Betting against the buck keeps paying off.
The dollar tumbled again Wednesday, hitting a 15-year low against the yen and a new low against the Swiss franc. The dollar index dropped to 77.7, putting it down 6% in the past month.
The dollar slid to $1.39 against the euro and 83 yen. It dropped to 96 cents on the Swiss franc, widely viewed as the soundest of the paper currencies, after trading above $1.15 as recently as May.
Gold, whose value has surged as the dollar has weakened over the past decade, hit another nominal high, rising $5.70 at $1,346 on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.
And while the dollar’s decline and gold’s rise are starting to turn some heads, there’s no sign that the end is in sight.
“There’s not much right now to stop these trends,” said Phillip Streible, senior market strategist at futures and commodities broker Lind-Waldock in Chicago. “People start to get a little nervous when things get this extreme, but unless something dramatically changes at the Fed we’re looking at more of this.”
The latest round of dollar selling accompanies efforts by central bankers to prop up faltering developed economies with new monetary stimulus. On Tuesday, Charles Evans of the Chicago Fed became the latest Fed banker to support a new round of asset purchases.
Even more glaringly, the Bank of Japan cut its already low interest rates even further and set plans to buy more assets to boost economic activity. That move set off alarm bells because it shows that failed stimulus policies often lead to more of the same.
“I just pray the U.S. doesn’t get there,” said Streible.
Fear of the damage central bankers might do sent the price of gold still higher, surprising even those who have been predicting a sustained rally. The gold price has soared 16% since a dip in late July, just before Fed officials started talking in earnest about fighting deflation by buying more Treasury bonds.
Gold has set numerous nominal records over the past month, though it remains far from its inflation-adjusted high of $2,300 or so.
“I love gold, but this market is long overdue for a near-term pullback, in our view,” Gluskin Sheff economist David Rosenberg wrote in a note to clients Wednesday.