SocGen: Yuan Will Devalue To 7.10, But Don’t Short It
By Shuli Ren
The People’s Bank of China lowered its yuan fix for the 8th consecutive day, down 204 pips to 6.8495 per dollar, a new 8-year low.
A lot of yuan’s weakness comes from stronger dollar. The U.S. Dollar Index is toying with the psychologically important 100 level again.
In PBoC’s view, it’s just the dollar that is moving, whereas yuan has been stable, especially when we compare it against a currency basket of China’s major trading partners.
Societe Generale, a long-time yuan bear, continues to say the yuan will devalue to 7.10 per dollar. But the French bank does not recommend us foreigners shorting the offshore yuan. The main reason? You don’t want to be short squeezed by PBoC.
Currency strategist Jason Daw wrote:
Consensus remains complacent on the magnitude of CNY depreciation over the next year – we continue to envision a move to 7.10 while consensus expects 6.90.
And don’t forget Janet Yellen will be speaking to the Congress on Thursday, her first chance of assessing the U.S. economy after Donald Trump won the presidency. Any cautious remarks from her would stall the dollar rally.
Source: Barron's Asia
http://blogs.barrons.com/asiastocks/201 ... -short-it/