Last Wednesday, also from Bloomberg ....
And finally, here’s what Joe's interested in this morning
The US dollar has fallen almost 10% since late March. Between that and
the surge in gold and Bitcoin, the aggressive Fed actions, the high deficits, and of course the virus, there's a lot of giddy talk about some major change afoot. Goldman was out with a
note yesterday about growing warnings on the end of the dollar's global reserve status. It's all very exciting stuff. Lots of vivid stories to tell.
So here's a boring story about how the dollar's move just isn't that dramatic. To start, here's a 5-year chart of the Bloomberg Dollar Index. One thing that stands out is that if you put your fingers over March and April and block out that historic spike in volatility and massive surge in demand for dollar liquidity, the dollar is basically just trading in the same range it's traded in for years. It's at the lower end, but really nothing special outside those insane months. Focus on the red bar, and it looks ho hum.
The next thing to realize is that a big part of this weakness is against the euro specifically. Here's the one-year performance of the dollar against the euro, yen, Canadian dollar, and British Pound. Combined, these four currencies comprise nearly 70% of the Bloomberg Dollar Index. Only against the euro is the dollar even at its weakest level of the last year.
As for the euro, the big story there is that we're in a rare moment where European growth is expected to outpace U.S. growth.
According to IMF data, this has happened only eight times since 1992. Between its seemingly superior virus suppression and improvement on addressing fiscal issues, Europe is definitely regarded as a bright spot right now.
As you can see, since the end of March, estimates for euro area GDP in 2021 have increased relative to U.S. GDP. And so we've seen the euro rally along with that.
Bottom line: With a little perspective, the dollar story is less dramatic than it first appears. A big part of it is just coming off the boil in March and April. Outside of that, it's not that dramatic. Furthermore, a big chunk of it can be explained by the euro specifically, which is expected to do better in the short term than the U.S. It's interesting and important stuff, but nothing indicating some major foundational issue with the dollar's place in the world.