Hyun Song Shin on How Big the Yen Carry Trade Really Is - podcast episode cover

Hyun Song Shin on How Big the Yen Carry Trade Really Is

Aug 29, 202438 min
--:--
--:--
Listen in podcast apps:

Episode description

Remember August 5th? That was the day that markets around the world plunged in historic fashion and everyone became an overnight expert on the yen carry trade. But what really is the yen carry trade? How big is it? Who is making the trade? And what is its connection to markets all around the world? On this episode, recorded at the Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City's Economic Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, we speak with Hyun Song Shin, economic advisor and head of research at the Bank for International Settlements. He walks us through the mechanics of the trade, what went on in early August, and the lessons we've already learned from it.

Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at  bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, Radio News.

Speaker 2

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Odd Thoughts Podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway.

Speaker 3

And I'm Joe Wisenthal.

Speaker 2

Joe, do you remember the carry trade unwined?

Speaker 3

It was so the carry trade, what's the deal? Basically people borrow yen and buy and video and then the yen went up and then the trades didn't work as well.

Speaker 2

Well, that was one aspect of the commentary.

Speaker 3

As like the Twitter version of what's happening?

Speaker 2

Yeah, but I think actually okay, So we are recording this on August twenty third, the carry trade unwind happened. What was it two weeks ago? Two or three weeks ago. Yeah, it feels like a lifetime ago, and it's kind of remarkable how quickly it failed into the background with the

market rally and the recovery. But the conversation at the time was that there is this carry trade, which involves borrowing in lower yielding currencies or lower interest rate currencies such as the yen, and then investing in higher yielding assets like in theory, US technology stocks.

Speaker 3

Or you US treasuries.

Speaker 2

Yeah, but the problem is that some of the discourse around this has been. I've kind of been offended by some of it. I've seen things out there basically implying that the entire financial system is imploding because the carry trade is unwinding.

Speaker 3

I mean, it's really crazy, Like how quickly that disappeared, because you know, there was that megavol spike and we were talking like historically high level is on par with some of the financial crises, and then you know, the expectation is like, at a minimum, this takes a while to settle down. Yeah, and it's settled down in about fifteen minutes, in a day and a half. Absolutely, what was that? What is the carry trade? Because there is this sort of caricature version that is out there, who

actually is engaging in it? Is it still going on? Many questions in my head remain unanswered.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and one of the big ones is just how big is it actually? And one of the funny things that happened a few weeks ago is people were basically looking at all the yen denominated assets in the world, like the entire Japanese banking system, and saying, this is the carry trade. This is how big it is.

Speaker 3

Okay, let's clear up some misconceptions.

Speaker 2

We are going to do that right now, and I am so pleased to say that we do, in fact have the perfect guest. We are recording here in Jackson, Haw, Wayoming for the Kansas Fed Economic Symposium, and we have once again run into one of our favorite all Thoughts guests, an expert on this exact topic. We're going to be

speaking with Hyun Sung Shin. He is, of course, the economic advisor and head of research for the Bank for International Settlements and he's been looking at the carry trade for years now.

Speaker 3

So Ken he actually knows what he's talking about.

Speaker 2

Yes, Kian, thank you so much for coming on odd lots.

Speaker 4

Thank you for having me again.

Speaker 2

It's so good to see you again. Absolutely beautiful Jackson Hall. Absolutely, I'm so glad we could make this happen, and that I am kind of glad that the carry trade unwind happened just a couple.

Speaker 5

Of weeks ago.

Speaker 3

Something to talk about.

Speaker 2

Yeah, and you happen to be here and you're an expert on this, So let's start with something very basic. What is the carry trade?

Speaker 5

The carry trade is a financial transaction where you borrow a currency with a low interest rate and then investor proceeds in other higher yielding assets, and I think the you know, the classical version of a carriage.

Speaker 4

Trade would be where you borrow.

Speaker 5

I mean, it's basically a currency transaction where you borrow a currency with a low interest rate and invest in a in a higher interest rate currency. But the way that the carry trade was portrayed in the recent discussion, I think that was you know, described in much broader terms, where you were going into all kinds of different assets and Joe, as you describe, it was a very short lived episode of stress, but.

Speaker 4

At the time it was pretty intense.

