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HomeThe Market’s Greatest Risk
Posted by Larry Doyle on December 3, 2009 12:26 PM |
What is the greatest risk in the market currently? Is it the fact that the American consumer remains strapped? Unemployment showing no signs of improvement? Is it the continuation of problems within housing? While all of these issues are significant, I would maintain they are not anywhere close to being the greatest risk in the market. Why? Let’s navigate.
Each of the previously raised points is an economic factor, but the market is trading to a much greater extent based on technicals and excessive liquidity provided by the Fed than any individual or group of fundamental economic statistics.
Thus, let’s return to my original question. What is the greatest risk in the market currently? If the market is being supported by easy money provided by the Fed and that easy money is pressuring the dollar ever lower, then the greatest risk is that the dollar stops its decline. What might precipitate the dollar to increase in value? Coordinated intervention by international trade partners who are disadvantaged by a weak dollar. Could this happen? Without a doubt. In fact, our friends in Japan just started intervening in the currency markets to weaken the yen against the dollar.
The Wall Street Journal highlights this development in the brief video clip, Calls Increase for Japanese Intervention More Acute:
The yen has moved up to a current valuation of 88.14 versus the U.S. dollar from a month end level of 86.38 just this past Monday.
While I have no doubt that our political leaders in Washington are not unhappy with the weakening of our greenback, our international trade partners, such as Japan, are less thrilled. To the extent that these partners fashioned a coordinated response to strengthen the dollar and weaken their own currencies in an attempt to support their own exports, that coordinated effort is ‘the market’s greatest risk.’
LD
