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 This time, carry traders are eschewing traditional high-yielding
currencies such as the Australian dollar, Indian rupee and
Indonesian rupiah in favor of the stability of the Singapore dollar
and Chinese yuan.
The most speculative short positions in the yen since 2007 and a
rising Singapore dollar provide hints that this form of currency
trading is returning.
The carry trade involves investors selling short one currency and
buying assets in another currency to lock in the yield differential,
or 'carry'.
The trade was widespread before the global financial crisis as
investors sold the low-yielding yen to invest in higher yielding
currencies. Money flooded into New Zealand's dollar, raising
concerns among policymakers at the time that it could destabilize
the small economy.
"It's structurally different now compared to what it was pre-2007,"
said Geoff Kendrick, head of emerging markets FX strategy at Morgan
Stanley in Hong Kong.
"Then you had investors reach for yield, which resulted in large
carry positions in FX. It was at that stage much more of a
buy-and-close-your-eyes kind of trade."
Now investors are wary of volatility, Kendrick said, citing the
rupee, which slumped to a record low against the dollar this year.
"It has a very strong carry and yet the market is being much more
nuanced," he said.
Unlike before the global financial crisis, many Asian currencies are
now extremely volatile. Big swings in the currencies used in the
deal could wipe out returns, which tend to be modest on most carry
trades.
The carry trade vanished when global central banks flooded markets
with cheap money to fight the 2008 financial crisis, spurring huge
rallies in emerging market stocks and bonds.
With the U.S. Federal Reserve preparing to start winding down its
ultra-loose monetary policy, investors are now looking for
alternatives to stocks and bonds, which many reckon are overvalued.
Furthermore, analysts expect many Asian currencies to remain
volatile in coming months because of looming changes in monetary
policies globally and uncertainty over how far and how fast U.S.
dollar yields will rise as the Fed reduces stimulus.
CHANGED LANDSCAPE
The yen and Swiss franc have traditionally been the funding
currencies for carry trades, although the U.S. dollar has become one
since 2008 because of ultra-loose U.S. monetary policy.
The yen remains the carry traders' funding currency of choice as the
Bank of Japan's massive economic stimulus program weakens the
currency and makes it extremely cheap to borrow. The yen has already
fallen to more than 102 per dollar from around 86 at the end of
2012.
Yen short positions hint at a spurt in carry trades. Speculators'
net short positions rose last week to 133,383 contracts, the highest
level since July 2007.
While analysts say the yen is a long way from its hey day as carry
trade favorite and not all short positions are connected to carry
trades, cross currency rates suggest that some of the yen is funding
what seems on the face of it to be unusual purchases.
For instance, the Singapore dollar is rising against the yen but the
Indonesian rupiah, which has among the highest yields in Asia, is
not.
The Singapore dollar has risen to 82.5 yen, its highest level since
1999. Typically, investors would buy the short-term bonds in the
target currency, but in Singapore's case the return is modest.
Three-month bills yield just 0.25 percent, for example.
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While yields in similar bills in Indonesia would bring in 6.6
percent, the currency has been much more volatile, and that pushes
up the hedging cost. The rupiah has dropped 20 percent against the
yen since May and 60 percent since mid-2007.
"People aren't going for whatever has carry," said Mirza Baig, head
of rates and FX strategy at BNP Paribas in Singapore.
"And the way they are differentiating, it means they expect
volatility will pick up. It's more a selective revival in carry
trades, based on improving fundamentals."
The Singapore dollar and Chinese yuan offer low volatility and the
promise of gradual appreciation, even if their bond yields are in
low single digits.
The reason investors like to stay invested in the yuan is not the
yield but China's massive trade surplus that keeps pushing the
currency higher, analysts said. A government reform agenda has added
to the allure of the yuan in the hope that it will allow the
currency to appreciate faster.
By contrast, investors would have to hedge other carry trades in
Asia. And the yield on one-year bonds minus the hedging cost is just
71 basis points (bps) in South Korea and 20 bps in India.
In Indonesia, the hedging cost is 170 bps more than the bond yield.
Likewise, hedging would wipe out the nearly 3 percent carry offered
in one-year Thai bonds.
"To get that full 300 bps of yield, you've got to be able to sit in
that currency for an entire year," said Ray Farris, head of
Asia-Pacific strategy research at Credit Suisse in Singapore.
"In the first month of the trade, you accrue about 25 bps, which is
not even a single day's currency volatility. It's hard to call that
stuff carry trades."
PSEUDO-CARRY
The New Zealand dollar, or kiwi, has rallied more than 11 percent
against the yen since October, but the currency's yield belies the
traits of a carry trade. Rates at record low 2.5 percent are a
quarter of what they were in 2007.
And although the central bank is expected next year to raise policy
rates, that is fully factored into the currency's level, traders
say.
"This situation is more of a pseudo-carry trade rather than the
prototypical carry trade," Neal Gilbert, market strategist at Gain
Capital in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Investors were betting on a
weakening yen through this trade and the interest earned was merely
an added benefit, he said.
In any case, wholesale interest in carry trades will not return so
long as there are more profitable opportunities in equities and
credit markets, said Kendrick.
"The simple things are still working. There's still easy wins in
that space as opposed to leveraging up and going long carry in the
FX space," he said.
(Additional reporting by Lisa Twaronite
in Tokyo; editing by Nachum Kaplan and Neil Fullick)
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