Why Goldman Expects The Japanese Yen To Collapse Within 12 Months
By Tyler Durden
Forget the G-20 agreement on no “competitive devaluations” – the full court press on the Bank of Japan to engage in the next round of aggressive currency devaluation is on, just three months after Kuroda unveiled Japan’s first negative interest rate.
Recall that it was Goldman who not only brought forward its forecast for a first rate hike from July to April and first suggested earlier this week that it is time for the Bank of Japan to forget about caution and to more than double its purchases of equities in the form of ETFs (and which the BOJ already owns a majority of all available securities) as doing either more NIRP and more QE may no longer have a favorable outcome:
… we think the BOJ is most likely to ease mainly via the qualitative measure, with increasing ETF purchasing the central pillar, with a view to improving business confidence. We think the market is already factoring in an increase in annual purchasing from ¥3.3 tn to ¥5-6 tn, and we thus think the BOJ may look to slightly more than double its current figure to around ¥7 tn.
This pushed both the USDJPY and the S&P off their overnight lows when it was first floated in the early morning of April 20.
Then, on Friday, the Yen had its biggest one day surge since the announcement of the expanded QQE in October 2014 when Bloomberg reported of the latest BOJ trial balloon whereby “the Bank of Japan may consider helping banks lend by offering a negative rate on some loans, according to people familiar with talks at the BOJ.” This happened just as the net spec short position in the USDJPY hit record short, forcing yet another massive squeeze in the currency which soared higher by nearly 300 pips in one day.
Which brings us to today, when in its latest attempt to throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks, Goldman Sachs’ FX team – whose trading recommendations in the past 6 months have been an unmitigated disaster – is predicting that the $/JPY will “move higher again in the near term and continue to forecast $/JPY at 130 a year from now.”
Why does Goldman expect a collapse in the Yen by nearly 20 big figures?
Because as analysts Sylvia Ardagna and Robin Brooks note, “the BoJ faces an important challenge: it needs to reaffirm that the monetary easing arrow of Abenomics is still on course, or the market will price that the central bank is backtracking from the 2% inflation goal. This could be extremely disruptive for the Japanese economy. Using markets jargon, the BoJ is already so long into ‘the reflationary trade’ that it has to continue to deliver further accommodation for the time being.”
In other words, having committed to a terminal expansion of its balance sheet, it is far too late for Kuroda to backtrack, especially since the recent massive growth in its balance sheet has actually led to …read more
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