yen

Get ready for a real mess: A new chapter may be opening in currency wars

3D chrome Dollar symbolVivek Kaul


The Japanese yen recently touched a six year low against the dollar. One dollar is currently worth around 108-110 yen. This many experts believe will lead to the start of a new round of currency wars. As Albert Edwards of Societe Generale writes in a recent research note dated September 22, 2014 “the yen has slipped below a key 15-year support level against the dollar…The next phase of global currency wars may have begun.”
The term “currency war” was first used by Guido Mantega, the Brazilian finance minister, in 2010. It refers to a situation where multiple countries start driving down the value of their currencies against the dollar in a bid to drive up exports and inflation.
Before we try and understand Edwards’ statement in detail, it is important to go back a few years. The Bank of Japan joined the money printing party rather late in the day towards the end of 2012. Before this the balance sheet of the Japanese central bank had expanded only 30% since the start of the financial crisis. Interestingly, in January 2012, the total assets of the Japanese central bank had stood at 128 trillion yen. Since then, it has more than doubled to 275.9 trillion yen at the end of August 2014.
The Bank of Japan plans to inject $1.4 trillion into the Japanese financial system by April 2015 by buying Japanese government bonds every month. This is pretty big, given that the size of the Japanese economy is around $5 trillion. Currently, it is printing 5 trillion yen every month and pumping that into the financial system by buying bonds. That explains why the total assets held by the bank have more than doubled.
The Bank of Japan entered the money printing party only after Shinzo Abe was elected as the prime minister on December 26, 2012. Abe promised to end Japan’s more than two decades old recession through some old fashioned economics, which has since been termed as Abenomics.
Abenomics is nothing but money printing in the hope of driving down the value of the yen against the dollar in the hope of increasing exports and also creating some inflation.
As James Rickards writes in The Death of Money “Japan…had another reason to support the money printing…Money printing was being done not only to promote exports but to increase import prices. These more expensive imports would cause inflation to offset deflation…In Japan’s case, inflation would primarily come through higher prices of energy exports.”
The Bank of Japan decided to get in bed with the government on this and is targeting an inflation of 2 percent. It wants to reach the goal at the earliest possible date. And how does that help? In December 2012, Japan had an inflation rate of –0.1 percent. For 2012, on the whole, inflation was at 0 percent, which meant that prices did not rise at all. In fact, for each of the years in the period 2009-2011, prices had fallen in Japan.
When prices are flat, or are falling, or are expected to fall, consumers generally tend to postpone consumption (i.e., buying goods and services) in the hope that they will get a better deal in the future. This impacts businesses, as their earnings either remain flat or fall. This slows down economic growth.
On the other hand, if people see prices going up or expect prices to go up, they generally tend to start purchasing things. So a moderate inflation helps businesses as well as the overall economy. Hence, by trying to create some inflation the idea is to get consumption going again in Japan and help it come out of a more than two decades old recession.
The money printing has helped create some inflation in Japan. In July 2014, the consumer price inflation in Japan stood at 1.3%. One reason for this rise has been the fall in the value of yen against the dollar. In early November 2012, one dollar was worth 79.4 yen. Currently, one dollar is worth 108-110 yen, as mentioned earlier. This has made imports expensive and pushed up inflation. As John Lanchester writes in his new book How To Speak Money “The yen has dropped, which is a good thing for Japanese industry, and inflation is showing signs of returning, which is also a good thing, though some commentators are worried that the process could quickly go out of hand.”
The question here is how can the process quickly go out of hand? Allow me to explain. The inflation hasn’t led to people spending more money. In fact, the gross domestic product (GDP) of Japan contracted at an annualized rate of 6.8% during the three month period of April to June 2014. It was also expected that a falling yen will boost Japanese exports. But that doesn’t seem to have happened either. Exports have fallen in three out of the last four months. In August 2014, exports fell by 1.3%, in comparison to the same period last year.
Interestingly, one of the key learnings in the aftermath of the financial crisis has been that if a policy does not work for a central bank, it is likely to try more of it. Given this, it is expected that the Bank of Japan will print more money in the hope of inflation reaching the targeted 2% and to get exports going as well. Diana Choyleva, head of macroeconomic research at Lombard Street Research, writes in a research note that the Bank of Japan “is also likely to redouble its QE [quantitative easing] efforts if it is to achieve its 2 percent inflation target.”