Speaker 5

Yeah, and you know, I think, you know, we can now look back on it with some relief that nothing broke. You know, there was no financial market dysfunction as we saw during the March twenty twenty episode for example. So now we're now back to something which looks more normal. But I think we should try and learn some lessons from that episode.

Speaker 3

Absolutely, and you know, obviously there's a lot that's still out there and much to be learned before we even get to the future. I mean, you described what a sort of classical carrier trait is and what we're talking about, and I joked in the beginning, you know, it's like borrow yen cheaply and then by bitcoin or whatever. But actually, like when we talk about this, who are the actors involved?

Is it seculators who see a spread? Is it institutions like insurance companies, etc. That have some sort of like larger structural reason. Like who actually is engaged in such type of activities.

Speaker 5

It's really the whole ecosystem, if you like, I think the main actors would shift from from time to time. I think one way that we could try and approach this question is, you know, as Tracy alluded to earlier, have large is this you know, what's the most reliable way of trying to gauge this? Now, one way of doing that is to look at the on balance sheet lending in yend and at.

Speaker 4

The BIS is.

Speaker 5

You know, we receive data from our member central banks. We collected and then we distributed, and we've been doing it since nineteen seventy seven, so in a way we are the curators of this very important banking data of

international banking business. So one thing that we can look at in that data set would be what is the cross border lending that is yen denominated, or even if it's not cross border, what is the en denominated lending as a foreign currency, so you know, even if the loan is booked in a country outside Japan, it's it's

in yen, and it's it's in foreign currency. Now, one of the things that I put in a tweet thread is that if you look at that that number, there was clearly a very sharp increase in yen borrowing as

foreign currency in twenty two to twenty three. But it's something like forty trillion yen, So you know, that's quite large, you know, two hundred and seventy billion dollars roughly depending on exchange rate, But it's not the kind of numbers that were being banded about in the markets, and not all of that is going to be you know, engaged in yen carry trade. The other way of you know, thinking about this how is how does that borrowing take place?

And one thing that is quite interesting is that a lot of the cross border lending is happening through the interoffice accounts, which is to say, if there's a foreign banking group which has an office in Japan, how much is the subsidiary or the office in Japan lending out to the headquarters in Yen. And that turns out to be a preciseable chunk of that. Of that forty trillion, it's around fourteen trillion would be you know that that interoffice.

But much more important than this on balance sheet is the off balance sheet transactions. And here the crucial market is the FX swap market. And FX swaps are where you know, one party would deliver one currency. So if I deliver dollars to the counterparty, counterparty.

Speaker 4

Would give me the equivalent in yen.

Speaker 5

With the promise that that transaction would be reversed at a set date in the future at an agreed exchange rate. So the exchange rate is fixed at that point. And normally, if I'm a dollar provider, what I do is I provide the dollars, I receive the yen in return, But because I need to repay the yen, I need to keep it in a safe place, so I would park it in a safe in a yen asset.

Speaker 2

Just to be clear, Typically FX swaps it's it's not really a trade per se, or it's not often a trade. It's more of a hedging activity. So if I have a lot of yen exposure, I want to offset some of that by acquiring dollars and vice versa.

Speaker 5

Yeah, and that's exactly the classical the use case for a for a swap contract. But the but the issue here is if I receive the yen rather than parking it in a safe place, what if I just sell that yen on the spot market and acquire dollars, Then I have a naked yen obligation which I will need to meet at the time by repurchasing the yen on the spot market. And that market is pretty sizeable. It's around fourteen trillion dollars the swap market between yen and another currency.

Speaker 4

That's you know, that's.

Speaker 5

Quite a bit larger than the two hundred and seventy billion that I mentioned earlier.

Speaker 3

Just so as Tracy characterized it, there is sort of a natural hedging need for those sort of swaps. What types of institutions have that need to engage in the slot market.

