Not only has the CFTC clearly established its authority to be the primary regulator of retail forex, but it has also laid out specific regulations. Chief among them is limiting leverage to 50:1 for major currency pairs, and 20:1 for “other retail forex transactions.” [It's not presently clear which specific currency pairs will be classified as major].  Remember that the original proposal (which, along with my endorsement, generated vehement protest) called for a decline in leverage to 10:1. Due to negative feedback from traders and brokerages, which ascribed malicious political motives to the changes and argued that it would move the entire industry offshore, the CFTC backed down and implemented only a modest decline in leverage. However, it’s important to note that the National Futures Association (NFA) as well as individual brokers will have discretionary power in setting leverage limits lower than 50:1. There will undoubtedly still be some opposition from traders, but I think we can all agree that the new rule represents a fair compromise.

As for the claim that traders would/will move their accounts offshore, this will become largely moot, since all brokerages, regardless of nationality, will be required to register with the CFTC and subject to its rules/oversight. Of course, those traders that are so inclined will still find a way to circumvent the rules by shifting funds “illegally” to unregistered brokers, but they do so at their own risk and will have no recourse in the event of fraud. As Forbes noted, “It seems these new rules will put a stop to Americans trading retail forex offshore to evade CFTC rules. That trend picked up the pace in recent years and it may need to be reversed quickly.”

Brokerages must register as either futures commission merchants (FCMs) or retail foreign exchange dealers (RFEDs).  These institutions will be required to “maintain net capital of $20 million plus 5 percent of the amount, if any, by which liabilities to retail forex customers exceed $10 million.” While this rule will raise the barriers to entry for potential forex start-up brokerages, it will protect consumers against broker bankruptcy. In addition, “Persons who solicit orders, exercise discretionary trading authority or operate pools with respect to retail forex also will be required to register, either as introducing brokers, commodity trading advisors, commodity pool operators (as appropriate) or as associated persons of such entities.”

One final rule change worth noting is quite interesting: brokerages must “disclose on a quarterly basis the percentage of non-discretionary accounts that realized a profit and to keep and make available records of that calculation.” This calculation will be useful both in and of itself, and also in identifying any significant discrepancies between competing brokers. For the first time, we will be able to see whether forex trading is currently profitable (i.e. whether those that profit are in the majority or minority) and whether/how this profitability metric changes over time, in response to particular market conditions.

The new rules go into effect on October 18.

Since the S&P 500 is a pretty good proxy for risk it can be said that the Australian Dollar is a manifestation of investor risk appetite. When risk aversion was high, the S&P and the Aussie were low. When risk tolerance picked up, they rose. It’s funny how this came to be. It is probably best seen as a vestige from the credit crisis, whereby investors evenly divided assets into two classes: risky and safe. When you look at the performance of the Australian Dollar, it is pretty clear as to which side of the dividing line it was placed.

This is probably fair, since the Australian Dollar is a growth currency. According to the just-released Bank of International Settlements (BIS) Triennial Central Bank Survey of Foreign Exchange and Derivatives Market Activity, the Australian Dollar is now the world’s fifth most traded currency (behind only the G4: Dollar, Euro, Yen, & Pound), having usurped that position from the Swiss Franc. In 2010, it accounted for 7.6% (out of a total of 200%) of all trading volume, primarily as a result of trading in the USD/AUD currency pair, which was the fourth most popular in forex.

Investors have come to see the Australian Dollar in somewhat contradictory terms. It is both stable and liquid, but its economy is unpredictable and inflation is usually above average. The current economic situation was strong, with GDP growth projected to exceed 3% in 2010. Its benchmark interest rate (4.5%) is the highest in the industrialized world, and may touch 5% before the year is over. On the other hand, its political situation is currently uncertain, thanks to an election that produced a hung Parliament and the recent resignation of its Prime Minster. In addition, while its trade balance is currently in surplus, it fell in July thanks to decreased demand from China. Analysts wonder whether it isn’t entirely dependent on China (directly via exports and indirectly via high commodity prices) to generate positive GDP growth.

