Fixed Income and Currency Strategist

Gautam Jain, PhD, CFA

FX & Rates

We discuss the current positioning in the dollar, which has gone from heavy short to close to flat now, based on CFTC data, and its implications for future dollar moves.The attached file is a snapshot of EM currency market, which we produce daily, and where we seek to identify the leaders and laggards among currencies by comparing the performance of each to its history as well as to other currencies based on their respective betas to the broad market.

We discuss the current positioning in the dollar, which has gone from heavy short to close to flat now, based on CFTC data, and its implications for future dollar moves.The attached file is a snapshot of EM currency market, which we produce daily, and where we seek to identify the leaders and laggards among currencies by comparing the performance of each to its history as well as to other currencies based on their respective betas to the broad market.

FX Dashboard: Short Dollar Positions Have Been Cleaned Up

In this note, we go over the reasons that Latin American currencies have started outperforming against their Asian counterparts, a trend we expect to continue with a range-bound dollar.The attached file is a snapshot of EM currency market, which we produce daily, and where we seek to identify the leaders and laggards among currencies by comparing the performance of each to its history as well as to other currencies based on their respective betas to the broad market.

In this note, we go over the reasons that Latin American currencies have started outperforming against their Asian counterparts, a trend we expect to continue with a range-bound dollar.The attached file is a snapshot of EM currency market, which we produce daily, and where we seek to identify the leaders and laggards among currencies by comparing the performance of each to its history as well as to other currencies based on their respective betas to the broad market.

FX Dashboard: LatAm FX Has Started Outperforming Against Asia FX

We compare the beta-adjusted performances of EM currencies to identify leaders and laggards in the latest bout of dollar appreciation.The attached file is a snapshot of EM currency market, which we produce daily, and where we seek to identify the leaders and laggards among currencies by comparing the performance of each to its history as well as to other currencies based on their respective betas to the broad market.

We compare the beta-adjusted performances of EM currencies to identify leaders and laggards in the latest bout of dollar appreciation.The attached file is a snapshot of EM currency market, which we produce daily, and where we seek to identify the leaders and laggards among currencies by comparing the performance of each to its history as well as to other currencies based on their respective betas to the broad market.

FX Dashboard: Leaders and Laggards in EM in the Dollar’s Latest Appreciation Bout

Founder

Olivier Desbarres

Exacting. Excellent. Exceeding. Exemplary.

4X Global Research

4X Global Research was founded in 2017 to provide institutional and corporate clients with the substantive research, high-quality analysis and thoughtful insight on Emerging and G20 economies and financial markets they need to make informed and timely decisions and gain an edge in their investments.

Non-Japan Asian (NJA) central banks’ foreign currency (FX) reserves have gradually increased since end-March 2020, arguably the peak in global risk aversion.We estimate that the aggregate US Dollar-value of FX reserves in China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand increased by about $514bn or 10% in the eleven months to end-February 2021 to about $5.66 trillion. This was just $122bn short of all the all-time high recorded in June-2014.Adjusting for currency-valuation effects – the appreciation of other major reserve currencies versus the US Dollar – we estimate that these NJA central banks’ FX reserves increased by about $342bn or 6.4%. As a percentage of GDP, this increase amounted to about 1.5% for NJA, ranging from only 0.3% in China to nearly 28% in Singapore. While realised investment gains on these central banks’ holdings and other official transactions may have inflated this increase in FX reserves, it was at least partly the result of central banks’ intervention in the FX market (i.e. buying foreign currency), in our view. Importantly, NJA central banks rightly attach greater importance to their currencies’ more relevant Nominal Effective Exchange Rates (NEERs), when setting their exchange rate and interest rate policies, than to their currency’s bilateral exchange rates, in our view.In the past 11 months NJA central banks have continued to show an ability and willingness to both limit daily FX volatility and influence their NEERs’ medium-term directionality.FX reserve accumulation has either capped the pace of appreciation (CNY, IDR, KRW, THB, TWD) or contributed to (albeit modest in most cases) NEER depreciation (INR, MYR, PHP) with NJA central banks seemingly intent on maintaining export competitiveness and limiting imported deflation. The Singapore Dollar NEER was unchanged over this period.Of course the past and future performance of individual currencies is conditioned by both the magnitude of central bank FX intervention AND current account and capital account flows (and the underlying factors behind these policies and FX flows) – the topic of Part Two of this FIRMS report.

