MacroScope

With the rhetoric getting more heated, the three-year market fixation on bond yields could well be supplanted by currencies in the months ahead.

This week, everything points towards the first meeting this year of G20 finance ministers and central bankers in Moscow on Friday and Saturday. We’ve already got a clear steer from sources that even though France wants the strong euro on the agenda there will be little pressure put on Japan and others whose policies are pushing their currencies lower. Having urged Tokyo to reflate its economy last year, its G20 peers can hardly complain now that it has. That is not to say there won’t be lots of words on the issue though.

The Wall Street Journal has a piece saying the G7 – or at least its European and U.S. constituents – are planning a joint message ahead of the G20 to warn against a destabilizing competitive currency devaluation race. If true, this will have a big impact on the FX market.

There has already been some noise in Europe with France saying a medium-term target should be set for the euro but Germany refusing to play ball. ECB chief Mario Draghi indulged in a bit of gentle verbal intervention last week and EU monetary chief Olli Rehn was out over the weekend calling for “closer coordination” on currencies, noting the particular problems a strong euro would pose for southern, high debt members of the euro zone. On the other hand, ECB policymaker Joerg Asmussen said France’s problem was its internal competitiveness, not the euro.

The world’s top central banks are expanding their balance sheets by printing money, or at least not reversing course, while the ECB’s balance sheet is tightening, partly due to banks paying back early cheap money the central bank doled out last year. Neither does the ECB’s statute allow it to intervene directly to weaken the euro so it could well be the loser as others explicitly or implicitly follow policies that will drive their currencies down. That’s the last thing a still struggling euro zone economy needs, as Draghi observed.

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.

Five things to think about this week

TUSSLE FOR DIRECTION
- The tussle between bullish and bearish inclinations -- with bears gaining a bit of ground so far this month -- is being played out over both earnings and economic data. Alcoa got the U.S. earnings season off to a good start but a heavier results week lies ahead and could toss some banana skins into the market's path. Key financials, technology bellwethers (IBM, Google, Intel), as well as big names like GE, Nokia, Johnson and Johnson will offer more food for thought for those looking past the simple defensive versus cyclical split to choices between early cylicals, such as consumer discretionaries, and late cyclicals, such as industrials, based on the short-term earnings momentum. Macroeconomic data will need to confirm the picture painted by last week's unexpectedly German strong orders and production figures to give bulls the upper hand.

FINANCIAL FOCUS
- The heavy financial results slate (Goldman, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citi) will show the extent to which balance sheets are being cleansed of toxic assets and the health of, and outlook for margins, trading revenues, etc. The relative performance of the firms reporting could put the spotlight on the split between investment banking and retail exposure. In Europe, Swedbank's results will be watched for Baltic exposure while clarity is still being sought on what banks plan to do with the large chunk of ECB one-year money which they continue to park back at the ECB in the form of overnight deposits.

JAPANESE DILEMMA
- The BOJ's policy meeting poses thorny questions on quantitative easing (QE), with the policy debate complicated by sharp gains in the yen. The yen has risen as much as 10.5 percent in three months against the dollar and is nearing the 90 threshold which is viewed by the foreign exchanges as the point at which the Japanese authorities start ratcheting up the rhetoric. Further sustained yen gains will fuel market debate about the fallout for carry trades and for exporters -- and by extension economic activity.

Graphic evidence from Investec Asset Management (below) highlighting the demise of the carry trade. It shows returns from borrowing low-yielding currencies such as Japanese yen to buy high-yielding ones over the past 7-1/2 years or so.  There has been a roughy 50 percent decline since the end of July.

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.