While China’s unprecedented currency moves have quickly become the main talking point across global markets which otherwise have started off 2017 in an eerily calm fashion, it is the sudden surge in two-way volatility that has emerged a major threat to global market stability.
Case in point, the offshore Yuan fell as much as 1.1% to 6.8623 a dollar in Hong Kong, the most in exactly one year, after a record 2.5% surge over the past two sessions. This took place as a result of conflicting signals, as on one hand China continued to drain liquidity and sent overnight deposit rates into all time high territory, yet on the other the PBOC raised its fixing less than projected, but still the most since 2005, and Goldman Sachs advised its lients that the best time to short the yuan are just after interventions – like the recent one – which flush out bearish positions, or when China concerns were off traders’ radar screens.
China’s central bank raised its daily reference rate by 0.92% to 6.8668 per dollar on Friday the biggest rise since unpegging from the US dollar in 2005, following a 1 percent drop in a gauge of the greenback’s strength overnight. The offshore yuan was trading 0.8 percent weaker at 6.8457 per dollar as of 5:23 p.m. in Hong Kong, paring its weekly gain to 1.9 percent, the most in data going back to 2010. The onshore rate slumped 0.6 percent. Friday’s fixing was weaker than Mizuho Bank Ltd.’s prediction of 6.8447 and Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd.’s estimate of 6.8456.
This post was published at Zero Hedge on Jan 6, 2017.
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