The U.S. dollar and related currency exchange traded funds will likely continue to strengthen as traders front-run the Federal Reserve.
Year-to-date, the PowerShares DB U.S. Dollar Index Bullish Fund (NYSEArca: UUP), which tracks the price movement of the U.S. dollar against a basket of currencies, including the euro, Japanese yen, British pound, Canadian dollar, Swedish krona and Swiss franc, has gained 4.4%. Additionally, the actively managed WisdomTree Bloomberg U.S. Dollar Bullish Fund (NYSEArca: USDU), which tracks the USD against a broader basket of developed and emerging market currencies, has increased 3.4% so far this year. [Why You Shouldn’t Bet on Weaker USD Currency, ETFs]
Goldman Sachs anticipates further gains in the greenback, which could appreciate as much as 20% against the euro currency by the end of 2017, reports Chiara Albanese for the Wall Street Journal.
“One reason for this are U.S. data, which we think are rebounding strongly, with the second quarter tracking at 3.1%,” Robin Brooks, a Goldman Sachs analyst, said in the WSJ article, pointing to a path of policy normalization in the U.S.
Brooks believes the USD will continue to strengthen regardless of when the Fed decides to raise interest rates since currency traders know that a rate hike is inevitable.
Michala Marcussen, global head of economics at Societe Generale Corporate & Investment Banking, also contends that attention is back on the Fed as well.
“Ultimately we think the relative stance of monetary policy is going to be one of the most important drivers of euro/dollar over the coming months,” Marcussen said on CNBC. “And in that context we do think euro/dollar could come back and start testing parity at some point in time.”