FxWirePro: Road ahead for EMFX basket in 2017 and outright trades

We believe the market is complacent of the negative effects on EM FX from protectionism and reflation in core rates. EM FX has recently gained vs. USD as part of broad unwinding of bullish USD positions. However, we expect EM FX weakness to resume in the coming weeks as the reflation theme continues to put upward pressure on core rates. Looming concerns over President Trump’s protectionist trade policies are another negative factor.

This has the potential to introduce some degree of divergence between EM FX performance and G10 performance. While our G10 strategists would see protectionism leading to some gains in safe havens, for instance JPY, for EM FX the implications are almost universally negative. This divergence is currently not fully priced in implied correlations, in our view. Meanwhile, technical factors also remain unsupportive of bullish EM FX positions.

Finally, while commodity prices have been a supportive factor from EM FX so far in 2017, we note that positioning appears stretched (noticeably in oil, refer above chart), which may weigh on commodity currency performance herein.

In outright trades, we hold:

Long USDRUB spot, Long 24-Mar-17 1x1 USDRUB call spread (61.0, 63.5), spot ref: 59.8974.

Long USDPLN, Long 23-Feb-17 EURPLN 1x1 call spread (4.45, 4.60), spot ref: 4.3305.

Short 6m1y USDZAR FVA (30k vega)

Long 23-Feb-17 EURILS 1x1.5 put spread (4.05, 3.90), spot ref: 4.0498.

Short 27-Nov-17 EURCZK forward.