Word: dollarization
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Investors keen to protect their precious cash have sought security in all the usual places in recent months. The U.S. dollar, the Swiss franc and the Japanese yen - each with a history as a safe haven - have all provided homes for nervous depositors' cash. But as the economies of those three countries flounder, it's time to look around, and smart investors think they've discovered a new harbor to protect them from the choppy economic seas. "The best safe haven currency," analysts at banking giant HSBC wrote in a research note this month, is Norway's. According to HSBC...
...That's quite some claim. Currently at its strongest against the dollar and euro since last fall, the krone is set for a "sustained appreciation" over the next year and a half, according to HSBC. The main reason: Norway's budget and current-account surpluses are the biggest among nations with the 10 most traded currencies. Factor in the country's $350 billion sovereign wealth fund pumped full of the country's oil revenues, and the cost of insuring against government default in Norway - a key measure of a currency's safety - is the lowest of those countries. With Norway...
...krone's strengths also reflect the current weaknesses of rival currencies. The yen and the Swiss franc had been doing pretty well amid the chaos. The Japanese currency, for instance, rose more than a fifth against the dollar in the last four months of 2008, as previously big-spending investors cashed in risky assets overseas and brought their earnings home. But that's changing. Japan's economy is in freefall. In its latest assessment of the global economy published March 19, the International Monetary Fund forecast the country's output shrinking by 5.8% this year, much more than...
Lastly, Geithner got to the "Public Private Investment Fund" for the securitized assets now clogging the banks' books. The plan envisions creating five investment funds under five outside asset managers. Those managers will get dollar-for-dollar matching investments from the government to buy what were once triple-A rated toxic assets from the banks, and can apply for loans from the government to further leverage their purchases...
...cash bonuses over the next five years. One of the executives, James Forese, is a co-head of Citi's Institutional Client Group, which lost $20 billion in 2008. Forese is rewarded $5 million under the plan. At least 15 other Citi executives are in line for multimillion-dollar payouts. Citi declined to say how much in total it has promised under the plan...