Yen

The euro climbed to a three-week high versus the dollar on speculation Germany and other European nations may pledge more funds to bankrupt Greece and favourable German economic data. This is more a reflection of dollar weakness rather than any great confidence in the euro. The euro at €1,068/oz remains under pressure versus gold and is less than 2% from record nominal highs at €1,088/oz. While the focus, has of late, been on the increasingly ‘unsingle’ single currency, news overnight shows how there are also substantial risks posed to the yen. Moody’s have warned that they may have to downgrade Japan and have warned of a “tipping point” which may lead to a government funding crisis for heavily indebted Japan. The United Nations warned on Wednesday of a possible crisis of confidence in, and even a "collapse" of, the U.S. dollar if its value against other currencies continued to decline. The UN’s mid-year review of the world economy did not get covered widely. The UN economic division said that a crisis of confidence in the dollar, stemming from the falling value of foreign dollar holdings, would imperil the global financial system. This trend, it said, had recently been driven in part by interest rate differentials between the U.S. and other major economies (see table above) and growing concern about the sustainability of the U.S. public debt, half of which is held by foreigners including the Chinese government.

It was to be expected: as of the just released CFTC Commitment of Traders data, the net exposure of non-commercial EUR longs, arguably a bubble far bigger than gold and silver combined, in terms of volume and participation, tumbled from 99,516 to 61,447 long contracts, or a nearly 40% drop in net short positions in one week. And this is happening even without the CFTC hiking margins. Notably, Yen shorts have now abdicated, and following its drop into steep negative speculative territory, when it hit -52,983 contracts on April 19, it has now moved into the green, adding 32k contracts to a total of 13,054. Lastly, and not at all surprisingly, the gradual contraction in bearish dollar bets continues to abate, and at a just barely negative net position of -4,563, the USD is now back to February 2011 levels. It appears that the great unwind of the USD short trade is almost over, and from this point on it will be just the retails, the momos and the robots.

Even as the dollar is plunging to fresh 3 year lows and was on the verge of crossing 1.50 earlier, the inverse is happening with the former carry trade darling, the JPY. As of a few minutes ago, the Yen was up to 80.49 against the dollar: a massive 500+ pip surge from over 85 in early April. More importantly, this is the level where the G7 intervened to weaken the Yen back in March after the Nikkei flash crashed. The question then is: will the G7 and BOJ intervene once again to do whatever they can to dilute the Yen (don't forget - Japanese monetization is coming with a vengeance), or will it let go sub-80 again at which point the Mrs Watanabes of the world will be forced to once again close all their unprofitable shorts and send the Yen surging to another all time record high against the dollar. Of course, for that to happen, it would mean the dollar will likely be forced to weaken even more. Then again, the opportunity cost is an even greater economic plunge in Japan in Q2. And just like that the global central planning Committee is caught between two pingponging carry currencies. Luckily, for the time being, Americans continue not to care that their "reserve" currency has all the credibility of toilet paper in the international FX market.

It is one thing for sellside research, caught in its traditional lemming frenzy, to cut national GDP outlook. In the case of Japan the resistance to reality provide futile early on and based on the average of 43 economists' forecasts, economic growth is now expected to post a 0.22% GDP decline in Q1 and a whopping 2.83% in the April-June period. As had been predicted this is not surprising. What is surprising, is that the head of the BOJ, Shirakawa-san himself has now indicated that Japanese growth is stalling. Per the WSJ: ""We are now expecting production and GDP will decline in the first quarter and the second quarter," Mr. Shirakawa said in an interview on Friday. It is rare for the central bank governor to make such forecasts and is the first time that Mr. Shirakawa officially admitted the likelihood that the economy may shrink in the first two quarters of the year, in line with many private-sector economists' predictions." So for those wondering who will take the temporary lead in money printing in the brief period between QE2 and QE3, look no more: "given high uncertainties surrounding the Japanese economy, many analysts expect Japan's central bank to be eventually forced to take additional easing steps." And just how much money printing are we talking here? "The central bank currently buys ¥1.8 trillion of long-term JGBs every
month from financial firms as part of its regular market operations. The bank's hands are tied by the so-called banknote rule, which
limits long-term JGB buying to the amount of banknotes in circulation.
But the central bank still has capacity to purchase around ¥20 trillion
of long-term bonds, according to the central bank's latest account data." In other words, lots.

