Free Trial

High-Vol Regime Should Support JPYKRW

FOREX
  • The dovish BoJ comments in March have led to a significant JPY depreciation in recent weeks against major crosses, particularly the dollar.
  • It was interesting to observe that JPY, which has historically been considered as a traditional ‘safe haven’, has performed extremely poorly in the past two months despite the surge in price volatility, down nearly 10% against the greenback.
  • However, a persistent high-volatility regime could eventually bring interest back on the Japanese yen, particularly against some EM currencies that have historically been sensitive to sharp equity drawdowns.
  • The chart below shows the strong co-movement between JPYKRW (risk off pair) and price volatility (VIX) in the past 30 years.
  • As South Korea has historically offered higher yields than Japan, investors have been chasing Korean assets in expansionary periods but then swap back their Korean assets to Japanese asset (especially JPY) in periods of crisis and market selloffs.
  • JPYKRW found resistance at 10.11 yesterday before consolidating lower in today’s trading amid strong rebound in global equities.
  • However, surging stagflation risks combined with the sharp tightening in financial conditions should main price volatility elevated in the medium term, which could support JPYKRW.

Source: Bloomberg/MNI

To read the full story

Close

Why MNI

MNI is the leading provider

of intelligence and analysis on the Global Fixed Income, Foreign Exchange and Energy markets. We use an innovative combination of real-time analysis, deep fundamental research and journalism to provide unique and actionable insights for traders and investors. Our "All signal, no noise" approach drives an intelligence service that is succinct and timely, which is highly regarded by our time constrained client base.

Our Head Office is in London with offices in Chicago, Washington and Beijing, as well as an on the ground presence in other major financial centres across the world.