Thursday, September 15, 2011

How to Tell When to Short a Currency

When they elect a hyphenated-named leftist to their premiership.

Who also happens to be young and good looking (gee, where have I heard this before?)

What's the Danish currency? Would provide for a nice diversification since the Swiss central bank decided to get interventiony with their Francs.

regardless, time to pull the ole OECD stats and files on Victor Borge's home country.

10 comments:

Alex VanderWoude said...

The Dutch use the Euro these days. In better times they used the guilder, or "gulden" as they called it.

Sonny Ortega said...

So, what currency do you trade these other currencies in?

Captain Capitalism said...

Actually I feel a bit humbled. I should have known they werein the Euro. Cant get to short the dollar against the Euro, they're pretty much the exact same basket case we are.

I'd love to tell you Sr. Ortega, but now good capitalists don't give away their good ideas, do they?

Paul said...

Umm, farbeit from me to find fault, Capn, but I think you're referring to the recent election results in Denmark and the election of Helle Thorning-Schmidt. The Dutch election was last year.

On the plus side, the Danish aren't in the Eurozone, so you do in fact have an opportunity to short the krone.

eljay said...

the DKK is also roughly pegged to the EUR, give or take a few bips. Just short the EUR and the USD. It's the safest trade out there. Gold is the only safe currency and only when you can touch it.

Anonymous said...

The Danes have repeatedly opposed their overlords' attempts at foisting the Euro upon them. They still have the Danish Krone(DKK)

Anonymous said...

Danish not Dutch.

They use the Kronor, but pegged to the Euro before that they were pegged to the DM

And be a little careful, the Danes have had 10 years of center-right gov. This may have more to do with switch from one set of cronies to another.

Also it's a euro-parliament where where she has to get 3 or 4 other parties to play nice with her to form a viable majority. They might not all be to the left of her party. They may fail to play.

The hyphenation thing is a red-herring in this context. Just like it might be in mine, it's common in Denmark and not a useful predictor of bugger all politically.

Finally Denmark is by Scandinavian standards surprisingly well managed and somewhat conservative.
(not to stay they can't do stupid crap, but they have a track record of being somewhat more realistic than some. It's HARD to be titanically stupid when you have a smaller country.)

I'd be careful without digging into this deeper.

Captain Capitalism said...

Sorry, Danish, duly noted.

Paul said...

"It's HARD to be titanically stupid when you have a smaller country."

Again, with respect, I would say no. Wind power anyone? Have a look at this report from Denmark and just how great that's been working out for them.

http://www.cepos.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/Arkiv/PDF/Wind_energy_-_the_case_of_Denmark.pdf&sa=U&ei=dadzTpqvIKnH0AHD8rWpDQ&ved=0CBYQFjAD&usg=AFQjCNFC9sfR1cmjNvWXL12o0KshLQkE-Q

Anonymous said...

Hi Cap'n

You should still short the Euro. She's not the only hyphenated moron in power there.