Ultimately, investors don’t care about any of this. They care only whether the global economy is stable and whether another financial/credit/economic crisis is likely to occur. Even though any such crisis will probably spare Australia, the Aussie is punished by even the whiff of crisis because Australia is perceived as being riskier to invest than the US, for example. “The Australian dollar is going to stay heavy. Markets don’t like uncertainty,” summarized JP Morgan.

Sadly, it’s currently not worth parsing the nuances of trade statistics and monetary policy, because it has no bearing on the Aussie, though at least this makes my job easier. For the time being, the Australian Dollar will tick up if it looks like the global economy (principally the US) will avoid a double-dip recession. Otherwise, it is in for the same rough stretch as the S&P.

First, the data confirmed earlier reports that average daily forex volume had surged to a record level in 2010: “Global foreign exchange market turnover was 20% higher in April 2010 than in April 2007, with average daily turnover of $4.0 trillion compared to $3.3 trillion. The increase was driven by the 48% growth in turnover of spot transactions, which represent 37% of foreign exchange market turnover. The increase in turnover of other foreign exchange instruments [consisting mainly of swaps and accounting for the majority of forex trading activity] was more modest at 7%.” In addition, for the first time, investors and financial institutions accounted for a larger share of turnover than banks, whose trading activity has remained roughly unchanged since 2004.

The composition of the turnover actually didn’t change from 2007, interrupting a shift which had been taking place over the previous 10 years. Specifically, the share of overall turnover accounted for by the so-called major currencies actually increased in 2010, from 172% to 175%. [Since there are two currencies in every transaction, total volume sums to 200%]. Growth in the G4 currencies (Dollar, Euro, Pound, Yen) was more modest, however, increasing from 154% to 155%. This reversal is probably attributable to the credit crisis, which drove (and in fact, continues to drive) investors out of emerging market currencies and back into safe haven currencies, namely the Dollar, Yen, and Pound. However, this theory is belied by the significant increase in Euro trading activity, which certainly hasn’t benefited from the recent trend towards risk aversion.

While emerging currencies as a group accounted for a smaller share of overall activity, certain individual currencies managed to increase their respective shares. The Singapore Dollar, Korean Won, New Turkish Lira, and Brazilian Real all fit into this category. Still other currencies, such as the Indonesian Rupiah and Malaysian Ringgit, also managed impressive gains but account for such a small share of volume as to be insignificant when looking at the overall the picture. Those who were expecting even bigger growth should remember that it’s ultimately a numbers game: the amount of Ringgit it outstanding is dwarfed by the number of Dollars, so any gains that the Ringgit can eke out are impressive. In addition, when you consider that the overall forex pie is also increasing, the nominal increase in volume for these small currencies was actually quite large.

The ongoing search for yield in all corners of the financial markets is likely to bring some of the more obscure currencies into the fold. “In June, I began getting questions about Uruguay, Vietnam and others,” said Win Thin, senior currency strategist at Brown Brothers Harriman in New York…investors often asked Mr. Thin questions about less-familiar currencies such as the Ukrainian hryvnia and Romanian leu.” In the same article, however, Mr. Thin cautioned that interest in such currencies is still probably lower than in 2007-2008, for a good reason. “It’s not like the Group of 10, or even the more liquid emerging market currencies where, if you decide you’ve made a mistake, you can get out.”

Due to the lack of liquidity and higher spreads, these obscure currencies aren’t really suitable for trading. Of course there will be a handful of institutional and even retail investors that want to make long-term bets on these currencies. They tend to be more aware of the risk and less sensitive to the higher cost and lower convenience. The overwhelming majority of traders, however, churn their portfolios daily, if not hundreds of times per day. A 10pip spread on the USD/MXN (Dollar/Mexican Peso) would be considered too high, let alone a 50 pip spread on any transaction involving the Ukrainian hryvnia.

In short, the majors will account for the majority of trading volume for the foreseeable future, regardless of what happens to the Euro. At the same time, that won’t prevent a handful of selected emerging currencies, such as the Chinese Yuan, Indian Rupee, Brazilian Real, and Russian Ruble from increasing their share. As liquidity rises and spreads decline, volume will increase, and their rising importance will become self-fulfilling.

