How Do I Trade The FED Rate Hikes?

Ladies and Gentlemen,

After a surge in Bitcoin prices, more doubts grow about the stability & long-term value of the USD. Many Economists & Analysts believe the USD to be heavily over-valued & have been calling a reversal in the USD for over 2 years now, but the brute force that is QE has only but stood in the way of purists.

Figure : DXY over last 2 years







Let's first turn our eyes to the Euro and as it currently hovers around the 1.10 mark, as the FED breathes more clarity over the coming months (heading into early 2016) - many Traders are calling for 1.15-1.16 as the "Fair-Value Equilibrium". However, until then we could still stay on the weaker side of 1.10, as Draghi continues to seemingly over-deliver on expectations... But could we really go to parity or lower? - To be honest, there is nothing magic here! When you throw in lots of numbers, taking into account coherent Econometric studies (interest rate differentials, relative to the size of the Eurozone's balance sheets) - you can't really go near numbers close to parity.

What about the FED? The FED has a mandate which is not related to the FX Market whatsoever, and this is one of the main arguments from more sophisticated FX watchers (in the short-run at least). Since the first Quarter of this year, the rates market has remained completely flat but the USD has only but rocketed (more so since April)... The main question beckons.. Will the FED pull the trigger in December or not? If yes, it would only be by 25 basis points & would that really cause a huge impact?.. I don't think so.

Reality Check again! The USD is overvalued and what the FX Trader should be wary of is the Hiking Cycle that the FED will signal. In order to really justify the USD at current levels, they would need to plot an aggressive hiking path. We could actually see another 150-175 basis points over the next few years.... & that would really hurt! Again, this depends on a variety of Domestic/External factors.. (as well as the price of Oil).. A difficult one to predict now.
                                                                                       

So what do I trade? Well I would look at Cable. The Market expectations are that the BOE are maybe 9-12 months away for changing pricing, and if you compare this to the FED/ECB outlook, the "time-gap" is extremely stretched. If you look back in time, since the inception of the Bank Of England as n independent Central Bank, there has never been such a significantly wide time gap between movements in the FED to a change in the BOE. Two things to look at here, the Fundamentals & what the Market has already priced in. I do believe (as per the graph above) 1.70 to be fair value for £/$.

Looking at the Markets Carney has a responsibility for bringing the market back in and delivering on his mandate. He sees risk moving way too much against him and the Market seems to remain complacent.

End of the day! USD is over-valued and has been for many months. Look at Cable & it should be grinding higher and the main view on USD is that the over-evaluation will also slowly cause other Central Banks to ease of.

Best of luck

Anish8FX @ Atom8.Com