Currencies

When the dollar is strong, U.S. stocks tend to outperform international equities and, when the dollar is weak, international stocks tend to outperform. Let’s take a look at an example to see how this has played out over the past 20-plus years.

This post consists of tables and charts which show how markets and currencies have performed to date in 2017.

Would you rather have one bitcoin, or a single ounce of gold? The answer used to be obvious but, since an off-year in 2014, the enigmatic cryptocurrency has steadily climbed in price to take the title of the best-performing currency in both 2015 and 2016. And today? After continuing its rally into 2017, the price of bitcoin has now passed this arbitrary, but psychologically important measure of parity with an ounce of gold. How did we get here so fast?

Are the actions being taken by Trump’s administration to spur domestic manufacturing, jobs and economic output a precursor to a weaker dollar and another bull market in gold? Only time will tell, but investors should keep close watch on this developing scenario and adjust portfolios accordingly.

India has, in effect, a dual currency system where people choose to save mostly in gold rather than rupees. This is unlike any other major economy and begs the question: how do you wean a population off a precious metal?

Another boom and another crash. The story of Bitcoin has been a roller coaster ride of rises and falls to say the least. People have watched in awe as Bitcoin has catapulted higher in recent weeks yet this was not meant to last. Once again, as it has so many times before, Bitcoin has suffered a serious setback, falling roughly 31% overnight!

Currently, Russian gold reserves rank 7th in the world. It’s clear that there is a concerted effort by Russian authorities to build up the country’s gold reserves as part of a national strategy to negate the effects of economic warfare waged by the United States.

I think the Chinese are devaluing the yuan in slow motion but when they realize that the shadow banking system will tighten credit at the worst possible time - just when the PBOC is actively fighting such tighter credit conditions - they are likely to devalue the yuan by a much larger and less orderly amount.

The Canadian dollar/U.S. dollar exchange rate would appear to have a lot more upside than downside potential. This articles illustrates that point of view with charts and puts forth suggestions on how to play the coming upside.

Last December the IMF announced that the Chinese yuan would be included in the basket of currencies used to determine the value of a new global reserve currency called the Special Drawing Right (SDR), or world money. Now, less than four weeks following the G20 Summit, the yuan will officially join the SDR making up over 10% of the SDR. With China onboard, the SDR is poised to become the de facto global reserve currency.