The Dollar & Earnings

Check out the accompanying pdf and chart collection. Executive Summary: Although Fed officials rarely discuss the US dollar’s impact on the economy, the dollar’s recent strength does exert an impact comparable to some degree of interest-rate hiking. Ditto the Fed’s latest quantitative tightening program, QT2. Both effectively will lower the federal-funds-rate endpoint of this tightening cycle. … The dollar’s recent strength reflects massive inflows into US financial markets from overseas given the troubled economies most everywhere else. So we continue to recommend a Stay Home investment strategy for US investors. … How does the dollar’s strength affect corporate earnings? There’s no rule of thumb to go by, but with S&P 500 companies deriving about 40%-50% of their revenues and earnings from abroad, the impacts can be significant.