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Dollar becomes funding currency as yields tumble

NEW YORK - The dollar is quickly becoming a funding currency for purchases of higher yielding assets as U.S. Treasury yields slump and the U.S. economic outlook remains uncertain.

While the dollar is still far from surpassing the Japanese yen and the Swiss franc as the world’s funding currency of choice, investors are no longer rushing to buy the greenback as a safe haven any time trouble erupts worldwide.

While not inherently bad for the dollar, being a funding currency is a sign of investors’ disenchantment in U.S. economic growth and return potential. In time, countries with funding units face difficulty attracting foreign investment, further eroding economic prospects and the attractiveness of their currency.

On Thursday for example, the dollar sold off against both yen and Swiss franc after a report showed factory activity in the U.S. Mid-Atlantic region unexpectedly contracted.

Both currencies are lower yielding than the dollar, making them better funding options. Until recently investors would have sold them and bought back dollars after the headlines.

Not now.

The move on Thursday “was not a flight into U.S. dollars, but a flight out of the dollar,” said Douglas Borthwick, a managing director for trading at Faros Trading LLC, a forex execution firm in Stamford, Connecticut.

“If the dollar is no longer seen as the destination for the ‘flight to safety’ then the market will use it as the currency to be short against high-yield trades given it will shield them the most from adverse moves,” he added. “Thus it would become the funding currency of choice.”

In the forex markets, a funding currency is used to finance so-called carry trades. A carry trade involves borrowing in a low yielding currency to buy higher yielding assets elsewhere.

High liquidity, low yields and low volatility are all desired traits in a funding currency. The Japanese yen fit all of those attributes for years, making it popular for trades involving the Brazilian real, the Mexican peso and the Australian dollar.

No value in the dollar

“There’s a possibility the dollar will be just like the yen a couple of years ago,” said Dean Malone, a currency director at Compass FX in Dallas, Texas, which sold U.S. dollar versus Swiss francs on Thursday.

“With yields these low, there’s simply very little appreciation value in the dollar,” he said. “Until we turn the corner, until employment picks up and the Fed decides to start raising interest rates, markets will keep looking for higher returns elsewhere. And the dollar may be used to help fund those trades.”

U.S. Treasury debt prices have rallied recently and as of Friday, yields in longer-dated securities traded at their lowest in nearly a year and a half while the two-year yield reached a record low at 0.47 percent. At the same time, the dollar is trading near a 15-year low against the Japanese yen set at 84.72 yen and touched a seven month-low at 1.0259 against the Swiss franc this week, according to Reuters data.

Carry trade barometer

Some analysts are cautious however on reading too much into the dollar’s recent trading behavior.

They note that when taken into account the implied volatility and yield spreads across currency pairs — key measures to help gauge a carry trade efficiency — the dollar doesn’t stand out as a funding unit.

Analysts at RBC Capital Markets compile a “carry value barometer,” which ranks funding currencies, using option prices and measuring yield spreads adjusted for volatility.

According to the bank’s latest reading the Canadian dollar is now the best funding currency, in particular for trades involving the Australian dollar, South African rand, the Brazilian real and the Turkish lira.

In comparison, the dollar ranked between the 4^th and 6^th best option among 8 currencies, involving the same pairs.

“No doubt the low yields are hurting the dollar,” said Todd Elmer, a G10 currency strategist for Citigroup Inc. in New York. “But I’m not sure about selling it to buy the yen and the Swiss franc for some potential marginal yield gain.”