Tag Archives: US Dollar ETF

Macro Musing: Brother, Can You Spare A Dollar? $DXY A Rareview Sight Beyond Sight

Below courtesy of extract from a.m. edition of Rareview Macro’s “Sight Beyond Sight”…   MarketsMuse Editor note: notwithstanding the ‘caveat’ immediately below re: focus on FX, for those who are chewing on Apple ($APPL), MarketsMuse editorial team recommends a full read of below

Neil Azous, Rareview Macro LLC
Neil Azous, Rareview Macro LLC

An astute friend and mentor once said: “Deciphering the tea leaves of macro is an art developed over time, not purchased in an online tutorial”. In our humble opinion, today’s edition of Sight Beyond Sight is a good example of reading the tea leaves.

The majority of today’s note is related to Foreign Exchange but has implications across all assets going forward. If you are not a dedicated FX investor and not interested in making or saving money read no further.

On a risk-adjusted return basis the overall trading ranges across regions and asset classes are narrower than normal. This is prime example of indecision or neutrality after a strong relief rally in risk assets, especially in Equities.

The one outlier is the US Dollar, which continues its march higher towards regaining its status as an “asset” currency once again. The US Dollar is stronger relative to 9 of the 10 currencies in the G10.

The Dollar-Yen (USD/JPY) and New Zealand Dollar (NZD/USD) both broke key technical levels overnight – the Yen as a result of Japan’s trade deficit widening by more than expected, on an unexpected rebound in imports, and the Kiwi because of another disappointing milk auction that will weaken the country’s Terms of Trade, as well as negative Producer Price Index (PPI) data, and a growth downgrade by its Treasury yesterday.  Continue reading

Wisdom Tree Gets Wise With New [Long] US Dollar ETF $USDU

indexuniverseCourtesy of Dennis Hudacheck, Index Universe

WisdomTree’s new long-dollar currency ETF is truly one for the ages, literally. I’ve long felt that we’ve needed an alternative to the decades-old US Dollar Index, which was created back in 1973.

So how does the WisdomTree Bloomberg US Dollar Bullish Fund (USDU) differ from its lone competitor, the $682 million PowerShares BD US Dollar Bullish Fund (UUP | B-39), which also happens to be the largest currency ETF?

For starters, there are major differences in the composition of the two funds. There are also differences in the structure of the ETFs.

More on that later, but first let’s start with the currency basket.

WisdomTree’s USDU closely follows the newly created Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index (BBDXY), which includes a trade- and liquidity-selected and -weighted basket of currencies that is rebalanced annually in December.

USDU currently shorts a basket of 10 currencies from major U.S. trading partners from developed as well as emerging markets, including the Brazilian real, Mexican peso, South Korean won and Chinese renminbi.

For the full article from IU, please click here.