For now, it is the once-in-a-generation rise in the dollar that has captivated market observers. Global investors are flocking to higher-yielding U.S. assets thanks to the Fed’s actions, and the dollar has gained in strength while rival currencies wilt, pushing the ICE Dollar Index to the best year since its inception in 1985.
“Such U.S. dollar strength has historically led to some kind of financial or economic crisis,” Morgan Stanley chief equity strategist Michael Wilson said Monday in a note. Past peaks in the dollar have coincided with the the Mexican debt crisis of the early 1990s, the U.S. tech stock bubble of the late 90s, the housing mania that preceded the 2008 financial crisis and the 2012 sovereign debt crisis, according to the investment bank.
The dollar is helping to destabilize overseas economies because it increases inflationary pressures outside the U.S., Barclays global head of FX and emerging markets strategy Themistoklis Fiotakis said Thursday in a note.