It can foremost be attributed to a disconnect between Chinese words and Chinese action. While The People’s Bank of China (PBOC) purportedly supports a stronger, flexible Yuan (”Adopting a more flexible exchange-rate regime serves China’s long-term interests as the benefits…far exceed the cost in reorganising industries and removing outdated capacities.”), in practice, it has prevented the currency from budging. On numerous occasions since supposedly allowing the RMB to appreciate, it has intervened in the forex markets through various shadow dealers to prevent this very outcome.

In fact, China has increased its purchases of South Korean and Japanese sovereign debt, ostensibly as part of its diversification strategy, but more likely to put upward pressure on those currencies. “Data from Japan’s Ministry of Finance show that China bought a net 1.73 trillion yen ($20.3 billion) of Japanese government bonds in the first half of this year, compared with a net sale of 5.9 billion yen ($69 million) a year earlier. That strong demand has been a key factor strengthening the yen in recent weeks.” This could have broad implications, since in the last quarter, China accumulated $81 Billion in new forex reserves, and seems intent on further diversifying out of US Dollar-denominated assets.

China’s general obstinacy towards in dealing with the Yuan is baffling to market observers, especially given the trade surplus of nearly $30 Billion in June, its largest since January of 2009. In fact, China can be seen moving backwards. It recently inaugurated a pilot program that will allow exporters to hold offshore accounts of foreign currency, which might be expected to relieve some of the upward pressure on both the Yuan and on China’s foreign exchange reserves: “If you don’t force firms to surrender their foreign-exchange proceeds, then they won’t be exchanged for renminbi, which is a source of appreciation pressure.” In this way, China can both limit speculative capital inflows (even by domestic investors) and inflation.

Foreign governments, led by the US, are still threatening action. Senators and Congressmen continue to harp on the issue (it is election season, after all), and are still threatening to slap a tariff on all Chinese imports. However, their efforts are being undermined by both the Department of Treasury (which refuses to label China a “currency manipulator”) and the Department of Commerce, which recently determined that the application of a broad-based tariff on all Chinese imports would violate its mandate.

I have always been cynical about China’s forex policy, on the basis that it is self-interested and disingenuous, and I think the fact that it remains pegged to the USD confirms that sentiment. In the end, China won’t bow to international pressure. It will only allow the Yuan to appreciate after it has determined that its economy won’t be negatively impacted, and even then, the pace will be glacial.

The MSCI emerging market stock index is currently down 2.5% since the start of the year. You can see from the chart above that most emerging market currencies tend to track this index pretty closely, rising and falling on the same days as the index. Interestingly, emerging market stocks appear to be much more volatile than emerging market currencies. You can also see that while the Malaysian RInggit has started to separate itself from the pack, the others have moved in lockstep with each other and are all about even for the year.

On the other hand, emerging market debt – as proxied by the JP Morgan Emerging Market Bond Index (EMBI+) has been unbelievably strong. Prior to the slight correction in the last couple weeks, the index has risen a whopping 20% over the last twelve months. On the surface, this disconnect between stocks and bonds would seem to be an anomaly, or even a contradiction. After all, if investors are only lukewarm about emerging market currencies and stocks, what reason would there be for them to get so excited about bonds.

If you drill a little deeper, however, it all starts to make sense. Due to a weak appetite for risk, 2010 has been a favorable year for bonds, at the expense of stocks. I would have assumed that poor risk appetite would also have helped G7 financial markets, at the expense of the emerging markets, but you can see from the chart below (which shows the MSCI emerging markets stock index closely tracking the S&P 500) that this simply isn’t the case. On the contrary, this same dynamic is playing out simultaneously in emerging markets. “Today, we are favoring emerging-market debt over emerging-market equities because the debt provides us with a better risk-adjusted return,” summarized one portfolio manager.