This will lead to further depreciation of the yen against the value. As Edwards of Societe Generale puts it “One of the few things I have learnt over 30 years in this industry is that when traders decide the yen/US$ starts to move it can jump by Y10 or Y20 very, very quickly indeed.”
In this scenario other countries are also likely to print money so that their currencies lose value against the dollar, in order to keep their exports competitive. The thing to remember here is that money printing in the hope of driving down the value of currency is not something that only Japan can indulge in. Interestingly, this is precisely what had happened when Japan first made its first moves towards printing money in December 2012.
In fact, politicians in South Korea by early February 2013 had started voicing their concerns about the depreciating yen. South Korea and Japan compete in several export-oriented industries, like automobiles and electronics. Korean export companies like Samsung and Hyundai compete with Japanese companies like Sony and Toyota.
At the end of December 2012, one dollar was worth 1,038.1 Korean won. Soon, the Korean won also started depreciating against the dollar, and by late June 2013, one dollar was worth around 1,160 Korean won. The Thai baht started depreciating against the dollar in April 2014. The Malaysian ringitt joined the club from May 2013 onward. By early 2014, China had also entered the currency war by allowing the yuan to depreciate against the dollar.
Nevertheless, the depreciation of this currencies against the dollar did not continue. The South Korean won is back to where it started and currently quotes at around 1063 won to a dollar. But there is nothing that can stop these countries from starting to cheapen their currencies against the dollar, all over again. The currency wars might break out all over again.
The joker in the pack is China. Currently, one dollar is worth around 6.14 Chinese yuan. It is interesting to look at the trajectory of the Chinese yuan over a period of time. In 2005, one dollar was worth around 8.27 yuan. By 2011, one dollar was worth around 6.82 yuan. The appreciation of the yuan against the dollar continued at a measured pace and by mid-January 2014, one dollar was worth 6.14 yuan. This is when things turned around and the yuan started to depreciate against the dollar, something that had not happened in a very long time. By April 30, 2014, one dollar was worth 6.25 yuan.
Among other things the depreciation of the yuan was also a response to Abenomics which had led to the depreciation of the yen against the dollar. One dollar was worth around 80 yen in November 2012, before Shinzo Abe had taken over as the Prime Minister of Japan. By January 2014, one dollar was worth 105 yen, thus making Japanese exports more competitive in the international market. China’s yuan had to be adjusted to this new reality. As China is trying to move up the value chain, its products are competing more and more with Japanese products in the international market.
Nevertheless, since June 2014, the yuan has been appreciating against the dollar. But if the Japanese keep printing money and driving down the value yen against the dollar, the Chinese are also likely to have to start pushing the yuan down against the dollar.
This would mean Chinese exports more competitive. As the yuan depreciates against the dollar it would allow Chinese exporters to cut prices of their products. Let’s understand this through an example. A Chinese exporters sells a product at $100. He ends up getting paid 614 yuan for it, at the current rate. But if one dollar is worth seven yuan, he would be paid 700 yuan. This situation will allow the Chinese exporter to cut the price of his product. Let’s say he cuts it to $90, even then he ends up earning 630 yuan ($90 x 7), which is more than earlier.
As Choyleva of Lombard Street Research, writes in a recent research note “If both Japan and the euro area go for extensive QE, emerging markets in Asia would suffer as their currencies appreciate. There would be no way China could restart its sputtering growth engine without major yuan devaluation.”
In order, to stay in competition, prices of products from other countries will have to be cut. And this will end up exporting deflation (a situation where prices are falling) to large parts of the world. Of course, it is worth remembering here that everybody cannot have the cheapest currency. Once countries start devaluing their currencies, it becomes a race to the bottom and is not good for anyone. In technical terms this is referred to as beggar thy neighbour policy.
As a senior official of the Federal Reserve once remarked: “Devaluing a currency is like peeing in bed. It feels good at first, but pretty soon it becomes a real mess.”