Non-Japan Asian (NJA) central banks’ foreign currency (FX) reserves have gradually increased since end-March 2020, arguably the peak in global risk aversion.We estimate that the aggregate US Dollar-value of FX reserves in China, India, Indonesia, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand increased by about $514bn or 10% in the eleven months to end-February 2021 to about $5.66 trillion. This was just $122bn short of all the all-time high recorded in June-2014.Adjusting for currency-valuation effects – the appreciation of other major reserve currencies versus the US Dollar – we estimate that these NJA central banks’ FX reserves increased by about $342bn or 6.4%. As a percentage of GDP, this increase amounted to about 1.5% for NJA, ranging from only 0.3% in China to nearly 28% in Singapore. While realised investment gains on these central banks’ holdings and other official transactions may have inflated this increase in FX reserves, it was at least partly the result of central banks’ intervention in the FX market (i.e. buying foreign currency), in our view. Importantly, NJA central banks rightly attach greater importance to their currencies’ more relevant Nominal Effective Exchange Rates (NEERs), when setting their exchange rate and interest rate policies, than to their currency’s bilateral exchange rates, in our view.In the past 11 months NJA central banks have continued to show an ability and willingness to both limit daily FX volatility and influence their NEERs’ medium-term directionality.FX reserve accumulation has either capped the pace of appreciation (CNY, IDR, KRW, THB, TWD) or contributed to (albeit modest in most cases) NEER depreciation (INR, MYR, PHP) with NJA central banks seemingly intent on maintaining export competitiveness and limiting imported deflation. The Singapore Dollar NEER was unchanged over this period.Of course the past and future performance of individual currencies is conditioned by both the magnitude of central bank FX intervention AND current account and capital account flows (and the underlying factors behind these policies and FX flows) – the topic of Part Two of this FIRMS report. 

Non-Japan Asia: NEERs and FX Intervention

Managing Director

Elan Gore

TMI Data Science

TMI Data Science utilizes Natural Language Processing to build custom leading indicators using unstructured data sourced from the global financial, trade & traditional media.  Our proprietary software, TMI Machine, is a text-mining platform designed with the buy-side & capital markets professional in mind, text-mining the global media to discern and quantify nuanced qualitative shifts in press coverage as they apply to macroeconomics, equity indexes/ETFs, commodities, currencies, fixed income & individual equities.  TMI provides custom leading indicators and systematic trading strategies, operating at the nexus of linguistics & statistics drawing on vast experience in investment banking and hedge fund settings in senior quantitative and fundamental roles.  

TMI Data Science was founded by Elan Gore, an award-winning Senior Global Basic Materials Equity Analyst & China Economist with 15 years of experience in North American hedge funds & institutional managers; and Alessandro Porrino, Ph.D., an Algorithmic Trading Analyst and Programmer with 10 years of front-office experience ranging from complex FX option pricing to auto-hedging strategies at Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Standard Chartered.  Mr. Gore holds an MBA in Finance from New York University Stern School of Business, and Mr. Porrino holds a Ph.D. in Systems Engineering from Brunel University London.

Cross Asset Strategy

<ul>
<li>After a short period of optimism following the US elections, China-Taiwan tensions are escalating sharply again; we disaggregate the theme into multiple sub-components and geographic sources to find a spike in US coverage of Taiwan tensions at +2x STDEVs, a level last seen over a year ago</li>
<li>The spike in Taiwan coverage has been driven by multiple breaches of Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone by Chinese warplanes; a recent warning by US Asia Pacific Commander Philip Davidson that China could invade Taiwan "in the next 6 years"; recent developments in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue; elevated US-Japan cooperation on "Taiwan emergency"; and a barrage of high-profile op-eds in recent weeks highlighting tensions over Taiwan</li>
<li>While 2020 did not see geopolitical risks factor into the performance of MSCI Taiwan or USD/TWD, the China-Taiwan tensions theme was strongly correlated with performance in 2018-2019</li>
</ul>


After a short period of optimism following the US elections, China-Taiwan tensions are escalating sharply again; we disaggregate the theme into multiple sub-components and geographic sources to find a spike in US coverage of Taiwan tensions at +2x STDEVs, a level last seen over a year ago
The spike in Taiwan coverage has been driven by multiple breaches of Taiwan's Air Defense Identification Zone by Chinese warplanes; a recent warning by US Asia Pacific Commander Philip Davidson that China could invade Taiwan "in the next 6 years"; recent developments in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue; elevated US-Japan cooperation on "Taiwan emergency"; and a barrage of high-profile op-eds in recent weeks highlighting tensions over Taiwan
While 2020 did not see geopolitical risks factor into the performance of MSCI Taiwan or USD/TWD, the China-Taiwan tensions theme was strongly correlated with performance in 2018-2019


TMI Snapshots:  Taiwan Tensions Rising, Will Geopolitics Return to the Forefront in 2021?

Taiwan

The New Taiwan dollar is the official currency of Taiwan

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TWD (USDTWD CURNCY)

FX Dashboard: Short Dollar Positions Have Been Cleaned Up

We discuss the current positioning in the dollar, which has gone from heavy short to close to flat now, based on CFTC data, and its implications...

Gautam Jain, PhD, CFA

FX Dashboard: LatAm FX Has Started Outperforming Against Asia FX

In this note, we go over the reasons that Latin American currencies have started outperforming against their Asian counterparts, a trend we expect...

Gautam Jain, PhD, CFA

FX Dashboard: Leaders and Laggards in EM in the Dollar’s Latest Appreciation Bout

We compare the beta-adjusted performances of EM currencies to identify leaders and laggards in the latest bout of dollar appreciation.

Gautam Jain, PhD, CFA

Non-Japan Asia: NEERs and FX Intervention

Non-Japan Asian central banks have in past year intervened in FX market to cap FX volatility, protect export competitiveness and limit imported...

Olivier Desbarres

TMI Snapshots: Taiwan Tensions Rising, Will Geopolitics Return to the Forefront in 2021?

Quantifying the magnitude of news flow on China-Taiwan tensions, we see a +2x STDEV spike in coverage of the topic. Markets may reassess risks as...

Elan Gore

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