Speaker 5

It's both financial and non financial. I think typically the textbook case is of a non financial institution. So, you know, if I am an exporter or an importer, you know, I would like to pay for you know, the goods in advance, but then I need to hedge the currency exposure in the meantime until the you know, the maturity of that swap. What we've seen though, is that since the global financial crisis, it's the financial uses of the

FX swap market which has really grown much larger. So it's fair to say that it's the financial uses of the FX swaps which are the line share of the of the FX swap market. And I think it raises perhaps a deeper question, which is, if you're not constrained by the funding currency in what you can invest in by using the swap market. In other words, suppose I

can only raise funding in one currency. Well, typically that means that, you know, unless you have balance sheet mismatches, you would need to invest mostly in that same currency. But through the swap market, you can basically overcome you know,

that particular constraint. And what that means is it's much better to think of financial conditions in global terms rather than simply country by country, because you can you can always, you know, deploy the funding in one currency and invest in the assets of another currency.

Speaker 2

It sounds also like it's additional liquidity if you can use FX swaps to bypass you know, specific currency constraints in terms of funding capacity. If I was I don't know an emerging market like exporter, and I needed dollar funds. Obviously there's a limit to the amount of dollars that I can get in a situation like that. But if I know that I can go into the FX swap market and get that additional liquidity, it presumably expands credit in the overall system.

Speaker 5

In contractual terms, a swap is completely symmetric because you know one party is providing one currency in return for the other and vice versa for the other party. But from time to time, when financial conditions vary across different currencies, different markets, there is a if you like a lead party in asking for that transaction, and you know there is a market if you like response in supplying it.

So let me give you an example. So if I am a let's say I'm a Euro area insurance company, and I would like a globally diversified portfolio including dollar assets. But most of my obligations are in euros, and so if I were to invest, you know, nakedly in dollars, there would be a currency you know, there'll be a currency mismatch on my balance sheet. And this is where

I would go to the swap market. I would swap the euros into dollars and that I would invest the proceeds into dollar ponds, for example, in a way that's like borrowing dollars. I mean, the economic rationale is very similar to borrowing dollars in order to invest, but it's not treated as borrowing in the conventional accounting sets because

you know it's a swap. There is also a countervailing, you know, a transaction the other way, but you can normally track what's called an EFFC swap basis to see which direction that transaction is going. So it turns out that typically normally it is more expensive to borrow dollars in the swap market then it is to borrow dollars in the dollar money market. And that extra premium is if you like the additional price you have to pay

in order to access dollars. Now coming back to the yen story, although most of the time, you know, financial institutions are borrowing dollars in the swap market in order to invest in dollar acidence, that's typically the direction of the trade. This is why you know during financial stress periods, you know these effects swap bases, you know spike and then there has to be central bank swap lines to

quill et cetera. But there's nothing in principle that says it always has to go towards a dollar, right if your intention is to engage in a yen carry trade, but through using EFFCS swaps, you know, you could borrow yen and then you know, acquire that en obligation by going through the swap. And so one telltale sign is what happened to the effects swap basis during this recent episode.

And in fact, one of the interesting findings is that the dollar effects basis versus the yen you know, hardly budged. It's actually, you know, a very small movement, which is very atypical of a financial stress event.

Speaker 2

Yeah, how did Why is that? Because I would have assumed that the people providing swaps, who I assume are dealer banks of some sort, with such volatility in the currency rate, I would have thought that they would back away from providing that liquidity and so the basis would blow out.

Speaker 5

So there was definitely a little bit of that, but it was by no means the same magnitude as we saw, for example, in the March twenty twenty episode. And the reasoning would be that in that case, the if you like. The party that was driving that particular transaction wasn't borrowing dollars, which needed to be you know, repaid in this scramble for dollars, but rather it was the you know, repayment of yen. Oh I see, okay, so it goes the other way.

Speaker 3

So, you know, so much sort of happened during that I don't know, there's sort of like the mini crisis of July thirty first to August sixth of twenty twenty four, and it came in went.

Speaker 2

That should be the official name.

Speaker 3

Yeah, that's a name of that. So you know, there was a FED meeting that perceived perhaps to be a little hawkers. Then we got a week unemployment report. Then of course, you know, the end had been creeping up right now, and you know, we'll probably still be learning more. What is the story that you tell, like what actually happened in those six or seven days that triggered such a move and then triggered such a move that was able to reverse so easily. What you're basic what happened that week?

