Yen rally: slam dunk or widowmaker?
STOXX 600 up 0.8%
Kingfisher soars on results
Central banks in focus
Wall St futures inch up
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YEN RALLY: SLAM DUNK OR WIDOWMAKER?
Bets against Japanese government debt and the yen JPY=EBS can cause surprise, catastrophic losses.
But could a current burst of enthusiasm that the yen will sustain its recent surge against the dollar be another so-called "widowmaker" trade?
The yen has strengthened from over 160 per dollar to 140.6 after the Bank of Japan tentatively shifted away from ultra-easy monetary policy in July by raising interest rates to 0.25%.
The dollar, meanwhile, has weakened broadly as traders raised bets for the Fed on Wednesday to cut its funds rate from a 23-year high by a jumbo 50 basis points.
What happens next is highly uncertain.
Marlborough fixed income manager James Athey warned a deep Fed cut could spark concerns the central bank fears a U.S. recession, in a risk-off scenario that would typically boost the dollar.
Barclays FX strategists said a large part of the dollar’s drop had happened already, in anticipation of rate cuts to come.
Sanae Takaichi, a leading candidate in Japan’s ruling party's leadership race, has also urged the BOJ to maintain ultra-low rates to support a fragile economy.
But Manish Kabra, multi-asset strategist at Societe Generale, said he was backing the yen.
He argued Fed rate cuts would boost the U.S. economy enough to ease recession anxiety, but likely not by so much that the dollar would rally. The BOJ, he added, cannot ignore rising inflation and wage growth.
(Naomi Rovnick)
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EARLIER ON LIVE MARKETS:
EUROPEAN CYCLICALS READY TO REBOUND - MORGAN STANLEY CLICK HERE
EUROPEAN BANKS CHEAP ENOUGH TO ABSORB RATE CUTS - UBS CLICK HERE
CAN TRUMP WEAKEN THE DOLLAR? CLICK HERE
STOXX ON THE UP CLICK HERE
EUROPEAN FUTURES EDGE HIGHER ON FED OPTIMISM CLICK HERE
YEN'S BIG WEEK BEGINS CLICK HERE
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