Multi-asset: why investors need be mindful of currency risk

That which started as a global coordination of monetary policy in 2008 has morphed into a competition among central bankers to devalue their respective currencies, thus making their exports cheaper. This ‘currency war’ has received considerable attention since the Brazilian finance minister, Guido Mantega, coined the term to describe the dangerous ramifications of ultra-loose US monetary policy in 2010. The Bank of Japan (BoJ) has now entered the fray, having committed to open-ended asset purchases from 2014, and having doubled its inflation target to 2%, following pressure from Prime...