The various Yen funding crosses have suddenly seen a bit of a hiccup (but fear not: it only means far greater USD shorting instead) following a rumor that Greece may default as early as this weekend. While we think there is absolutely no possibility of that happening, a far more interesting piece of news comes from Finland, where the recent electoral upstart Soini from the True Finns party has said that the May EcoFin meeting would discuss an "entirely different" solution to the debt crisis, than the previous one. Specifically, he was quoted by Reuters as saying the best solution would be one of bank recapitalization whereby banks, and not taxpayers, bear liability. Is Europe about to pull the plug on taxpayer funded bailout for good? And if so, does the European financial system have enough a buffer to absorb what will certainly be hundreds of billions in capital shortfall. Looks like May is shaping up to be another rescue Europe month... just like last year.

A surging yen currency is certainly the worst news for Japan's export-dependent economy. This dire predicament is enough to get the central banks of the G7 to step in and initiate a coordinated yen intervention not seen for over a decade.

Even though last night's G7 Yen intervention still has no name, it likely will very shortly. After all, all key previous global currency interventions have received names according to where they took place, notable ones being the Plaza Accord from 1985 which took place in the Plaza hotel in New York in 1985, which was supposed to depreciate the dollar against the Yen (in essence the opposite of what happened last night), and the Louvre Accord from 1987 which was the aftermath of the Plaza accord which worked so well two year later the central powers met again to halt the ongoing dollar depreciation (primarily against the Yen and the Mark). So how successful have these operations been historically? Well, when it comes to killing the dollar (Plaza) the success rate was stunning. So stunning in fact that as noted, another accord had to be implemented to halt the $ decline. That one did not work out so well: in fact following the Louvre Accord the dollar continue to decline for another 2 years! So if last night's attempt to strength the dollar (weaken the yen) is to be judged by historical precedent, the half life of the G7 intervention may be extremely short lived.

In an eerie recreation of the events that transpired during last year's flash crash, among the reasons for the spectacularly wide spreads during yesterday's dramatic yen surge (which was more than just a selloff of in the USDJPY but virtually all carry pairs as we pointed out previously) is that various brokers pulled away their entire market making in the currency. While the full list is those who turned the machines off is still unknown, one company is. According to Dow Jones, "Barclays Capital pulled yen prices off its Barx dealing system for a short period Wednesday, as the Japanese currency fizzed to its strongest levels on record, a person familiar with the situation said Thursday." The reason: "to protect themselves during hectic trading conditions" - but why, remember there is no more prop trading on Wall Street (wink wink). And had others followed suit in Barclays footsteps and withdrawn markets due to a stop loss triggered wipe out in the FX market, compounded by fundamental uncertainty, it is easy to see how the yen may well have surged far, far higher. Luckily, it did not happen this time, although the USDJPY is trading at all all time lows today. On the other hand, if the market, despite trillions in capital injected by the central planners is so jittery it can take out all bids in what is supposedly to be the world's most liquid market on literally a moment's notice, we wonder just what will happen if and when Bernanke announces the end of QE3 and we have a repeat crisis...

According to sources, a Japanese Ministry of Finance official has said that it is now ready for a "Bettle on the Yen." Just headlines for now. Much more will be revealed later when the G-7 meets to discuss how to further weaken the currency in a coordinated effort. An immediate pop in the USDJPY above 79 follow this statement. The fact that we are getting nothing but posturing from the BOJ instead of actual intervention, such as we saw last when the USDJPY hit 80.30 in late October continues to be quite troubling. In the meantime, the NZDUSD, another funding pair has been taking on some water in early trading.

