G8 Hot Air Inflates Dollar

The 'Helicopter Economics Investing Guide' is meant to help educate people on how to make profitable investing choices in the current economic environment. In addition to the term helicopter economics, we have also coined the term, helicopternomics, to describe the current monetary and fiscal policies of the U.S. government and to update the old-fashioned term wheelbarrow economics.

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The G8 finance ministers met in Tokyo this weekend. Media headlines were blaring, 'Dollar Rises as G8 Looks to End Stimulus'. As usual media headlines have little to do with what actually happened. The ministers discussed a need to prepare strategies for winding down policy measures taken in response to the economic crisis. Note that it's just talk and the talk is about coming up with strategies (they don't exist yet). There is no 'doing' involved here, nor did the G8 come up with a timetable for implementing the strategies once they are created. It's not even clear that they have a timetable for coming up with the strategies. Not only is stimulus not being ended, but there is more than enough reason to believe it will be increased. The IMF managing director commenting on the meeting stated bluntly that the worst is not over yet.

The real goal of this meeting was to jawbone the U.S. dollar up. As reported in this blog the trade-weighted dollar has been hoovering around a breakdown level of 78.33. So far this morning it has been as high a s 80.89 in pre-market trading. At the meeting, the Russian finance minister backtracked on Russia's statement last week that it was cutting its U.S. bond holdings. He stated at the meeting that over the next year or more (the media did not quote this time period, but somehow gathered it from context) he "does not see any significant changes in our policy with regards to dollar denominated paper". He also said he didn't see the dollar losing its reserve currency status in the near future. The media did not report if the pained look on his face was the result of having both arms twisted behind his back.

The effect of the G8 comments was to sink Asian and European stocks markets. Most were down around 2%. Dollar denominated assets such as commodities were hit the hardest. Oil fell to around 70, but then went back up above 71. All this on the hint that maybe sort of kinda perhaps something will done at some unstated point in the future. In past major inflations, governments have always tried to tone down the money printing, but are forced to quickly reverse course because there is an immediate negative reaction when they do so. Looks like we're already falling into this pattern.

In a side note on 'money printing' is a bizarre story coming out of Italy that the U.S. media is ignoring. Italian authorities have seized $135 billion in U.S. treasury bonds from two individuals entering the country from Switzerland and carrying Japanese passports. Among the cache were 249 bonds with $500 million denominations. While this may seem absurd, the U.S. treasury did indeed issue bonds with $500 million denominations between 1955 and 1969. Even more amazing the authorities couldn't tell immediately whether or not the bonds were counterfeit! While it seems likely the bonds are phony, why would anyone bother counterfeiting bonds with denominations so high that only a central bank could buy them? This would also be the biggest counterfeiting operation in history. Whatever is going on, there is definitely more to this story.

NEXT: Market Rally at Key Juncture; Russians at it Again

Daryl Montgomery
Organizer,New York Investing meetup
http://investing.meetup.com/21

This posting is editorial opinion. Like all other postings for this blog, there is no intention to endorse the purchase or sale of any security.