By Alasdair Macleod
Thanks to the Fed’s tapering, a wider public is becoming aware of currency instability in diverse economies, from Turkey to Argentina, and India to Indonesia. Indeed, on Tuesday night Turkey raised overnight interest rates by a whopping 4.5% to 12% in an attempt to stop a run on the lira.
Turkey has her own political problems, perhaps strong enough to knock the stuffing out of her currency on their own, and Argentina seems to be permanently fighting off hyperinflation. But it is a mistake to think that the idiosyncrasies of each currency are solely the cause of their downfall. The fact that these countries’ currency problems are all happening at the same time tells us the common factor is currency itself.
Over the last decade it has been fashionable to invest increasing quantities of money in these economies. Financial flows have also been instrumental in accelerating the growth of local domestic credit. Money flows are now in the process of reverting back to base and the chart below of the Indian rupee is a good example in which this effect on a currency can be observed.
Read the rest here.
Thanks to the Fed’s tapering, a wider public is becoming aware of currency instability in diverse economies, from Turkey to Argentina, and India to Indonesia. Indeed, on Tuesday night Turkey raised overnight interest rates by a whopping 4.5% to 12% in an attempt to stop a run on the lira.
Turkey has her own political problems, perhaps strong enough to knock the stuffing out of her currency on their own, and Argentina seems to be permanently fighting off hyperinflation. But it is a mistake to think that the idiosyncrasies of each currency are solely the cause of their downfall. The fact that these countries’ currency problems are all happening at the same time tells us the common factor is currency itself.
Over the last decade it has been fashionable to invest increasing quantities of money in these economies. Financial flows have also been instrumental in accelerating the growth of local domestic credit. Money flows are now in the process of reverting back to base and the chart below of the Indian rupee is a good example in which this effect on a currency can be observed.
Read the rest here.