Speaker 5

Yeah, and clearly, Joe, there was quite a bit of action in the currency markets. But I think what you're referring to is the fact that equity markets were you know, impacted very broadly across the world in a way that you wouldn't have expected if it were a sort of narrow carriy trait story. And indeed, I think there is something to that in the probably we're we're putting too much weight on the carriage trade as a key theme

of what happened in early August. In that yes, I mean there may have been the classical carriage traits going on where you borrow yen and then you invest in the high yielding currencies. You can see which currencies fell most in early August, and they were the Mexican peso, Columbian peso, and the rand. So these, you know, these

were the destination currencies for those classical carriage trades. But I think it's it's not really enough to explain why there was this much more broad based stress, especially in the in the equity markets. And I think here we have to think about the broad issues to do with how you know risk is managed, how you know risk management itself.

Speaker 4

Risk management in.

Speaker 5

The form of loss mitigation also generates some potential for amplification that could actually you know, make things you know more volatile. So let me explain what I mean by that. So, if I have a value at risk rule that says, you know, if my risk is triggered beyond this this var level, then I cut my position. That means I sell, or if I'm lending, I cut my lines, et cetera. From the point of view of the borrower or from the point of view of the of the market as

a whole. You know, that is something that would actually you know, amplify, you know, whatever stress that was there in the first place. If I'm a lender and I set margins, or if I'm a CECP, a central counterparty or an exchange, you know, there is a margin that I ask for, you know, the various contracts that I deal with. Typically during stress periods, those margins go up.

So that's kind of deleveraging. Now, the way that we deal with risk is precisely to mitigate loss, and there is this you know, spillover effect that goes to the broader market. And I wonder whether we should you know, look back on the events of early August and if you like, apply that lens to you know, to the

events back then. So if you know, for example, I was not you know, borrowing in and investing in technology stocks as you as you suggested, But it's just that you know, you know, within my firm, you know, there is a team that is doing a classical carrier trade, but there is also a team that is you know, leveraged the US tech stocks. But one team doesn't know what the other team is doing. So let's say, you know, one pod doesn't know what the other pod is doing.

Speaker 4

But from the.

Speaker 5

Firm's point of view, it looks as if you know in aggregate that you know there is a short end position and the long position in technology stocks, and if that you know, risk constraint is triggered somehow, it's going to have a much broader implication, much broader repercussion through all of the wholdings.

Speaker 2

This kind of reminds me there used to be that saying about in a crisis, you sell what you can, not necessarily what's most impact. Did So it might be that the most volatility is falling in the currency market and in the carry trade, but the thing that you're selling to reduce your risk exposure is something totally different. Just because you can, or because it's easier to do in an extremely volatile environment, and if you.

Speaker 5

Like, it's the it's the risk limits that are triggered. And the way that risk limits work is if the aggregate portfolio is suffering losses, then the risk limits are tightened for all the different you know, different assett that you own. And I think, you know, there is I think something that we need to think about in terms of how we can mitigate some.

Speaker 4

Of these some of these issues.

Speaker 5

And going back to the the FX swap discussion, the BIS also collects data on FX swaps. You know, we have the six monthly release of our over the counter derivative statistics and the numbers that I've given you you know, either all from from our data, it's all on our web page. I think there is probably more scope for us to have more refect fine data. For example, you know, who is the instigator in having the effects well, you know drawn up in the first place, So who is

the lead party, where is it being booked? What are the sectors that the two parties are coming from. At the moment, we don't have that kind of data, but this is something that the BIS is working very hard to try and assemble. And given the shift away from the very bank centric system to something which is much more a market based system which we have now. I think this is really, you know, something that we need to do as a matter of vergency.

Speaker 3

So can we actually, I want to go back to your point about, you know, financial conditions being a global phenomenon, because that has been one of the questions here in the US, and there are people scratching their heads financial conditions by some measures being tight, but spreads being very narrow for credit and of course the stock market having

rocketed up. Can you flesh that out a little bit more like this sort of like how we should rethink financial conditions in a world of sort of like easy swapping between currencies on a non bank basis.