While everyone is staring in disbelief at the USDJPY, the real carry action is in the high yielding-YEN pairs, i.e., the development, high growing countries. And it's a massacre: ZARJPY, NZDJPY, AUDJPY - all are plunging far more than the USD. This is nothing short of a complete carry trade unwind. The implications: the cheapest recurring source of funding for risk assets - the Yen carry trade, is over. Those who managed to sell early on are lucky. The rest will get such an onslaught of margin calls tomorrow they may need to access the discount window (if Primary Dealers and the luckier banks). Many will be forced to sell assets to satisfy collateral requirements as ongoing sales of carry pairs push the Yen ever higher, and force ever more liquidity out of the market. And if the Yen carry trade is done, the question is when will the USD, which has also been a carry currency for some time, follow suit. And, once again, the most troubling observation is that the BOJ has not intervened. Our sinking feeling is that after pumping 50 trillion or so in money markets, the petty cash may be running quite low. In any case, ES opens in 2 minutes. Grab the popcorn now.

Contrary to expectations that the BOJ would injected "only" JPY2 trillion in its emergency operation earlier, Shirikawa came out with a stunner, putting in a whopping 7 trillion yen into Japanese money markets. From Reuters: "The Bank of Japan on Monday injected a hefty 7 trillion yen ($85 billion) into the money market in a same-day market operation aimed at soothing market jitters after a massive earthquake and tsunami hit northeastern Japan. This was the central bank's first so-called same-day operation since last May, when the Greek debt crisis roiled the global financial markets. BOJ Governor Masaaki Shirakawa said on Sunday that the central bank would provide huge amounts of liquidity to the banking system on Monday, reinforcing the bank's determination to keep markets stable in the wake of the disaster." In the meantime, after the Nikkei has plunged over 5%, and the Topix down by 7%, circuit breakers have been activated on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Elsewhere, the US plunge protection is hard at work, sending futures surging from the overnight drop, after reality threatened to impose itself. Another masterful showing by Sack Frost.

The massive earthquake and tsunami that has rocked Japan is being digested by markets and the economic ramifications and uncertainty is leading to risk aversion. Tokyo gold futures rose on the news with the most active gold contract on the Tokyo Commodity Exchange, February 2012 inching 0.22% higher to 118,000 yen prior to giving up those gains. Gold is marginally lower in dollars but higher in euros, Swiss francs and British pounds. After the falls on Wall Street yesterday the Nikkei was already under pressure when news of the quake broke at the end of the trading day. The Nikkei fell 1.7% today and is down over 4.11% for the week. The Japanese yen was sold in the immediate aftermath of the quake. Counter-intuitively it then recovered and is the strongest currency in the world today (see table). Market participants appear to be seriously underestimating the risk posed by the megaquake to the Japanese economy and assets. Alternatively, there may have been intervention by the Japanese authorities in order to maintain confidence and protect the value of their currency and bonds. The Bank of Japan, like the Federal Reserve, regularly intervenes in foreign exchange markets and has even intervened in equity markets by buying ETFs linked to the Nikkei and the Topix. Considering the sharp selloff seen in equity markets in recent days, gold’s resilience is impressive. Gold is down nearly 1% for the week and a lower weekly close could see the short term momentum change and a period of correction and consolidation.

The currency with the world’s worst fundamentals is finally making its move. (FXY), (YCS).

Countries used to destroy their neighbors by sending in invading armies of screaming warriors swinging great long swords. Today, you simply buy their currency. Foreign banks are using their balance sheets to speculate in the currency markets and boost profits. Adding fuel to the fire has been efforts by the People’s Bank of China to diversify out of the dollar as a reserve asset by pouring new cash flows into the yen. This explains why the central bank’s intervention efforts to slow the yen’s appreciation have been an abject failure. How this kabuki play will end. (FXY), (YCS).

Earlier in the year I had the pleasure of having lunch with hedge fund manager John Paulson. When asked what he anticipated to be the main driver of investment returns over the next few years, he responded without hesitation: “Currencies”. I thought long and hard about that answer and haven’t been able to get the discussion out of my head since. John Paulson’s logic is simple. The world is in the unprecedented situation of all four major trading currencies (EUR, GBP, JPY and USD) facing their unique set of challenges. But not all four can fall at the same time. Currencies are unique in the sense that they are relative as opposed to absolute trading objects. You don’t just buy dollars. You buy dollars against some other currency which is why they can’t all fall at the same time. - Niels Jensen, Absolute Return Partners