The article originally appeared on www.FirstBiz.com on Oct 2, 2014

(Vivek Kaul is the author of the Easy Money trilogy. He tweets @kaul_vivek)

As yen hits 100 to US$, get ready for more currency wars

1000-yen-natsume-soseki
Vivek Kaul 
Ushinawareta Nijūnen or the period of two lost decades for Japan(from 1990 to 2010) might finally be coming to an end. Or so it seems.
And Japan has to thank Abenomics unleashed by its current Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for it. Abe has more or less bullied the Bank of Japan, the Japanese central bank, to go on an unlimited money printing spree, until it manages to create an inflation of 2%.
The Japanese money supply is set to double over a two year period. And all this ‘new’ money that is being pumped into the financial system, will chase an almost similar number of goods and services, and thus drive up their prices. Or so the hope is.
The target is to create an inflation of 2% and get people spending money again. When prices are rising or are expected to rise, people tend to buy stuff, because they don’t want to pay a higher price later (This of course is true to a certain level of inflation and doesn’t hold in the Indian case where retail inflation is greater than 10%). As people go out and shop, it helps businesses and in turn the overall economy.
In an environment where prices are stagnant or falling, as has been the case with Japan for a while now, people tend to postpone purchases in the hope of getting a better deal. The situation where prices are falling is referred to as deflation.
In 2012, the average inflation in Japan was 0%, which meant that prices neither rose nor they fell. In fact, in each of the three years for the period between 2009 and 2011, prices fell on the whole. This has led people to postpone their consumption and hence had a severe impact on Japanese economics growth. To break this “deflationary trap”, Shinzo Abe and the Bank of Japan have decided to go on an almost unlimited money printing spree.
A major impact of this policy has been on the Japanese currency ‘yen’. As more yen are created out of thin air, the currency has weakened considerably against other major currencies. One dollar was worth around 78 yen, on October 1, 2012. Yesterday, yen weakened beyond 100 to a dollar for the first time in four years. As I write this one dollar is worth around 101.1 yen.
This weakening of the yen has helped Japanese businesses which have a major international presence spruce up their profits. As the news agency Bloomberg reports “The weaker yen helped Mazda, Japan’s fifth-largest car company, post a profit of 34 billion yen for the fiscal year that ended March 31, compared with a loss of 107.7 billion yen the previous year. A one-yen change against the dollar, euro, Canadian dollar and Australian dollar has a 9.1 percent impact on Mazda’s operating profit…That compares with 4.7 percent at Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd, which makes Subaru cars, and 3.1 percent at Toyota.”
When yen was at 78 to a dollar, a Japanese company making a profit of $1 million internationally would have made a profit of 78 million yen. Now with the yen at 101 to a dollar, the same company will make a profit of 101 million yen, which is almost 29.5% more.
This increase in profit it is hoped will also encourage Japanese companies to pay their employees more. Albert Edwards of Societe Generale writing in a report titled Thoughts on Asia – will a yen slide trigger an EM currency crisis? 1997 redux dated April 17, 2013, cites a survey which suggests that Japanese companies may be short on labour. “This suggests that Prime Minister Abe will indeed get his way on a rapid return of wage inflation to boost consumption,” writes Edwards.
And this boost in consumption will get the Japanese economy going again. So does that mean Japan will live happily ever after? Not quite.
As the Japanese central bank prints more and more yen, the returns from Japanese government bonds are expected to go up. As Edwards writes “if the market really believes that it is committed to the 2% inflation target (and I certainly do), then Japanese bond yields(returns) will quickly attempt a move above 2%.” In early April the return on a ten year Japanese government bond was at 0.45% per year. Since then it has risen to around 0.69% per year.
And this can lead to a major crisis in Japan. If returns on existing bonds go up, the government will have to offer a higher rate of interest on the new bonds that it issues to make them interesting enough for investors.
As Satyajit Das writes in a research paper titled The Setting Sun – Japan’s Financial Miasma “Higher interest rates will increase the stress on government finances. Even at current low interest rates, Japan spends around 25-30% of its tax revenues on interest payments. At borrowing costs of 2.50% to 3.50% per annum, two to three times current rates, Japan’s interest payments will be an unsustainable proportion of tax receipts.”
