It doesn’t look good for the dollar. For one, Morgan Stanley sees a glut looming, while Standard Chartered Plc says the growing U.S. monetary base will undercut the greenback.
There’s a rising tide of supply as the Federal Reserve pumps dollars into bank funding markets in the wake of September’s upheaval. That has the potential to dent the yield advantage that U.S. markets offer just at the time when a change of management at the European Central Bank could draw a line under monetary easing in the region that’s home to the world’s second-biggest currency.
“So far, the Fed’s liquidity-add has been absorbed by commercial banks’ year-end related liquidity demand,” say Morgan Stanley strategists including Hans Redeker. “Once the year-end turn has passed, dollar scarcity may turn into a dollar glut.”
That, coupled with stronger global growth outside of the U.S. and dwindling portfolio inflows, makes a decline in the value of the dollar one of Morgan Stanley’s top trends to watch next year. While the world’s gross domestic product growth may slow to 3.1% this year, that’s around a percentage point higher than the U.S., according to estimates compiled by Bloomberg.
Research from Standard Chartered analysts including Steve Englander points out that since 2011, a rapidly growing U.S. monetary base has been a good indicator of euro strength.
Meanwhile, the uncertainty posed by a public impeachment inquiry into U.S. President Donald Trump’s actions with Ukraine and the 2020 American elections could dim the dollar’s appeal, while the currency’s woes are compounded by the euro’s growing allure, which has taken the shared currency up 0.3% to $1.1083 Monday.
Credit Agricole SA says the worst may be over for the euro-dollar cross because the economic downturn in the euro area may have bottomed out. Morgan Stanley sees the euro rallying in the first quarter because of “narrowing U.S.-Europe growth differentials” and improving political factors, while Deutsche Bank AG’s euro-area data-surprise indicator turned positive for the first time in 20 months.
That all makes euro-area purchasing managers’ indexes due Friday all the more important. A confirmation that the region’s economies aren’t as pressured as previously feared could exacerbate the greenback’s pain and boost the common currency.
The caveat that most analysts point to is progress of trade talks between the U.S. and China. If there’s no deal, and more tariffs are imposed, then the dollar could win out and risks to global economic growth may ramp up.
Questions over possible fiscal stimulus from Germany and uncertainty over the ECB’s path are also wild cards for the euro against the dollar. Growth that continues to muddle along without being either poor or outstanding risks keeping calls for a fiscal boost in check and ECB accommodation in limbo, sapping support for the currency.