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The head of fixed-income at T. Rowe Price is now warning that investors have “just seen the first shift in that fault, and there is more” market volatility ahead after the nation’s rate hike in July helped trigger a sharp reversal of the yen carry trade.
While a hawkish Bank of Japan and concern around slowing US growth helped trigger strong demand for the yen on August 5, investors may be ignoring a deeper root of the global tumble on stocks, currencies and bonds, Husain wrote in a report. This includes loads of Japanese money invested offshore that risks getting shipped back home as rates climb ever higher in the world’s fourth-largest economy.
“The scapegoating of the yen carry trade ignores the start of a bigger and deeper trend,” according to Husain, whose firm oversees about $1.57 trillion in assets. “BOJ monetary tightening and its impact on the flow of global capital is far from simple, and it will have a large influence over the next few years.”
The sudden abandonment of the yen carry trade, which involves selling Japan’s currency to invest in higher-yielding assets, helped sink the Nikkei 225 Stock Average by the most since 1987 and fueled a surge in the VIX index of stock market volatility.
Economists briefly predicted the Federal Reserve would need to cut interest rates by half a point or act between meetings—the kind of step usually reserved for a crisis.
While the yen has settled in a mid-140s trading range against the dollar, volatility remains elevated. The Fed’s anticipated rate cuts and further BOJ tightening could jolt markets again sooner rather than later.
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