What Fed’s Move Means for Currency ETFs

March 19, 2009 at 2:00 pm by Tom Lydon      Bookmark and Share

Currency ETFsWhen the Federal Reserve announced yesterday that it would grow its balance sheet, that move also comes with implications for currency exchange traded funds (ETFs).

The Federal Reserve said it would expand its balance sheet to include another $750 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities, $100 billion in agency secrities and $300 billion in longer-term Treasury securities over the next six months.

After the announcement, foreign currencies rallied and ultimately brought the rally seen in the U.S. dollar to a grinding halt, leading to its biggest daily drop in more than two decades. Yesterday, the dollar fell 3.8% against the euro and 3.6% against the pound.

The long-term value of the dollar is now being questioned by some officials at Asia’s top think tanks, reports Reuters. Will the dollar remain a key global currency when all is said and done? Asia hopes that any decline in the dollar will be gradual to avoid more shocks to financial systems. For the time being, many market participants believe that the latest stimulus could lead to a prolonged decline in the dollar’s value.

If this is true, we could be looking at upswings in foreign currency ETFs in the near future. Watch the trend lines to see if this bears out, though. Note that these funds have already popped above their 50-day moving averages, and in some cases, the 200-day.

  • WisdomTree Chinese Yuan (CYB): up 0.4% in the last week

  • WisdomTree Dreyfus Brazilian Real (BZF): up 3.2% in the last week

  • CurrencyShares Swedish Krona (FXS): up 9.1% in the last week

  • CurrencyShares Swiss Franc (FXF): up 1.2% in the last week

Share this post:
  • email
  • Yahoo! Buzz
  • Digg
  • del.icio.us
  • Tipd
  • Reddit
  • StumbleUpon
  • Facebook
  • Technorati
  • Google Bookmarks
  • TwitThis

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Subscribe to Our Daily E-mail Newsletter

Enter your e-mail address below to sign up for our daily e-mail newsletter, the Daily Market Update. We will never share your e-mail address with third parties.

Subscribe to Our RSS Feed

Click here to subscribe to our RSS feed

blog comments powered by Disqus
Special Report

Recent TV Appearances

Now Available:

The ETF Trend
Following Playbook

ETF Trends' new book is now available. Click here for details. Or order online from one of these bookstores:
Amazon        Barnes and Noble


iMoney

ETF Trends' book iMoney is available. Click here for details. Or order online from one of these bookstores:
Amazon        Amazon