BLBG: G-10 Currencies to Drop More on Rate Cuts, Bank of Tokyo Says
By Jamie McGee
Dec. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Most of the Group of 10 currencies haven’t benefited from interest-rate cuts, and further monetary easing will result in greater depreciation in the near term, according to Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi Ltd.
The Australian dollar, British pound, Canadian dollar, Norwegian krone, Swedish krona and New Zealand dollar will weaken over the next three months as a result of lowered interest rates, according to the bank. The other G-10 currencies are the U.S. dollar, euro, yen and Swiss franc.
“The data clearly implies that as yet growth-supportive monetary policies have not been rewarded by currency outperformance in the G-10 space, reaffirming our belief that major currencies will continue to be undermined in coming months by further monetary easing,” Lee Hardman, a currency strategist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi in London, wrote in a note today.
The Group of 10’s central banks lowered interest rates by a cumulative total of 18.2 percentage points since the beginning of October. Their currencies depreciated an average of 0.32 percent on the day of the rate cuts and 2.85 percent during the week of the rate cuts, according to Hardman.
The daily exceptions were the Swiss franc and the Australian dollar, which both gained on average, Hardman wrote. The U.S. dollar and the euro were the weekly exceptions. The dollar climbed an average of 1.08 percent in the weeks after the Federal Reserve cut borrowings costs, while the euro gained 0.67 percent, according to Bank of Tokyo.
Currencies may eventually strengthen for countries that revive their strained economies, Hardman wrote.
Dollar Index
The ICE’s Dollar Index, which tracks the dollar against the euro, the yen, the pound, the Canadian dollar, the Swiss franc and Sweden’s krona, has climbed 5.6 percent since the Fed lowered its rate by a half-percentage point on Oct. 8, when global central banks made coordinated reductions. The dollar has gained more from demand for a haven than from monetary easing, according to Bank of Tokyo.
The Fed will lower its overnight lending rate by a half- percentage point to 0.5 percent when policy makers meet Dec. 16, according to the median forecast of 72 economists in a Bloomberg News survey. Forecasts range from no rate change to a 1 percentage point cut to zero.
The Bank of England cut its overnight rate by 3 percentage points since October, the most aggressive monetary easing among the Group of 10 currencies. Sterling depreciated on average 2.59 percent in the weeks during the announcements, according to Bank of Tokyo. The pound fell 14 percent against the dollar since the central bank lowered its rate on Oct. 8.
To contact the reporter on this story: Jamie McGee in New York at jmcgee8@bloomberg.net