Now that’s just one part of it. If the government has to spend more of the money than it earns towards interest payments that means there will be less left for meeting other expenditure. So it will either have to borrow more or ask the Bank of Japan to print more money to finance its expenditure, given that there is a limit to the amount of money that can be borrowed. Either option doesn’t sound good. Das estimates that Japan’s gross government debt will reach around 250-300% of its gross domestic product by 2015, a very high level indeed.
Also as things stand as of now it looks like the Bank of Japan will have to finance a major part of Japanese government expenditure in the years to come by printing money. As Dylan Grice wrote in an October 2010, Societe Generale report titled Nikkei 63,000,000? A cheap way to buy Japanese inflation risk “Japan’s tax revenues currently don’t even cover debt service and social security, persistent and growing fiscal burdens. Therefore, once the Bank of Japan is forced into monetisation of government deficits, even if only with the initial intention of stabilising government finances in the short term, it will prove difficult to stop. When it becomes the largest holder and most regular buyer of Japanese government bonds, Japan will be on its inflationary trajectory.” And this is not an inflation of 2% that we are talking about.
The yen weakening against other international currencies is making Japanese exports more competitive. A Japanese exporter with sales of a million dollars in early October, would have made 78 million yen (when one dollar was worth 78 yen). Now the same exporter would make 101 million yen.
The weakening yen allows Japanese exporters to cut their prices in dollar terms and become more price competitive. If a price cut of 20% is made, then sales will come down to $800,000 but in yen terms the sales will be at 80.8 million yen ($800,000 x 101). This will be higher than before. Also a cut in price might help Japanese exporters to increase total volumes of sales.
The trouble of course is that this will hit other major exporters like South Korea, Taiwan and Germany. As Michael J Casey points out in a column on Wall Street Journal website “Japan might be a hobbled economy but it is still the third largest in the world, accounting for almost one-tenth of world gross domestic product. So when the Bank of Japan prints as much yen as this, it provokes a worldwide adjustment in relative prices. Electronics producers in South Korea, Taiwan and, to an increasing degree, China, automatically face a price disadvantage versus their Japanese competitors, for example.”
Also interest rates on American and Japanese bonds are currently at very low levels. And this has sent investors looking for return to other parts of the world. Take the case of New Zealand. Foreign money has been flooding into the country. When foreign money comes into a country it needs to be exchanged for the local currency (the New Zealand dollar in case of New Zealand). This leads to a situation where the demand for the local currency increases, leading to its appreciation.
One New Zealand dollar was worth around 64.6 yen on October 1, 2012. It is currently worth around 84.4 yen. An appreciation in the value of a country’s currency hurts its exports. On Wednesday (May 8, 2013), the Reserve Bank of New Zealand, decided that it will intervene in the foreign exchange market to weaken the New Zealand dollar.
How does any central bank weaken its currency? When a huge amount of foreign money comes in, it increases the demand for local currency. The central bank at that point floods the foreign exchange market with its own currency, to ensure that there is enough of it going around. This ensures that the local currency does not appreciate. If the central bank floods the market with more local currency than the demand is, it ensures that the local currency loses value against the foreign money that is coming in.
The question is where does the central bank get this money from? It simply prints it.
The thing to remember is that if Japan can print money to cheapen its currency so can other countries like New Zealand. It is not rocket science. Its what Americans call a no brainer. In fact, yen started appreciating against the dollar once the Federal Reserve of United States, the American central bank, started printing money to revive economic growth. And this has also been responsible for Japan starting to print money. As Casey points out “Together, the U.S. Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan will print the equivalent of $155 billion every month for an indefinite period.” This will spill over to more countries printing money to hold the value of their currency or even cheapen it.
The currency war which is currently on between countries as they print money to cheapen their currencies will only get worse in the days and months and years to come. Australia is expected to join this war very soon. Countries are also trying to control the flood of foreign money by cutting interest rates. The Australian central bank cut interest rates on Tuesday (i.e. May 7, 2013). The Bank of Korea, the South Korean central bank also cut interest rates on Thursday (i.e. May 9,2013). China has put measures in place to curb foreign inflows.