When it comes to debt, emerging markets have actually outperformed G7 debt, in spite of the current risk-averse climate. “Funds investing in emerging-market local-currency debt have attracted $16.9 billion of net inflows so far, more than triple the record annual intake of $5 billion recorded in 2007.” The logical basis for this shift is surprisingly straightforward: “When we look at government debt, we’re always comparing and contrasting the yields versus the fundamentals. I just don’t know why you would want those low yields from a Treasury bond in the developed world when you can get much higher yields — and in our estimation, an improving economic story — in Indonesia, Malaysia or Brazil.”

In other words, why would you want to earn 2.65% from a country (US) whose national debt is close to 100% of GDP, when you could earn double or triple that rate from investing in the sovereign debt of countries whose Debt-to-GDP ratios are sustainable?!  In addition, when it comes to investing in debt, the lack of volatility in emerging market currencies can bee seen as a plus, since it prevents the interest rates from becoming diluted. To be fair, fundamentals don’t represent the whole story: “After 2008, you really have to take liquidity into consideration. Emerging markets are going to be some of the first to freeze up in a crisis.”

In fact, some analysts are already starting to question whether the markets haven’t gotten ahead of themselves in this regard, and that perhaps we are due for a big correction: “Come September, when trading resumes in earnest, we’ll find out if the cozy emerging markets world we have experienced over the past few months was summer laziness or strong conviction.” With vacations ending and traders set to return to their desks, we won’t have to wait long to find out.

What we mean is that when risk appetite is high, credit markets and equities and high-yielding currencies tend to rally together. When risk appetite fades, “those assets fall and government bonds and safe-haven currencies, including the U.S. dollar, the Swiss franc and, in particular, the Japanese yen rally.” Data from Bloomberg News confirms this phenomenon: “The 120-day negative correlation between Intercontinental Exchange Inc.’s Dollar Index and the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index was at 42.4 percent today, and has been mostly above 40 percent since June 2009.”

Skeptics counter that this correlation is tautological. Anyone can point to a stock market rally and declare that “Risk is Back On.” In addition, it’s not wholly unsurprising that there are strong correlations between low-risk currencies and low-risk assets, and between high-risk currencies and high-risk assets. According to HSBC, however, this time is different.

For example, models suggest that the recent decline in volatility should have caused these relationships to break down. That they defied predictions and remained strong suggests that we have witnessed a significant paradigm shift. In the past, “Rising correlations are also tied to weak macroeconomic conditions.” At the moment, this could hardly be more true, with global economic growth flagging.

Statisticians love to teach the dictum, Correlation does not imply causation. Nonetheless, I think that in this case, I’d wager to say that the equity and credit/bond markets are driving forex, rather than the other way around. Consider as evidence that, “[Retail] Investors withdrew a staggering $33.12 billion from domestic stock market mutual funds in the first seven months of this year,” and shifted this capital into bonds. While this wouldn’t in itself be enough to drive the Dollar higher, it epitomizes the steady shifts that have been taking place in capital markets for nearly a year, broken only by the S&P/Euro rally in the spring (which now appears to have been an aberration).

In fact, these shifts are once again creating shortages of Dollars: “This week, two banks bid at the European Central Bank’s weekly dollar liquidity providing auction – the first time there have been any bids since May – suggesting that they could not raise dollars in the market.” This suggests that demand for the Dollar could continue to grow.

Some analysts have suggested that the low-yielding US Dollar is already on its way to becoming a funding currency for carry traders, but I think this is wishful thinking. The HSBC report supports this conclusion, “A weakening of the ‘risk on-risk off’ paradigm is likely only once macro conditions are improved in a sustainable way…Currency performance will likely be tied to the ebb and flow of the perception of risk for some months to come.” In short, until there is solid proof that the global economy has emerged from recession (even if ironically it is the US which is leading the pack downward), the Dollar will probably remain strong.

Looking back at the Pound’s two-month rise, it’s not hard to understand why it was unsustainable. You can see from the charts below that there was a strong correlation with the Euro and the S&P 500 over the same period of time. This suggests that the Pound rally was less a product of changing fundamentals and more due to a sudden decrease in risk aversion.

