Are major exporter countries to the United States really manipulating their currency to boost exports?

The Euro Area, China, Canada, Mexico and Japan together account for over 70% of U.S. trade. Have these countries (including the Euro Area group of countries) manipulated their currencies to boost exports? In this century (2000 onwards) the Chinese Yuan, the Canadian Dollar and the Euro have appreciated against the dollar. The Japanese Yen has been largely unchanged against the U.S. dollar since the start of this century and only the Mexican Peso has weakened against the dollar.

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Currency carnage everywhere, here’s how every currency in the world has performed against the US dollar over the past year

What a difference six months makes, here’s the performance of the US dollar against each currency as of the 5th of September 2018,

USD 1-year change 20180905
USD 1-year change mapped (data as of 05-September-2018)

Notes: 1. We have excluded the performance of Angola, Sudan, Argentina, Turkey and Venezuela on the map because they are major outliers. They are included in the data set below. 2. Currency price data updated 05-September-2018

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The U.S. economy is set to contribute its highest share of global GDP since 2007 as other economies everywhere else stumble

The U.S. economy is doing great and is set to contribute 25% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP) this year, its highest share since 2007. The rise of the U.S. dollar and increases in interest rates are squeezing emerging economics at an unprecedent pace. But it isn’t just emerging economies that are feeling the squeeze, Europe has its problems with Italian debt (and yields), the Australian dollar which has long been considered a growth asset has been falling this year and elsewhere trade worries and rising oil prices are having a big impact on other nations. Even German factory orders are the weakest in years as the U.S. is truly taking back economic leadership.

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History is repeating itself, is this the end of the current cycle of global synchronised growth?

We wrote earlier this year on the downsides of synchronised global growth. We wrote that when global synchronised growth begins to end the U.S. dollar strengthens, investors run away from emerging markets, interest rates continue to rise to tame inflation and bad debt becomes an issue. All of this is happening now, first the US Dollar, here is the 1-year performance of the U.S. Dollar mapped,

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Oil highest since November 2014; Dollar index hits its highest level in 2018; Warren Buffett and Bill Gates on Cryptocurrencies

Oil Prices

The price of crude oil crossed $70 per barrel today, the highest since November 2014.

US firm ConocoPhillips has taken over oil inventories and terminals of Venezuelan state-owned PDVSA under court orders to enforce a $2 billion arbitration award by the International Chamber of Commerce. Further, US President Donald Trump said he’d announce his decision on the Iran nuclear deal on Tuesday. Both developments contributed to soaring oil prices. Continue reading “Oil highest since November 2014; Dollar index hits its highest level in 2018; Warren Buffett and Bill Gates on Cryptocurrencies”

Not an April Fools’ Day joke – this really is how the US Dollar has performed against each currency of the world over the past one year

Here is the performance (1-year % change) of the US Dollar (USD) mapped against currencies and countries around the world (the data set is after the map),

USD 1-year change mapped (data as of 31-March-2018)
USD 1-year change mapped (data as of 31-March-2018)

Continue reading “Not an April Fools’ Day joke – this really is how the US Dollar has performed against each currency of the world over the past one year”