As Greg Canvan writes in The Daily Reckoning Australia “So as the US dollar moves above 100 yen for the first time in four years…Get ready for an escalation in the currency wars.”
To conclude, it is important to remember what H L Mencken, an American writer, once said “For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.” If only creating economic growth was just about printing more money…
The article originally appeared on www.firstpost.com on May 11, 2013
(Vivek Kaul is a writer. He tweets @kaul_vivek)
 

As yen nears 100 to a dollar, Mrs Watanabe is back in business

 
Japan World MarketsVivek Kaul 
The Japanese yen has gone on a free fall against the dollar. As I write this one dollar is worth around 98.5 yen. Five days back on April 5, 2013, one dollar was worth around 93 yen. In between the Japanese central bank announced that it is going to double money supply by simply printing more yen.
The hope is that more yen in the financial system will chase the same amount of goods and services, and thus manage to create some inflation. Japan has been facing a scenario of falling prices for a while now. During 2013, the average inflation has stood at -0.45%.
And this is not a recent phenomenon. In 2012, the average inflation for the year was 0%. In fact, in each of the three years for the period between 2009 and 2011, prices fell on the whole.
When prices fall, people tend to postpone consumption, in the hope that they will get a better deal in the days to come. This impacts businesses and thus slows down the overall economy. Business tackle this scenario by further cutting down prices of goods and services they are trying to sell, so that people are encouraged to buy. But the trouble is that people see prices cuts as an evidence of further price cuts in the offing. This impacts sales.
Businesses also cut salaries or keep them stagnant in order to maintain profits. As The Economist reports “A survey by Reuters in February found that 85% of companies planned to keep wages static or cut them this year. Bonuses, a crucial part of take-home pay, are at the lowest since records began in 1990.”
In this scenario where salaries are being cut and bonuses are at an all time low, people will stay away from spending. And this slows down the overall economy.
For the period of three months ending December 2012, the Japanese economy grew by a minuscule 0.5%. In three out of the four years for the period between 2008 and 2011, the Japanese economy has contracted.
The hope is to break this economic contraction by printing money and creating inflation. When people see prices going up or expect prices to go up, they generally tend to start purchasing things to avoid paying more for them in the days to come. This spending helps businesses and in turn the overall economy. So the idea is to create inflationary expectations to get people to start spending money and help Japan come out of a more than two decade old recession.
The other impact of the prospective increase in the total number of yen is that the currency has been rapidly falling in value against other international currencies. It has fallen by 5.9% against the dollar since April 4, 2013. And by around 26.5% since the beginning of October, 2012. The yen has fallen faster against the euro. As I write this one euro is worth 128.5 yen. The yen has fallen 7.5% against the euro since April 4, 2013, and nearly 28% since the beginning of October, 2012.
As the yen gets ready to touch 100 to a dollar and 130 to a euro, this makes the situation a mouthwatering investment prospect for a certain Mrs Watanabe. Allow me to explain.
In the late 1980s, Japan had a huge bubble in real estate as well a stock market bubble. The Bank of Japan managed to burst the stock market bubble by rapidly raising interest rates. The real estate bubble also popped gradually over a period of time.
After the bubbles burst, the Bank of Japan, started cutting interest rates. And soon they were close to 0%. This meant that Japanese investors had to start looking for returns outside Japan. This led to a certain section of Tokyo housewives staying awake at night to invest in the American and the European markets. They used to borrow money in yen at close to zero percent interest rates and invest it abroad with the hope of making a higher return than what was available in Japan.
Over a period of time these housewives came to be known as Mrs Watanabes (Watanabe is the fifth most common Japanese surname) and at their peak accounted for around 30 percent of the foreign exchange market in Tokyo. The trading strategy of Mrs Watanabes came to be known as the yen-carry trade and was soon being adopted by some of the biggest financial institutions in the world.
Other than low interest rates at which Mrs Watanabes could borrow the other important part of the equation was the depreciating yen. Japan has had low interest rates for a while now, but the yen has been broadly been appreciating against the dollar over the period of last five years. This is primarily because the Federal Reserve of United States has been printing money big time, something that Japan has also done, but not on a similar scale.
