Saturday, February 9, 2013

Japan Enters the Currency Wars in Full Force

By Erin McCarthy of  The Wall Street Journal

"Investors and economists concerned about the current central bank battle to weaken their currencies might want to get comfortable, because this so-called “currency war” isn’t ending any time soon, warns veteran financier and author of the 2011 book “Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crisis” James Rickards.

In an interview on the DJ FX Trader podcast, Rickards says the continuing currency battle will likely last until 2014 or 2015, and in the meantime rising inflation across the globe remains a key risk.

“We’re not in currency wars all the time, but when we are they tend to last for a very long time,” he says.

He contends that Japan’s battle to weaken the yen also has a much longer way to go, since the yen would have to reach 110 or 120 yen per dollar to achieve improved growth and to fix the country’s deflation problem.

Listen below for more of Rickard’s views on currency policy and why it will be a topic on the agenda at next week’s Group of 20 meeting, and to hear from DJ FX Trader strategist and columnist Vincent Cignarella on how to trade foreign exchange amid this latest currency skirmish."


Listen to the full podcast here: