.."With interest rate futures now pricing in a 98% probability of the Fed holding rates constant this month," said today's note from Standard Bank in Johannesburg, "plus a 30% probability of increasing rates by 25 basis points in October, we see the Dollar well supported in the near term.
"That could further contain near-term precious metals demand."
That one-in-three chance of the Fed raising rates to a massive 2.25% in Oct. hardly marks the end of the Dollar's decline today. Nor does the Dollar's decline need to keep rolling, in fact, for precious metals like Gold to keep rising.
The Dollar made a rally during 2005, gaining 7% on the foreign exchanges. The price of gold, meantime, rose 17% vs. the greenback itself.
Also notice how the declining Dollar didn't decline at all for 29 months starting in November 2004. And over that period Gold rose 54% for US investors and savers.
Finally, take note that three-quarters of the Dollar's losses so far had already come before Ben Bernanke slashed US interest rates to 2% - taking the real returns paid to cash way back below zero - so that the big New York banks could borrow emergency funds at sub-market rates starting last August.
Quite what the Fed's negative real rates will achieve for the US economy in 2008 remains to be seen. Strong credit growth - boosting domestic demand and thus imports and house prices - might just fail to revive.
But a strong Dollar and weak gold? ... Thanks to sub-zero returns to cash?
Never happened before. But hey, who knows what the pundits - and the market, short-term - will make of 2% interest chasing 4% inflation in prices.
5 Jun, 2008
Adrian Ash