Speaker 5

Sure, sure, I mean that's a very very important issue, actually, Joe. You know, when you look at the typical financial conditions index, let's say, you know, you take the Golden SAX index, which is probably the best known. There are two components there. One is really just about how high our interest rates, how high a yields. There's another set of indicators which measure how tight are the credit spreads? You know, what's

the dollar doing that kind of thing. And what's really been quite surprising is that even though rates have been raised to quite high levels. So the rates, those indicators that point to how our interest rates are they've been quite tight. But stock markets, credit spreads, you know, they've been extremely accommodated.

Speaker 4

And I think one way that.

Speaker 5

You know, we could rationalize this is that, you know, if we have a world where essentially money is fungible across currencies, basically what swap does is to make money fungible across currencies. You know, five dollars I can get you know, yen vice versa. And in that kind of environment, it's not simply how much the US money supply is, how much you know, the Euro money supply is that matters.

Speaker 4

It's really about what the global picture is.

Speaker 5

And what are the marginal rates at which one is swapped into the other. And I think one potential explanation for why financial conditions have been, you know, so accommodative in spite of the very high rates is that, you know, money will flow to the most accompetentive section of the money market, and the swap is the instrument that's going to really you know, give you that fungibility. And when we look at the growth of the aggregates, it's been, you know, it's been quite rapid. So if we go

back to the GFC. Before the GFC, the global financial system it was very much a bank based system, and the GFC was you know, in essence of banking crisis, and the existing BIS banking statistics covered that really well. You know, in some of my work as an academic, you know, I relied really a lot on the BIS banking data to really you know, document what happened in

the lead up to and then the resolution. But since the GFC, we've moved very much to a market based system where the non bank financial intermediaries are taking on a much bigger role. And in that world, the banking statistics that the BIS puts out is only looking at a very small part of the overall universe, and increasingly it's the EFS, swap market and other market based intermediation

figures that we need to keep track of. And so in that sense, it's quite important for us to update our perspective on how markets work, what kinds of indicators we need to keep track of, and basically make sure that the official statistics are really up to scratch.

Speaker 2

So in the two or three weeks since the carry trade hit the headlines, the yen dollar exchange rate has normalized somewhat. But if you had to, if you had to take an educated guess, how does the carry trade re establish itself or how does it evolve from here? Because I have to imagine there's some lingering memory, even if it feels like a lifetime ago, that this actually happened on the market. So what happens next in terms of the carry trades evolution?

Speaker 5

Well, actually, I think you know, you've had guests on on odd lots where one of their big themes was, you know, we're waiting for this big crash because it's going to present a huge opportunity for us to come and really pick up some bargains. And you know, if you were following this and you had spare powder on August fifth, for example, that was the Monday, then there were huge opportunities out there. I mean, you know, think about the Vics. The Vics hit sixty five on the

morning of August fifth. So I think we have to assume that many of the people who are very who are very you know, agile, are already back in And I think what we need to think about is, well, first of all, we have to you know, we have to be thankful that nothing broke, But at the same time, you know, you know, we can't be complacent and say, well, that's it, we can forget about it. I think we have to learn some lessons from that episode, and one of those lessons is some of the standard ways I've

been looking at markets may not be adequate. We have to look at some of these bigger pictures ues, especially those big aggregates that have been off the radar for various reasons, and we have to bring them back on the radar. And I think when we think about, you know, the broader policy questions as well, especially in monetary policy, financial conditions are absolutely key. They're a key input into

how we conduct monetary policy. And so even for that question, how will financial conditions involve, we have to think about this big a picture.

Speaker 3

Thinking back to that week. From a sort of fundamentals standpoint, there was nothing that major that had happened, you know, like I think maybe the unemployment rate cod people will buy surprise, but data is noisy and there are surprises all the time in both directions. Maybe the FED, I don't know, the Bank of Japan, obviously, they're a little

bit out of cycle, perhaps with other central banks. I think actually today we got a two point seven percent inflation reading, so maybe it's all higher, but there was nothing like that unexpected. Think about like risks going forward, the fact that you could have such a sharp move in such a short term. What does that say generally about the broader I don't know, structure of the financial system.

And nothing broke and it did quiet down extraordinarily fast, But what does it say about the structure of the financial system or broadly that's something that sharp can happen without some seemingly you know, major fundamental surprise.