Now the situation has been reversed and the yen has been rapidly losing value against the dollar since October 2012. And this makes the yen carry trade a viable proposition for Mrs Watanabes. In early October a dollar was worth around 78 yen. Lets say at this price a certain Mrs Watanabe decided to invest 780,000 yen in a debt security internationally which guaranteed a return of 3% in dollar terms over a period of six months.
The first thing she would have had to do is to convert her yen to dollars. She would get $10,000 (780,000 yen/78) in return. A 3% return on it would mean that the investment would grow to $10,300 at the end of six months.
This money now when converted back to yen now when one dollar is worth 98.5 yen, would amount to around 10,14,550 yen ($10,300 x 98.5). This means an absolute gain of 234,550 yen (10,14,550 yen minus 780,000 yen) or 30% (234,550 expressed as a percentage of 780,000 yen). So a gain of 3% in dollar terms would be converted into a gain of 30% in yen terms, as the yen has depreciated against the dollar.
This depreciation is now expected to continue and hence expected to revive the prospects of the yen carry trade. As Ambrose Evans-Pritchard writes in The Daily Telegraph “The blast of money is expected to reignite the yen “carry trade” and flood global markets with up to $2 trillion (£1.3 trillion) of pent-up savings, giving the entire world a shot in the arm.”
This money is expected to go into all kinds of investment avenues including stock markets. As Garsh Dorsh, an investment letter writer, writes in his latest column “Most recently, the key driver that’s lifting stock markets higher around the world is the massive flow of liquidity via the infamous Japanese “Yen Carry” trade.”
Over a period of time the yen carry trade feeds on itself further driving down the value of yen against the dollar. As one set of investors make money from the carry trade it influences more people to get into it. These people sell yen to buy dollars leading to a situation where there is a surfeit of yen in the market in comparison to dollars. This further drives down the price of yen against the dollar. The more the yen falls against the dollar, the higher the return that a carry trade investor makes. This in turn would mean even more money entering the yen carry trade. And so the cycle, which tends to get vicious, works.
As George Soros, the hedge fund manager, told CNBC: “If what they’re doing gets something started, they may not be able to stop it. If the yen starts to fall, which it has done, and people in Japan realise that it’s liable to continue and want to put their money abroad, then the fall may become like an avalanche.” And this can only mean more and more yen chasing various investment avenues around the world and leading to more bubbles.
But that’s just one part of the story. The Japanese yen has been depreciating against the euro as well. This has made Japanese exports more competitive. A Japanese exporter selling a product for $10,000 per unit would have made 780,000 yen ($10,000 x 78 yen) in early October. Now he would make 10,14,550 yen ($10,300 x 98.5) for the same product. In October one dollar was worth 78 yen. Now it is worth 98.5 yen.
A depreciating yen means higher profits for Japanese exporters. It also means that the exporter can cut price in dollar terms and make his product more competitive. A 20% cut would mean the Japanese 788,000 yen ($8000 x 98.5 yen), which is as good as the 780,000 yen he was making in October 2012.
This increased price competitiveness has already started to reflect in numbers. Japan reported a current account surplus of 637.4 billion yen ($6.5 billion), for the month of February 2013. This was the first surplus in four months and was primarily driven by increased export earnings.
The trouble of course as Japanese exports get more competitive on the price front it hurts other export oriented countries. The yen has lost nearly 28% against the euro since October. This has had a negative impact on countries in the euro zone countries which use euro as their currency. For January 2013, seventeen countries which use the euro as their currency, in total logged a trade deficit (the difference between exports and imports) of 3.9 billion euros.
Japan also competes with South Korea primarily in the area automobile and electronics exports. Hyun Oh Seok, the finance minister of South Korea, said last month that the yen was “flashing a red light” for his nation’s exports.
Of course if Japan can resort to money printing, so can other nations in-order to devalue their currency and ensure that their exports do not fall. It could lead to a race to the bottom. As James Rickards author of Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisisputs it “we are well into the third currency war of the past 100 years….I am certain that we are closer to the critical state than we ever have been before ”
The article originally appeared on www.firstpost.com on April 8,2013
(Vivek Kaul is a writer. He tweets @kaul_vivek)