Global Investing

The growing acrimony in the international debate over China's currency policy has led some to warn that Beijing could dig in its heels if pushed to hard to let its yuan rise.

But Barclays Capital says Beijing could let its currency strengthen as early as next month, notwithstanding its public resolve against Washington's threat to label it as a currency manipulator.

"They do have a 'If you stop pushing, we'll do it' attitude, which is kind of childish, really. But it will happen because they are the only country in the world, besides India, where there is a whiff of inflation," says Barclays' asset allocation head Tim Bond.

"It's in their own interest. It's the right thing to do."

Barclays expects the relaxation of China's de facto dollar peg to result in the equivalent of a five percent annual appreciation over the next year.

Investors should also keep the heightened rhetoric among U.S. lawmakers in perspective, Bond says.

From whom would you rather take investment advice:  one of the thousands of bankers or wealth managers who did not see the financial crisis coming or one of the few economists who predicted it?

In his 2003 bestseller “The Dollar Crisis”, Richard Duncan forecast how the unbridled creation of liquidity was set to spark a financial crisis. Three years after the crisis unfolded, Duncan’s new book, “The Corruption of Capitalism”, paints an even bleaker future.

Duncan expects that, in the years ahead, governments will prop up economies with ever-bigger doses of fiscal and monetary stimulus, but that eventually the extreme imbalances in the world economy will be corrected by market forces.

Two graphs (from Scott Barber) to remind that what you get from assets depends on the currency:

The United States and China hold economic and strategic talks in Washington starting on July 27. The United States, International Monetary Fund and other groups have urged China to allow its currency to appreciate in order to help unwind global imbalances. Here is a chart showing the Chinese yuan vs the U.S. dollar.

UPDATE: More on U.S.-China economic ties here.

Oil prices have been trading in an unusually strong positive correlation with equities markets over the past few months on hopes that signs of an economic recovery could mean a boost for energy demand.

But with oil and product inventories swelling and little sign of demand improving in the United States and other big developed economies, analysts warn that the linkage may be hard to maintain, especially if U.S. motorists cut back on vacations this summer.

Analysts are starting to wonder if the International Monetary Fund will issue bonds denominated in its currency, Special Drawing Rights (SDRs), to boost the international lender’s capital. 

G20 leaders meeting today are said to be ready to agree a tripling of the IMF’s resources, to $750 billion. One source at the summit said the IMF might also tap international capital markets. 

BNP Paribas analysts like the idea of SDR bonds that could be bought by central banks reallocating portfolios away from the dollar. “Increased IMF firepower and the IMF likely to issue SDR-denominated bonds later this year will allow equities to move significantly higher,” they say in a client note.

The yen's fall against the dollar the past few weeks has been remarkably fast, and calculated from where it is now around 97.70 yen, the dollar has jumped nearly 9 percent this month, on track for its biggest such gain since August 1995.

The yen surged last year as the worsening financial crisis forced investors to unwind risky carry trades - meaning they had to buy lots of yen - under the belief that Japan's economy and banks were holding up through the storm.

Only last month, the yen hit an over-13-year high of 87.10 per dollar. So why has the Japanese currency fallen so fast?

Britons are not only having to contend with a pound falling to near parity with the euro and hitting multi-year lows against the dollar, they are also now being weighed down with change.

The country has long been one for coinage. The smallest note is for five pounds, which earlier this year was worth about $10 and is now around a mere $6.50. No equivalent of the paper dollar and hence lost of change.

Now, however, pockets are filling up with more pennies than usual, courtesy of one of Prime Minister Gordon Brown‘s economic stimulus plans. Brown cut 2.5 percent off value-added tax. So now a £3.50 film rental costs £3.41 and a $2.15 coffee is £2.09. Lots of increasingly worthless coppers floating around — unless of course deflation joins the party.

Merrill Lynch’s monthly poll of fund managers around the world has a bit of a surprise in the small print. More investors now reckon the Japanese yen is overvalued than see it as undervalued. This is the first time this has been the case since Merrill began asking the question, said by staff to be about eight years ago.

It clearly reflects a 13 percent dive in dollar/yen this year and a 24 percent plunge in euro/yen. But does the new view of value suggest that the unwinding of the carry trade is over? Another question from the Merrill poll shows hedge fund deleveraging levelling off.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain has admitted in the past that economics is not his strong suit. In an interview with Reuters this week, he expressed a desire for a Treasury secretary who inspires confidence and trust if he should win the White House. McCain also aid he could balance the budget by 2013 if the economy gets going and if nothing is done to harm growth.Nothing worrying about any of that.

But the odd eyebrow may have been raised when the Arizona senator got onto the dollar, which he wants to bolster, and China. “The first step that has to be taken is obviously we have to stop mortgaging our economy to China … and asking them to finance our debt,” he said. This sounds like he wants China to stop buying U.S. Treasuries.

“That I think would have the most salutary effect in the short term,” McCain added.