Posts Tagged ‘financial market’

Much has been written about currency speculators in the past, much of it with a few rare exceptions utter nonsense. As noted above, the very term “speculator” can create an emotional reaction. Here, in this section, we seek a dispassionate analysis of just who are the currency speculators, how and why they operate and their function within the overall currency market. The benchmark for this analysis is obviously the de?nition of currency speculation given earlier; that is someone who trades in currencies without an underlying, attached asset. Trade and investment do not count because of necessity they have attached, underlying assets. What is left — the vast majority — in currency market volume is speculation. So who takes part in this activity? Broadly speaking, currency speculators can be divided into the following main groups.

The effort to ?nd blame for the calamities which befell the region in 1997–1998 re?ected not only the political desire to ?nd convenient scapegoats and lay the blame on others, but also a deep sense of injustice and anger at the way Asia had been treated and abused by ?nancial markets, at the way much of Asia’s economic progress over decades had been destroyed so savagely in so little time. Initially, it was more expedient to blame foreign speculators for the Asian currency crisis than to try to discover the fundamental economic reasons why the crisis should have happened, since the latter might have involved laying some of the blame at the feet of the Asian governments themselves. This was not only for politically pragmatic reasons, but also more seriously for reasons of political survival. It should be seen as no coincidence that the dictator Soeharto was overthrown in the aftermath of the Asian crisis. Equally, in Thailand, a series of corrupt governments gave way to signi?cant political reform and the administration of Chuan Leepkai. Needless to say, there may have been some Asian governments opposed to such ideas of change, preferring the old social pact of stability and prosperity. The only problem with this was that there was no longer any prosperity. Whoever was to blame for it, the Asian currency crisis impoverished millions. After the crisis, it was said that in Indonesia the economic work of three decades had been all but wiped out, and that as a result half the country lived in a state of absolute poverty as de?ned by the World Bank, living on USD1 a day. An of?cial backlash against currency speculation was certainly not limited to the Asian crisis or to the emerging markets as a whole. Following sterling’s ejection from the ERM in September 1992, the UK government’s ?rst public reaction was to blame the German central bank for either not coming to the aid of the UK in defending the ERM parity, or in fact deliberately seeking its ejection. There was talk that the Bank of England was drawing up a list of banks which had played a part in speculating against sterling — a ridiculous measure given that the whole market had been selling sterling and the Bank of England had effectively been the only buyer. Equally, after the forced widening of the ERM bands to 15% on August 1, 1993, the hysterical reaction by of?cials within the French and German governments, lambasting the implied devaluation of the ERM currencies as the result of nefarious activities by heinous “Anglo-Saxon speculators” — presumably the German of?cials simultaneously forgetting their own ethnic origins — would have made Asian government comments seem tentative by comparison. Europe’s best and brightest didn’t only talk either. Some of them sought to punish those who had dared go against their precious plans for currency union, by keeping interest rates at punitive levels subsequent to the band widening — in the process, hurting the “innocent” along with the “guilty”.
In Asia, the response was also not just verbal. Thailand created a two-tier foreign exchange and interest rate system, while the Philippines and Indonesia slapped on limits to swap market trading and Malaysia went so far as to ban offshore trading in the ringgit and peg it at MYR3.80to the US dollar. While the dividing line is somewhat thin, these measures were not so much aimed at punishing speculators after the fact as they were efforts at self-defence during the climax of the speculation and panic. The reaction to the Asian crisis by governments was initially in many cases one of recrimination, however with one notable exception that eventually turned to one of pragmatism and the realization of a need for accelerated reform. The essence of Asia’s of?cial protest at its rough handling was two-fold: ?rstly, a natural reaction to such treatment whatever the reasons, and secondly an issue of control — the authorities had lost control, or at least a high degree of it, and the market had gained it. Of necessity, control is a subject close to the heart of any government or central bank. This was the case in Europe after the two ERM crises, and it was also the case with Asia. Control was relevant not only for economic reasons but also because the previously strong growth had masked or postponed underlying political and social problems.
The Asian currency crisis was followed swiftly by the Russian currency crisis of August 1998. It is interesting if not amusing to remember now that a high-ranking Russian of?cial said at the 1997 IMF annual meetings in Hong Kong (which I attended) that the Asian crisis had prompted a re-think of currency policies generally, and of Russia’s in particular. That Russia would not act immediately but would clearly have to reconsider their exchange rate policy in the face of such events. Politicians say a lot of things, but that is not to say that they actually do them. In the case of Russia, clearly the process of reconsideration was neither speedy nor decisive enough. In August 1998, the Russian rouble de-pegged from the US dollar and collapsed, and Russia defaulted on its domestic debt. This was followed shortly by a currency crisis on the other side of the world, in Brazil. In January of 1999, the Brazilian real also de-pegged and collapsed in value. It seemed to some almost as if some immense and malign force was at work, triggering currency crises and devaluations and in the process setting these countries back years if not decades in terms of economic progress. Just to bring this blog up-to-date, in February of 2001, the Turkish lira experienced the same fate, de-pegging against the US dollar from 600,000 and falling to a low of around 1.65 million in October of that year. It is without doubt that these experiences over the last 10 years have coloured our judgement and opinion on the subject of currency speculation. It would be dif?cult for that not to happen. The aim here, in this series of posts, is therefore to attempt a dif?cult task, namely that of looking at the issue of currency speculation from a fair and unbiased perspective. At the offset, I must say if it is not already clear, that as a currency strategist in a global investment bank I am obviously (to a limited extent!) a participant in the currency market. My own experience should also be taken into account. That said, I am no more biased than anyone in the of?cial community on this issue. They have their (biased) perspective, a currency strategist has his/her own. Moreover I have considerably more experience of seeing currency speculation than many, certainly most within the of?cial community. With that in mind, the aim here is neither to see currency speculation as a benign or as a malign force. Rather, it is ?rst to draw the fangs of emotion and morality from the debate and then to seek a balanced, unemotional and practical perspective of this issue of currency speculation. The very ?rst thing one has to do in this regard is to seek some sort of de?nition for what one is talking about. There are probably as many de?nitions of this issue as there are people on the planet, however clearly that is not helpful. The broad de?nition I have used so far in the blog is the following:
Currency speculation is the trading in currencies with no underlying attached asset
This is of course far from a perfect de?nition. However, any weakness of this de?nition does not detract from our essential need to have a de?nition in order to put this whole debate in context. This is clearly not the only kind of currency speculation, but it is a useful reference, not least for the incentive of a currency speculator. Their main aim has nothing to do with an underlying, attached asset such as an equity or ?xed income product. Their aim is purely to achieve what academic text books suggest is impossible — consistent excess returns from currency directional trading.