. in Tokyo from $1.6271 in New York on Sept. 18, after earlier rising to $1.6210, the highest level since Sept. 2. The dollar traded at $1.4686 per euro from $1.4712.
The yen was at 134.42 per euro from 134.33 last week. It declined to 134.77 on Sept. 17, the lowest level since Aug. 28. Japan’s currency fetched 91.53 per dollar from 91.29.
Dollar Index
The Dollar Index, which the ICE uses to track the dollar against the currencies of six major U.S. trading partners, rose 0.2 percent to 76.606.
Foreign-exchange trading may be more subdued than usual in Asian trading hours today because of public holidays in Japan, said Sue Trinh, a senior currency strategist at RBC Capital Markets in Sydney.
The Fed will keep its target rate for overnight loans in a range of zero to 0.25 percent at its two-day policy meeting starting tomorrow, according to all 91 economists surveyed by Bloomberg News. Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said in Washington on Sept. 15 that the worst U.S. recession since the 1930s has probably ended.
“That’s why there might be a little bit of nervousness going into the FOMC if they start signaling any potential unwind of quantitative easing,” Tony Morriss, senior markets strategist in Sydney at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., said in a Bloomberg Television interview. “There is a bit of risk over the next couple of days of the dollar starting to recover a little bit of ground.”
Futures Positions
Futures traders increased bets to the most in 17 months that the euro will strengthen against the dollar, figures from the Washington-based Commodity Futures Trading Commission show.
The difference in the number of wagers by hedge funds and other large speculators on an advance in the euro compared with those on a drop -- so-called net longs -- was 37,772 on Sept. 15, the most since March 25, 2008, compared with net longs of 18,033 a week earlier. A long position is a bet an asset will rise.
Futures positions, when they reach an extreme, are viewed as a contrarian indicator because traders often rush to reduce positions when momentum in a currency shifts.
The Conference Board’s gauge of the U.S. economic outlook for the next three to six months rose 0.7 percent in August, after a 0.6 percent gain in July, a Bloomberg survey showed before the New York-based group releases the report today.
Yen to Weaken
The world’s biggest banks say the Japanese currency is likely to weaken.
While the yen gained against all but one of the 16 most- actively traded currencies since early August as the Democratic Party of Japan became the likely winner in national elections, forecasters say it will decline 5.7 percent against the dollar and 1.2 percent versus the euro by year-end. The economy is too weak to support a stronger rate, based on the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey.
Japan will be the only Group-of-10 nation that won’t raise borrowing costs in 2010, keeping its benchmark interest rate at a record low 0.1 percent, the survey showed. The economy will expand 0.8 percent next year after contracting 6 percent in 2009, according to median forecasts, putting assets in the world’s second- biggest economy at a disadvantage to those in countries with higher borrowing costs.
“Everyone is seemingly buying the yen, which I think is ridiculous,” said Jim O’Neill, head of global economic research at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in London. “The true underlying fundamentals for the yen in my book have deteriorated significantly.”
New York-based Goldman Sachs, which earned more than $100 million from trading for a record 46 days last quarter, predicts the yen will weaken to 98 per dollar and 142 per euro by the end of the year.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ron Harui in Singapore at
