Thursday, April 21, 2005

The New York Times and the US dollar

Carrying on with the contrary opinion theme of my last post I want to point out another very unusual publishing event for the NY Times.

In its lead editorial on April 2, 2005, entitled "Before the Fall" the Times editorialists made a dramatic and completely unhedged prediction:

"The recent rally in the United States dollar notwithstanding, the greenback has nowhere to go but down" (lead sentence of the editorial). "The dollar is heading down, no matter what" (opening sentence of last paragraph).

I don't ever remember the Times making an unhedged prediction about the direction of a finacial market in an editorial before this.

On April 1, 2005 the Federal Reserve's US dollar index stood at 84.40. Today the index is at 83.80. The lowest point for the index during the 2004-2005 period was 80.55 on December 30, 2004. Using the NY Times editorial as market guidance I predict that the index will hit 100.00 before it drops below 80.00.

Of course the NY Times is not the only reason I am bullish on the dollar. Those of you who read Newsweek magazine might remember the cover of its March 21, 2005 issue "The incredible shrinking dollar". (Sorry, couldn't find a link to this cover.) One should draw the same inference from this as from the New York Times editorial: sell your villa on the Riviera and buy in Palm Springs.

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