Courtesy of an epic liftathon in the USDJPY, concerns about the containment of the EM crisis seem to have abated for the time being, even though not only nothing has changed (just ask Argentina whose USD reserves are down to $28.5 billion from $30 billion two weeks ago), but the Fed just confirmed even less - $10 billion per month to be exact - hot money will be entering the frontier economies. However, behind the scenes things are rapidly changing fast. So fast, in fact, that even Zimbabwe, that paragon of currency stability, has opined on the EM drubbing. As AFP reports, Zimbabwe retailers, concerned about the rapid devaluation of the currency of their southern neighbor, South Africa's Rand, have now stopped accepting it entirely.
Hearing that some Zimbabwean retailers, cellphone airtime vendors & even newspaper hawkers are now refusing to take the South African #rand [3]
— Susan Njanji (@SusanNjanji) January 30, 2014 [4]
One would think Zimbabwe knows about failing currencies. But for now, all eyes on the USDJPY which is the only risk-setter that matters.