Speaker 5

And you're absolutely right. So the fundamental economic news was not you know, that bigger surprise. I mean, there were some surprises at the margin, but nothing major. I think what it does point to is the power of amplification effects of various sorts. Yeah, and you know, as officials, you know, as policymakers, we need to think about how do we dampen those amplification effects in a way that's going to you know, preserve financial stability and not have

one of these episodes feed into the real economy. And you know, the typical response we would go to would be something like regulation. If these were banks, you know, that would be the sort of in the first port of call. But because if these are non banks, some of them, many of them are not regulated, that's not really you know, the first port of call. But you know, there are points of contact with a regulated financial sector

where we can do something. I think one of the things that one of the lessons we learned during March twenty twenty, you know, with the treasury market, you know stress, was that we need to make sure that we don't have these hugely pro cyclical margin you know variation that means that there are four sellers onto the market. Now you know these huge swings are justified. Well, you know, some people were justified saying, look, I need to protect

my solvency by you know, raising the margins. But that has huge repercussions for the others. So from a systemic perspective,

you know, that has negative spillover effects. So that's one example where if we can make sure that margins are margins don't get eroded too thinly during good time so that you know, they're raised very sharply, that's that's really a no brainer, and that's something that the official sector has worked on we actually, of course, need to have much better data on these other aggregates that you know, have now emerged as being very very important, and the BIS is on that is on that case, you know,

we are working very hard to make it much more detail so that it's going to be much more useful. But it's going to be a continual, you know, struggle, Joe, because you can never declare victory because you know, the financial system is always evolving and you're just you know, you're playing catch up all the time. It's just a case of how badly behind are you, you know, with the realities.

Speaker 2

I have just one more question, which is thinking back to August fifth, when markets were tanking, there were, or at least there was one prominent call for one hundred basis point emergency rate cut. And I really don't mean to be mean spirited here, because you know, hindsight is twenty twenty and we all get things wrong from time to time. But I'm just very curious we're here at Jackson Hall with a number of high profile policy makers. Is there any discussion of that call or any like.

Are people talking about how ridiculous maybe that that call actually was at the time The idea that the FED was going to cut rates one hundred bases points, and now to two or three weeks later, we have markets near all time highs, the FX exchange rate has normalized to some degree, and a lot of this is just in the rear view mirror.

Speaker 5

I think we have to look at this with a bit more sympathy, Tracy. I don't think we can say definitively yes or no. You know, if we think back to the summer of nineteen ninety eight when LTCM Long Term Capital Management hedge fund failed, there was tremendous stress there, and you know, there was an intermeding cut at that point because what you know, we could see then was that the real economy looked to be, you know, showing signs of being affected. And similarly, I think with March

twenty twenty, you know that was a treasury market. Clearly fixed income is much more closely tied with the real economy. So I would never say never, But you know, if it's so, what are we looking at in deciding whether you would go in and to intervene, Well, you're looking for signs of complete dysfunction in the market, where the market is just broken down and nothing is you know, being sold or bought, and this means that the flow

of finance to real economic activity is really suffering. I think if you see signs of that, then I think, you know, there is a stronger argument for an extraordinary intervention. But as you say, I think, you know, looking back, although it was a pretty you know, intense period, those two days in retrospect, wasn't the kind of thing that needed extraordinary intervention.

Speaker 3

I just have one last question, and I guess it's sort of broad, but it's also one that I think some of our listeners are curious about, and I'm so I'm curious about from the BIS perspective, Like people are always very interested in the idea of like speculative excess bubbles, et cetera. I'm curious from the BIS perspective, do we

have reliable measures that can observe that. Do we have you know, you could feel it in the error sometimes people are talking about AI or whatever it is at any given time, But do we have good tools to quantify sort of the level of what we'd call speculation in the market and at any given time.

Speaker 5

We always have good measures when in retrospect, so we can always look back to the previous crisis. Yeah, so, oh wow, we should have taken notice of that. So, you know, if we go back to the GFC, it was a growth rate of credit, it was growth rate of cross border lending and in particular the growth rate of crossborder lending and dollars, which was you know, making this round trip from the US to Europe back to

the US. And what tends to happen. And I think the BIS, like any other efficiency institution, is guilty to some extent, is that, you know, we draw up a checklist and say, well, next time, let's not ignore A, B and C, and let's have a list that we check and of course, you know, we have this accumulated checklist that we take along with us we as we experience market. But it's never going to be adequate, right, So this time around, what happened was not really you know,

central to some of our checklists. So, you know, I think, to be fair, I think the BIS is probably the best place to draw up.

