Gold, Silver, and Currencies

Today, the Australian Central Bank doubled the size of its daily bond purchases to hold down the rise in long-term Australian interest rates. The market says Australian rates are too low and need to rise. The central bank disagrees, but if the market ends up having the correct view of the exchange rate, look for the Australian dollar to start depreciating. The FT has more on Australia’s decision: Australia’s central bank doubled the size of its regular bond purchases on Monday in a move that analysts say will have broad implications as policymakers consider their response to a global jump in … [Read more...]

Joel Rosenblatt and Chris Dolmetsch report for Bloomberg on the case of Stefan He Qin, a cryptocurrency hedge fund founder who has admitted to $100 million in fraud. They write: The 24-year-old founder of Virgil Capital, which ran two cryptocurrency hedge funds, admitted to duping investors out of almost $100 million and using the money to support a lavish lifestyle. Stefan He Qin pleaded guilty Thursday in federal court in New York and faces as much as 20 years in prison at his sentencing in May. Prosecutors said the Australian national stole investor money from Virgil Sigma Fund LP, a … [Read more...]

Bitcoin is enjoying another wave of investor interest this time with institutional backing. We know some of the smartest investors own Bitcoin. The technology backing bitcoin has some interesting applications in our view, but as far as bitcoin becoming legal tender, at best it looks like a long-odds gamble. No central bank in the world is going to allow a currency with a fixed supply to supplant a fiat currency. The U.S. would be bankrupt in a minute if it couldn’t print its own currency to pay its debts. So would Japan and many other countries. Rather than permitting speculation in … [Read more...]

At the Financial Times, Michael Mackenzie explains the long term forces stacking up against the dollar. He writes: With alarm bells ringing across financial markets in recent days, the US dollar has found its footing, reflecting its haven status whenever equities and investor sentiment take a knock. But that may prove fleeting given the longer term forces stacking up against the world’s reserve currency. Since climbing to its best level since 2002 in the wake of the pandemic earlier this year, the Federal Reserve’s trade-weighted dollar index has been pressured by a combination of rising … [Read more...]

The Turkish lira hit a new record low against the dollar this week as the country's central bank held rates steady. The Wall Street Journal's Caitlin Ostroff and David Gauthier-Villars report: The lira fell 2.1% on Thursday, with $1 buying 7.9792 lira, after the central bank left its key, one-week repo rate at 10.25%, surprising the majority of investors and analysts who anticipated an increase. For several months, the central bank’s main policy rate has been negative when adjusted for inflation, making holding the Turkish lira an unattractive proposition for foreign investors and … [Read more...]

There is a movement afoot in central banking circles to shift from paper currency to digital currency. Sounds convenient and probably like a good idea to many, but the goal from the central banking crowd has almost nothing to do with convenience. Digital dollars would make the job of intervening in markets and manipulating spending and interest rates much easier. Think about an economic stimulus credited to your government issued debit card that has an expiration date. How better to force consumers to spend than to give their money an expiration date? Or what about negative … [Read more...]