George Saravelos

Deutsche Bank Research launches the twentieth edition of the Quantcraft series, a one of a kind deep dive into new trading and analytical models across different asset classes. It helps clients understand structural drivers of market returns and how to systematically extract value from them. The latest report focusses on foreign exchange. Not only does it assess the sensitivity of global currency returns to pertinent drivers including sentiment, valuations, monetary policy and interest rate differentials, but it also guides the investor on how to use those drivers to make economically rewarding decisions. Our research targets all investors involved in foreign exchange, from the corporate treasurer seeking to efficiently manage currency risk to the institutional investor building absolute return strategies. [more]

Once more, Europe is becoming messy. We did not expect politics to turn so negative this year. The Italians face a difficult task of restoring investor confidence, and Italy is too important to ignore. But European volatility does not translate into US positivity; we believe the underlying dollar outlook remains negative, and the US midterms will add to political noise. Beyond the dollar, volatility breeds opportunity, and we identify numerous trades in currency crosses that should not be sensitive to messy American or European politics. [more]

With trillions in currencies exchanging hands every day, foreign exchange is indisputably the world’s largest and most liquid financial market. Yet in spite of its size, this report argues that it is also likely to be the least "efficient" compared to other asset classes. [more]

The lead market commentator of the Financial Times this morning writes that the dollar sell-off has “stopped making sense”. Indeed, viewed with the post-crisis lens of activist central banks and exceptionally tight correlations between FX and rates the dollar is entirely out of line with fundamentals. But currency moves over the medium-term ultimately boil down to one thing: flows. If inflows into an economy pick up the currency strengthens and vice versa. Looked at from a flow perspective, the dollar bear market makes complete sense: our outlook for FX 2018 argued that the flow picture is exceptionally supportive for EUR/USD and this positive dynamic is currently playing out. [more]