Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Where Will Risk Erupt This Time?


...I'll give you two examples of risk piling up in the FX market. The consensus is that the Fed ending $1 trillion/year in QE money issuance is no big deal because the Bank of Japan (BoJ) and the European Central Bank (ECB) are printing more money, which is taking the place of the Fed's QE issuance.

Not so fast, Slick. Roughly two-thirds of the emerging-market debt that must be liquidated or rolled over is denominated in dollars, which means the borrowers still need dollars, not yen or euros or yuan. So the strengthening dollar will still bite all these emerging-market borrowers with very sharp teeth.

Printing yen and euros is not a direct substitute for the dollars that have ceased flowing.