Speaker 4

A checklist that is closest to you know, what's going on.

Speaker 5

You know, we are pretty close to the ground and in following these things, and we have very good data. But it's something that needs constant effort. Right, It's like it's not something that just comes easily and it's simply a matter of you know, effortless, you know brilliant that gives you that it's something that always needs effort. We have to keep you know, we have to keep studying, we have to keep looking, and so it's going to be a never ending struggle.

Speaker 2

All right, Well we both look forward to the BIS bubble index that you will inevitably be building. But h thank you so much for coming back on All Loots.

Speaker 5

That was amazing, Yeah, fantastic, Thanks for inviting me back, because yeah, great conversation, Joe.

Speaker 2

I'm so glad that we could catch up with him and that he was basically our first episode on the carry trade.

Speaker 3

I love I love talking to Hugh and it's always just like incredibly illuminating and pleasant and great, many interesting things there. I mean, for one, I sort of appreciated him just explaining what the carry trade is, that different types of actors, whether you're an import or export, or

why you would want to engage in it. Like again, just I don't know misinformation is the right word, but the amount of people who want to appine on something like this for the first of the people who actually have some insight is a there's quite a gap.

Speaker 2

Well, I do think the nuance on causality is kind of important there, So the idea that okay, two things kind of happened at the same time, which is the carry trade unwound and US stock sold off, But that doesn't necessarily mean that one thing is directly causing the other.

Speaker 3

Right, And it gets to like the joke every time you know, there's some big market event and someone goes, oh, pod blew up. But it's sort of like that, which is basically it really if there is some volatility, if you're losing money, it doesn't really matter what strategy you're using or whether that strategy is central to it. You sell something right, and so you still have that effect.

Speaker 2

Someone taps you on the shoulder and says, reduce leverage, So you reduce leverage. The other thing I thought was really interesting was the idea of the fungibility yes of money. And I think we've talked about it on the podcast before and I've certainly mentioned in the newsletter, but I do feel there is a sense that okay, interest rates went up in the US, and so credit and dollars became more expensive, but that doesn't mean that they became less available.

Speaker 3

Yeah. No, that's such a fascinating idea, and the idea of like a global the need for a global financial Conditions Index or something like that. And if you're just looking at the US in isolation, there are things that don't seem to make total sense in terms of especially the disconnect between what happens with rates and what happened

with spreads over the last couple of years. But that perhaps if you sort of aggregate everything together and recognize that any there are multiple places to get funding or get liquidity, maybe some of these puzzle pieces fit together a bit more.

Speaker 5

Yeah.

Speaker 2

So I'm looking forward to the Global Financial Conditions Index and the Bubble Index.

Speaker 3

Yes, many many indexes for the BIS to get out. But if there's any entity that I feel confident could do it, it'd be Hun in his team.

Speaker 2

All right, shall we leave it there?

Speaker 3

Let's leave it there.

Speaker 2

This has been another episode of the Odd Lots podcast. I'm Tracy Alloway. You can follow me at Tracy Alloway and I'm Joe Wisenthal.

Speaker 3

You can follow me at The Stalwart follow Hun Song Shin. He's at hun song Shin, follow our producers Kerman Rodriguez at Kerman Ermann, desh Ol Bennett at Dashbot, and Kilbrooks at Kilbrooks. Thank you to our producer Moses Ondem. For more odd Lots content, go to Bloomberg dot com slash od Lots, where you have transcripts, a blog, and a newsletter and you can chat about all of these topics twenty four to seven in our discord discord dot gg slash od Lots.

Speaker 2

And if you enjoy odd Lots, if you like it when we talk to Hume, then please leave us a positive review on your favorite podcast platform. And remember, if you are a Bloomberg subscriber, you can listen to all of our episodes absolutely ad free. All you need to do is connect your Bloomberg account with Apple Podcasts. In order to do that, just find the Bloomberg channel on Apple Podcasts and follow the instructions there. Thanks for listening

Transcript source: Provided by creator in RSS feed: download file