Riusciranno i nostri eroi a salvare il mondo? Punti di vista a confronto in attesa del discorso di Bernanke

C'è grande attesa per il discorso di oggi di Bernanke: ogni parola sarà attentamente soppesata, e il dollaro, l'oro e i mercati azionari si muoveranno di conseguenza (almeno in teoria...). Ecco due letture per ingannare l'attesa:

 

• dal Wall Street Journal di ieri un articolo significativamente intitolato For Fed, Risks of Goosing Market Are Worth It. Al momento la cosa sembra funzionare, il fois gras ha sempre i suoi estimatori, anche oltreoceano: So the Fed hopes to chase investors out of Treasurys into other, riskier securities. Like stocks. That seems plausible. Since Mr. Bernanke confirmed on Aug. 27 that the Fed was thinking about QE2, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen more than 10% and the yield on 10-year Treasurys has fallen. If markets thought the economy was getting better, stocks and bond yields would be up. The unusual combination is seen by the Fed as confirmation that QE2 might work as hoped. Higher stock prices, it figures, make households richer and business executives perkier. The Fed hopes they'll spend more as a result. That's not the whole story. When the Fed prints more dollars, the price of dollars falls—in euros, yen, Brazilian reais. That's not the Fed's chief objective, but it's a fact. A cheaper dollar makes U.S. exports more attractive, and helps the U.S. export more while American shoppers are spending less. Two problems: One, no one else, especially the Chinese, is volunteering to let their currency rise against the dollar. Two, a cheaper dollar tends to mean higher oil prices. Still, the models on which the Fed relies suggest a weaker dollar is a net plus for U.S. growth. (...) OK, if this is such a good idea, why so much hesitancy and controversy? Because no one is sure it'll work, and everyone knows there'll be unwelcome, unintended consequences. The first round of QE was easier: The economy was collapsing. "Additional monetary adventurism at this point has to be thought of very carefully," says the University of Chicago's Raghuram Rajan, a QE2 skeptic. Among the risks: One, the more bonds the Fed buys, the harder it'll be to sell them someday without shaking up the markets and the economy, a major worry for some at the Fed, less so for Mr. Bernanke. (...)Mr. Bernanke and QE2 skeptics have the same list of benefits and risks, but weigh them differently. He thinks the risks are worth taking to avoid what might otherwise be years of stagnation, unemployment and deflation jitters. 

• Secondo Greg Weldonsi sta chiedendo troppo alla Fed. Tra i numerosi grafici della sua lunga analisi delle scelte di politica monetaria americana ho scelto di riprodurne uno qui, che mi è sembrato particolarmente interessante per gli investitori: 

 Ecco come vede Weldon le prospettive di obbligazioni, valute e materie prime:

we remain … bullish on Gold and Silver, along with the precious metals mining share indexes and ETFs …
… we remain … bearish on the US Dollar and the British Pound, relative to both the Japanese Yen and the Eurocurrency …
… while also remaining … bullish on a host of Asian currencies.
Further, we remain bullish on emerging Asian ‘tigers’, with focus on Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Taiwan.
Also, we remain bullish on select commodities, with focus on Corn, Cotton, Sugar, Copper, and Aluminum
And, of course … we remain bullish on the US Treasury market, with focus on the ‘mid-curve’ maturities, in line with our expectation that a compression in the Yield Curve will intensify, perhaps dramatically.