By no coincidence the rally in equities, the Euro, and a handful of other proxy vehicles for risk, all came to and end at the same time as the Pound. In a nutshell, the markets are back to focusing on fundamentals. Namely, the risk of a double-dip recession, combined with a lack of resolution in the Eurozone debt crisis is causing investors to think twice about making bets that entail any kind of risk.

In this regard, the Pound is especially vulnerable. On the economic front, the UK economy only grew by 1.1% in the second quarter, with economists predicting only modest growth for the year. According to an economist for the Bank of England, “It would be ‘foolish’ to rule out a renewed downturn.” Evidently, his bosses agree: “The Bank of England last week said growth will be weaker than it forecast in May, citing “continuing fiscal consolidation and the persistence of tight credit conditions.”According to a recent poll, almost half of British households are pessimistic about the country’s economic prospects in the near-term: “The proportion of pessimists is marginally lower than in July, but is higher than in any other month since March last year.”

Ironically, the efforts of the British government to curb spending and cut the deficit are perceived as making matters worse. Since these measures won’t be offset by lowered taxes, they will directly lead to lower economic growth. Given that both the Pound and UK bond prices are rising (implying an increased risk of default), I think this reinforces the point I made last week about the markets not caring at all in this economic climate about increasing national debt.

The icing on the cake is inflation. A British think-tank made headlines by predicting that the UK economy will emerge from recession next year, “But once recovery is under way, he thinks, then the Bank of England’s quantitative easing scheme, which pumped £200 billion into the economy in the wake of the credit crunch, will have terrible consequences.” Specifically, the think-tank is forecasting inflation of 10% and a benchmark interest rate of 10%.

For now, this remains a distant prospect, and analysts are focusing on the fact that the economy will probably re-enter recession before it can officially exit from it. As for the Pound, forecasts are not optimistic: “Bears in a Bloomberg survey of strategists outnumber bulls 29 to 12, while TD Securities in Toronto, the most-accurate forecaster in the six quarters ended June 30, has the lowest estimate, predicting sterling will depreciate 15 percent versus the dollar by year-end.” According to the most recent Commitments of Traders report, institutional investors were still net long the Pound as of August 10. Futures prices, meanwhile, have moved in lockstep with spot prices, which suggests that futures traders are still waiting for more data before they weigh in on the Pound.

Personally, I’m having a tough time coming up with a prediction. I tend to agree with the characterization of “the foreign exchange markets post-crisis as a beauty parade with ugly contestants.” In other words, all of the major currencies are currently plagued by poor fundamentals. It’s hard to say that the Pound is in better or worse shape than the Dollar or the Euro. Still, given the way that markets have been trading, a return to (global) recession would not be kind to the Pound.

The Canadian Dollar has benefited from strong fundamentals, especially compared to the US. Inflation is low and the economy is stable. “The International Monetary Fund (IMF) recently said that Canada is likely to be the first of the seven major industrialized democracies to return to a budgetary surplus status by 2015.” 2010 GDP growth is projected at 3.3%, compared to around 2.5% in the US.

For this reason, “Pacific Investment Management Co. founder Bill Gross said he favors Canada…he’s ‘in awe’ of countries such as Canada that have a low debt-to-gross-domestic- product ratio and solvent financial institutions. ‘North of the border’ has become a ‘preferable destination’ to what he sees in the U.S.” As a result, analysts have started to look beyond commodities, historically seen as the cornerstone of Canada’s economy. When the price of oil collapsed in May, the Loonie hardly budged. Given that Canada’s balance of trade is negative in spite of its commodity exports, maybe in focus is justified.

The Loonie is also benefiting from a positive interest rate differential with the US. Thanks to two consecutive rate hikes by the Bank of Canada (BOC) – which was the first G7 Central bank to tighten – Canada’s benchmark rate now exceeds the Federal Funds Rate by .5%. If the BOC fulfills expectations and hikes rates again at its meeting on September 8, this differential will widen further. In fact, it could continue expanding well into 2011, since the BOC is well ahead of the Fed in its monetary policy cycle. Here, again, the contrast with the US is self-evident: “The Canadian central bank has been raising interest rates, and has signaled that it will continue to raise interest rates. And with the Fed’s decision today reaffirming its dovish position, the interest rate differential will continue to favor increasingly Canada, and higher interest rates in Canada will continue to favor Canadian dollar strength.”

