Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Where's the Yen Going? 80? 120? Analysts Weigh In

David Keohane at FT Alphaville does the heavy lifting:

Yenstimates all over the place
Perhaps reflecting the ambiguity of the BOJ’s announcement itself, strategist forecasts for USD/JPY are ranging from 84 (Brown Brothers Harriman) all the way to 105 (Credit Suisse). A few selections follow.
Credit Suisse:
Against this backdrop, we feel that the current rally in many Japanese assets has further to run and we are moving our USDJPY forecast to 100 in 3 months (previously 91) and 105 in 12 months (previously 80) [...]
For most of the period since the bubble burst in 1990 the US dollar has bought between 100 and 140 yen, with the currency trading around 120 for the two years before the North Atlantic financial crisis began to unfold.
In essence while on the surface it may appear bold, all we are forecasting is that the real US dollar cross will unwind a substantial portion of the appreciation seen since the crisis drove Japanese and international investors alike into the relative safety of the yen.
Goldman Sachs:
We have changed our $/JPY forecast to 87 flat over the next 3, 6 and 12 months, from 80 flat. This reflects the fact that policy pressure on the BoJ has already narrowed the monetary policy differential between Japan and other major regions, in particular the Fed. But also that the BoJ needs to be more aggressive in monetary easing to help sustain or even extend the move.
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