You might know that I spent a wonderful time in Hong Kong and Kuala Lumpur during Christmas. I twittered from time to time during my trip. Hong Kong is very interesting for its two dimensions of old and modern clashing together.
Besides the overwhelming sceneries, I especially enjoyed the warm climate and food. Now I’m back in cold Frankfurt where it has been snowing basically every day. Here are a few impressions:
You might recall my post from over a month ago when I increased my position in gold and added the Japanese Yen, with the aim to get rid of Dollars. Gold is obviously doing extremely well, and it seems as if the currency position is gaining traction on top of that.
I still remember the time when I was studying in Tokyo in the 80′s. The Yen was trading at 280 against the Dollar and fellow students from the U.S. were vigorously consuming with their credit cards, cheering how cheap things were for them. Since then the U.S. Dollar has lost two thirds of its buying power.
Could the Yen hit 50 next year as Daisuke Uno predicts?
The yen rallied to a 14-year high against the dollar on speculation Japanese monetary authorities will tolerate further appreciation of the currency.
Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii said today the government needs to take action on “abnormal” currency movements and Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama said the yen’s appreciation was due to weakness in the dollar. The Swiss franc fell against the dollar on speculation the nation’s central bank sold the currency after it climbed to parity with the greenback for a second day. U.S. markets are closed for Thanksgiving.
“The Japanese authorities probably won’t step in unless we see an acceleration of the move below 85” yen per dollar, said David Deddouche, a foreign-exchange strategist in Paris at Societe Generale SA. “But traders will try to test that level in the coming days.”
Japan’s currency rose to 86.30 yen per dollar, the strongest since July 1995, before trading at 86.70 as of 1.40 p.m. in London from 87.35 yesterday in New York.
Source: Bloomberg