Throughout the rest of the summer, the Loonie will likely remain rangebound. Most traders are on vacation and trading volume is low. Besides, risk appetite is currently weak. When the markets return to full swing in September, I expect the Loonie will experience in a surge in volatility. In fact, investors are already starting to adjust their positions, with the most recent Commitment of Traders report showing an increase in Net Longs, bringing the total to $4.2 Billion.

There is certainly a basis for predicting continued strength, but I think much depends on how commodity prices perform. As I pointed out above, the Loonie remains somewhat decoupled from commodities. That it nonetheless got a boost from strong wheat prices and the $40 Billion takeover bid for Potash Corp by mining giant BHP Biliton shows that investors still view Canada as a resource economy. If the global economy avoids a double-dip recession, commodities prices will probably recover and the Loonie will probably rise slowly towards parity. On the flip-side, the Loonie would be one of the big losers of a global slide back into recession.

Last week, the Yen touched touched 84.73 (against the Dollar), the strongest level since July 1995. In the year-to-date, it has appreciated 10%. There are a handful of analysts, including the anointed Mr. Yen, who believe that the Yen will rise past its all-time high of 79.75, recorded in April 1995. At the same time, analysts caution that Yen strength is better interpreted as Dollar weakness, and that its overall performance is much less impressive: ” ‘Against a broader range of currencies, particularly in real terms, the yen is far less strong than it looks against the US$ in isolation.’ ”

As the global economic recovery has faded, so has investor appetite for risk. The Japanese Yen has been a big winner (or loser, depending on your point of view) from this sudden sea change. Investors are dumping risky assets and piling back into low-yielding safe havens, like the Yen and the Franc. Ironically, the US Dollar has also benefited from this trend, but to a lesser extent than the Yen. It’s not entirely clear to me why this should be the case. As one analyst observed, “The zero-yielding currency of a heavily indebted, liquidity- and deflation-trapped economy should hardly be the go-to currency of the world.” At this point, it’s probably self-fulfilling as investors flock to the Yen instinctively any time there is panic in the markets.

Some of the demand may be coming from Central Banks. The People’s Bank of China, for example, “has ramped up its stockpiling of yen this year, snapping up $5.3 billion worth of the currency in June, Japan’s Ministry of Finance reported Monday. China has already bought $20 billion worth of yen financial assets this year, almost five times as much as it did in the previous five years combined.” Given that “a one percentage point shift of China’s reserves into yen equals a month’s worth of Japan’s current account surplus,” it wouldn’t be a stretch to posit a connection between the Yen’s rise and China’s forex reserve “diversification.” Officially, China is trying to diversify its foreign exchange reserves away from the Dollar, but the Yen purchases also serve the ulterior end of making the Japanese export sector less competitive.

In this sense it is succeeding, as the economic fundamentals underlying the Yen could hardly be any worse. “Real gross domestic product rose 0.4% in annualized terms in the April-June period, the slowest pace in three quarters…GDP grew 0.1% compared with the previous quarter.” This was well below analysts’ forecasts, and due primarily to a drop in consumption. Exports increased over the same period, causing the current account surplus to widen, but it wasn’t enough to prevent GDP growth from slowing. Meanwhile, unemployment is at a multi-year high, and deflation is threatening. With such persistent weakness, it’s no wonder that China has officially surpasses Japan as the world’s second largest economy.

The Yen is a convenient scapegoat for these troubles. The Japanese Finance Minister recently declared: “Excessive and disorderly moves in the currency market would negatively affect the stability of the economy and financial markets. Therefore, I am watching market moves with utmost attention.” It is rumored that the government has convened high level meetings to try to build support for intervention, such that it could apply political pressure on the Bank of Japan and cajole it into intervening. “With regard to problems such as the strong yen or deflation, we want to cooperate with the Bank of Japan more closely than ever before.”

