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Daily Currency Market Focus

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US Dollar: Leaving the Mess for Obama

Tue, Nov 18 2008, 07:04 GMT
by Kathy Lien

GFT

IS THE DOLLAR RALLY OVER?

Since the summer, the US dollar has staged a remarkable rally, but with manufacturing data surprising to the upside and the US dollar giving back its gains today, everyone is wondering whether the dollar rally is over. The British pound, which has seen one of the most severe decline this month rose close to 2 percent on little to no news. For some market watchers, this may represent currencies that have become overstretched but in our opinion all signs still point to more trouble for the global economy.

Leaving the Mess for Obama

Even though the global recession is underway and the problems in the US economy continue to deepen, there are increasing signs that the Bush Administration wants to leave the clean up job to Barack Obama. According to Treasury Secretary Paulson, even though the first half of the $700 billion bailout package is being used up quickly, the Bush Administration will not be asking Congress for the remaining $350 billion. With 8 weeks to go before Bush leaves office, the current Administration is more focused on wrapping things up than starting new initiatives. Paulson said it best – "I'm going to do what we need to do to keep the system strong but I'm not going to be looking to start up new things unless they're necessary, unless they make great sense” and "I want to preserve the firepower, the flexibility we have now and those that come after us will have." This was the same spirit that Bush took at this weekend’s emergency meeting of G20 nations. The meeting was a big disappointment as the Group failed to deliver any specific solutions. Instead, they set an action plan for March 31 and another meeting for April 30th. The G20 is clearly waiting for the new Administration to take charge before putting the pedal to the medal. The only question is, will the global economy be able to wait that long.

General Motors: Biggest Risk This Month

The fate of General Motors will be the biggest event risk until the end of the month. In my opinion, the US government will not allow GM to fail. President elect Barack Obama has already pledged on numerous occasions to support the auto and retooling industry. To back off his promises so early in the game would be a reputation killer and not something the world expects from Obama. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has also called on Congress to pass an emergency rescue package for the industry. Given that 1 in 10 jobs in America deals with the auto industry (from dealerships, auto parts etc), there is no question that the US government will extend life support to General Motors. Nonetheless the longer the US government stalls the more strain it puts on the financial markets, because investors don’t like uncertainty.

Citigroup to Cut 50k Jobs, How Do Non-Farm Payrolls Fare in Recession?

Citigroup announced today that they will be cutting more than 50,000 jobs in the “near term.” This is on top of the 23,000 jobs that they have already cut and will leave the company with approximately 300,000 employees globally. Even though non-farm payrolls dropped by more than 200k in September and October, Citigroup’s layoffs and job cuts by other companies will drive non-farm payrolls even lower. In analyzing non-farm payrolls data during recessions, we see that at the beginning of an official recession, as defined by the National Bureau of Economic Research, non-farm payrolls start to decline rapidly. However after falling between 200k and 300k, job cuts stall and then pick up once again. We saw this trend in the 1981 to 1982 recession, the 1990 to 1991 recession and during the 2001 recession. The following chart illustrates the double dip trend of non-farm payrolls during the 2001 and recession.

Stronger Industrial Production Does Not Invalidate Recessionary Conditions

Industrial production and the Empire State manufacturing survey was better than forecasts, but that does not draw away from the strong risk that the US economy will fall into a technical recession when third quarter GDP numbers are released next week. A resumption of mining after Hurricanes Gustav and Ike helped industrial production rebound last month. The Empire State manufacturing survey fell to a record low of -25.43 but that was marginally better than the market’s expectations. Given that the global recession is underway, we continue to believe that the US dollar and Japanese Yen will outperform all of the major currencies. Producer prices and the Treasury’s International Capital flow reports are due for release on Tuesday. The drop in oil prices should alleviate price pressures.

GBP/USD: UNDERVALUED CURRENCY SEES STRONG REBOUND

Since the middle of July, the British pound has fallen more than 27 percent. In past editions of the Daily Currency Focus we said that 1.55 is the approximate fair value level for the GBP/USD. With that in mind, the currency pair is now undervalued on the basis of purchasing power parity (PPP). Of course, PPP is far from accurate and as we have seen in the past, currency pairs can overshoot their fair value levels for some time. Nonetheless this helps to explain why we have seen a strong recovery in the British pound today – not only was it the day’s biggest market mover, but it was also the best performing currency. House prices continue to decline with Rightmove reporting a 2.9 percent drop this month. The UK economy is in a recession and we expect next week’s third quarter GDP numbers to confirm that. The Confederation of British Industry, the country’s biggest business lobby group expects GDP to drop by 1.7 next year, which would be the largest decline since 1980. Consumer prices are due for release tomorrow and given the drop in producer prices, CPI should ease as well.

EUR/USD CONSOLIDATES BUT PROBLEMS STILL EXIST

The euro does not seem unnerved by developments abroad and is benefiting from the fact that attention has shifted to the recession brewing in the Japanese economy and the problems in the UK economy. The fear that the Euro-zone economy will reach recession has been realized, taking some uncertainty off of the table. However the risks still exist for the Eurozone. The region reported that their Trade Balance has narrowed significantly, from -9.4B to -5.6B. The impact of a strong currency in the first half of the year is kicking in as exports take a big hit. French Business Sentiment also fell to multi-year lows. The health of the French economy is crucial as it is one of the only large EZ economies not to be in a recession. Tomorrow’s schedule includes Italian Trade Balance and Current Account, as well as EZ Construction Output.

Published on  Tue, Nov 18 2008, 07:07 GMT