MacroScope

In times of currency wars, it’s best not to shoot yourself in the foot. By imposing several capital controls in the past years, Brazil might have tightened monetary policy right when the economy started to falter, Nomura’s strategist Tony Volpon wrote in a research note on Friday.

Brazil’s mediocre economic growth in the past two years has been a mystery, indeed. Some say it has been due to the global slowdown – which contrasts with steady growth elsewhere in Latin America. Many others blame Brazil’s several supply bottlenecks. But then, why don’t businesses see them as an investment opportunity?

The missing link, Volpon argues, has been the imposition of capital controls. Inflows dropped suddenly, reducing the supply of cheap foreign money available for banks and companies. So, even though the central bank cut local interest rates ten straight times to a record low of 7.25 percent, money supply growth has actually slowed since January 2012.

It sounds like a paradox, but you read it right: Brazil may be in the middle of a long monetary tightening cycle despite all massive efforts to revive the economy.

“That growth has faltered after one year of the devaluation is, we believe, proof that the credit and expectation channels have been much more important than the level of the exchange rate for investments, and ultimately the self-inflicted ‘sudden stop’ contributed to the severe growth slowdown that continues to afflict the Brazilian economy today,” wrote Volpon.

Tiago Pariz in Brasilia also contributed to this post.

Brazil’s Trade Minister Fernando Pimentel was the latest authority this week to fire warning shots in a resurging currency war. The government is “focused” on keeping the real at its current level of 2 per U.S. dollar, he told journalists after a meeting with fellow ministers and businessmen.

Using market rules, we are going to try to keep (foreign exchange) rates steady every time the currency is under attack.

These words came days after Finance Minister Guido Mantega admitted Brazil now has a “dirty-floating” regime. “We cannot continue watching as others take ownership of our market and bring down our industry,” he told a local newspaper.

Incumbency, it is often said, confers many advantages.

Sitting U.S. presidents certainly have reaped its benefits – in the past 80 years, only three have been unseated.

Most economists believe the same benefits apply to reserve currencies. Yes, the U.S. dollar may one day be supplanted as the leading international currency, the thinking goes, but that day is many decades away.

Then again, maybe not.

A new working paper from the National Bureau of Economic Research that looks more closely at the dollar’s own rise to the top in the 20th century suggests, among other things, that “the advantages of incumbency are not all they are cracked up to be.”

Currency analysts are divided over whether U.S. criticism of Japan’s forex policy will change Tokyo’s currency stance. While some say it could raise the hurdle for further Japanese intervention, others think it might not have much impact. Rob Ryan, FX strategist at BNP Paribas in Singapore says the effect will be limited given uncertainty about the Japanese economy’s outlook and current levels of dollar/yen and cross/yen pairs.

“I think if they (Japanese authorities) feel they have to intervene, they will intervene,” Ryan says, adding that a dollar drop down to the “low 76s” might be enough to prompt further action from Japan.

The U.S. Treasury Department said in its semi-annual report on international exchange rate policies issued on Tuesday that the U.S. did not support Japan’s recent bouts of solo FX intervention, adding that they took place when volatility in dollar/yen was relatively low. USD/JPY was currently trading at Y77.98, not too far from a record low of Y75.311 hit on Oct. 31, when Japan conducted massive yen-selling intervention.

Goldman Sachs researchers have been hitting the history books again, trying to divine what happens to currencies when economies stagnate. Answer:  Not as much as you might think

Looking at exchange rates for years before and during "stagnation", Goldman found that year-to-year FX volatility in such periods is lower than in normal periods. But a lot of it depends on the type of stagnation.

First, an average stagnation -- a period of sub-par economic growth lasting for at least six years:

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.

Five things to think about this week:

BOND YIELDS 
- Nominal bond yields have risen across the curve, while term premiums and fixed income volatility are higher in an environment of uncertainty about how central banks will exit from quantitative easing policies once recovery takes hold. Bonds have turned into the worst-performing asset class this year according to Citi and none of the factors which markets have blamed for this are about to disappear. Curve steepening seen in April/May has started to reverse and whether it continues is being viewed as a more open question than whether yields head higher still.

RATTLING EQUITIES? 
- World stocks’ are struggling to extend the near-50 percent gains seen since March 9 but they have yet to succumb to gravity despite a back up in government bond yields. Citigroup analysts reckon global equity markets can rally as long as Treasury yields stay below 5-6 percent but it might be the speed of yield moves that determines whether equities get rattled or keep looking past higher borrowing costs to the recovery story. 

INFLATION EXPECTATIONS 
-  Increases in the prices of oil and other commodities have seen the CRB index rise about 30 percent in less than four months and sustained gains will risk filtering through to prices and price expectations. Inflation reports are due out on both sides of the Atlantic next week but markets are looking further out and starting to price in the risks of a pick up in price pressures. Breakevens have turned positive all along the U.S. yield curve for the first time since autumn and euro zone breakevens have risen. Also, a Bank of England survey indicates public price expectations are up. Bid/cover ratios and tails at inflation-linked bond auctions will tell their own story on extent of demand for inflation hedges.

Five things to think about this week:
    
PUTTING THE RALLY TO THE TEST
- The surge in risk markets has tapered off as investors take stock of recent weeks' rally and the data flow injects a dose of sobriety. The scale and duration of any market pullback will be the test of how much sentiment has really changed. Sluggish April U.S. retail sales were the biggest cause for pause and this week's flash PMIs will give more Q2 information.

FX FOCUS
- A pause in the recent recovery in relatively risky markets is shifting attention to the changing FX environment. Clear-cut correlations between moves in major FX rates and swings in risk appetite could be in the process of being eroded and some in the financial markets are wondering if and when relative economic performance will replace risk appetite as a driver for exchange rates. Investment flows will be affected if the dollar looks like it might resume a long-term downtrend.

QE EXIT STRATEGY
- ECB, BOE, Fed officials are making reassuring noises about QE exit strategies but no clear mechanism or timeframe has yet emerged and all indications are that balance sheet expansion is still the order of the day. Yield moves suggest bond markets are more enthused in the short term by signs they will kept on the QE drip feed than by concern about the potential price problems down the road. Central bankers have yet to address the back up in yields that would be seen if they were they to exit the market at a time when debt issuance is continuing to flood the market - as it will for some time to come.