In the end, domestic politics are a paltry concern compared to the backlash that Japan would receive from the international community if it were to intervene: “Any U.S.-endorsed intervention would be interpreted in Beijing as hypocrisy. How can the U.S. criticize China for intervening in support of a weaker currency, Chinese officials would ask, while it does so itself in support of a weaker yen?” In other words, there is no way that any country would support the Bank of Japan because such would make it less likely that China would allow the Yuan to further appreciate.

For this reason, many analysts still feel that the possibility of intervention is low. According to Morgan Stanley, however, there is now a 51% chance of intervention, based on its forex models. From where I’m sitting, it’s basically a numbers game. As the Yen rises, so does the possibility of intervention. The only question is how high it will need to appreciate before a 51% probability becomes a 100% certainty.

In attempting to answer this question, it makes sense to start by asking whether investors in general care about perennial budget deficits and an-ever increasing national debt. A rudimentary examination suggests that they don’t. Treasury Bond Yields have been falling slowly over the last 30 years. In fact, this fall has accelerated over the last two years, to the point that US Treasury Yields touched an all-time low in 2009, and are currently hovering close to those levels. As of today, the 10-year Treasury rate is an astonishingly tiny 2.7%.

Of course, everyone knows that this most recent drop in Treasury rates is not connected to the creditworthiness of the federal government, but rather an increase in risk aversion engendered first by the credit crisis and second by the EU Sovereign debt crisis. The Federal Reserve Bank and other Central Banks should also receive some of the credit, thanks to their multi-billion Dollar purchases. Still, the implication is that US Treasury securities are the safest investment in the world and that a default by the US government is seen as an unlikely outcome. Thus, investors are willing to accept meager returns for lending to the US.

While demand has remained strong in spite of record issuance of new debt, the structure of that demand has undergone a profound shift. Less than 20 years ago, the overwhelming majority (~85%) of Treasury Bonds were held by domestic investors. In 2010, that proportion had fallen to about half. The largest individual holders of US debt are no longer US institutional investors, but Central Banks, namely those of China, Japan, and Oil Exporting countries. Due to the continued expansion of its quantitative easing program, The Federal Reserve Bank has also become a major buyer of US Treasuries.

It’s tempting to dismiss these purchases as unrepresentative of overall market sentiment, since Central Banks have objectives different from private investors. What matters, though, is that ultimately, such Central Banks would not continue lending to the US government is they thought there was a real possibility of not being repaid. To illustrate this point, consider that the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) actually jettisoned nearly $100 Billion in Treasury debt over the last year as part of a restructuring of its foreign exchange reserves. However, it still has $840 Billion in its possession.  In contrast, the Bank of Japan increased its reserves over the same time period by a similar amount.

As for the forex markets’ assessment of the US debt situation, this is difficult to isolate. There appears to be a relatively stable correlation between the Dollar (vis-a-vis the Euro) and long-term US interest rates, as exemplified by the Euro rally and simultaneous fall in US interest rates. One explanation for the fall in the Dollar, then, could be that falling interest rates made it an attractive funding currency for a carry trade strategy. On the other hand, there would also appear to be an inherent contradiction here, since a rising Euro is an indication of increased risk tolerance and, thus, should be accompanied by a sell-off in US Treasury bonds and rising yields. That in reality, rates fell as the Euro rose confounds our efforts means any correlation is probably dubious.

You don’t need me to tell you that in the short-term, the skyrocketing US debt is of zero concern to the forex markets. There is simply too many other issues on the radar screens of investors for them to make a meaningful attempt at assessing the likelihood of default. Such concerns might become more pronounced in the long-term, but it seems kind of silly to incorporate them into present forecasts. Even if the Eurozone debt crisis were to resolve itself and the global economy managed to avoid a double-dip recession, some other crisis or development – especially one more concrete and immediate than the distant possibility of a US debt default – would materialize. In short, it will be many years before the US debt problem becomes serious enough as to warrant serious consideration by the forex markets.