While the S&P 500 seems no longer to have a reverse gear, Asian markets fell back in trading on Friday (April 16th) as concerns are mounting about the growing threat of inflation, and signs of speculative excesses in Chindia. Somewhat overlooked in the last 24 hours was the decision by the Singaporean government to revalue its dollar against the USD. The graphic below shows on the right hand side the recent drop of the US currency out of a fairly well "managed" range against the Singaporean dollar. A plausible reason for this decision to revalue by the authorities, which is equally applicable to all fast growing economies which consume large amounts of US dollar denominated commodities, is the evidence of cost inflation arising from having a pegged exchange rate to the US dollar. I do not see this as so pivotal for the Japanese market which is a more mature, assembly based economy, and because of its debt/GDP dynamics there is a better case for policy based yen weakness, which is supported by the technical patterns as well.
