Adding Currencies to Your Portfolio
Conventional wisdom in creating a healthy, diversified portfolio needs to be updated to reflect new market opportunities. Small investors now, more than ever, have the opportunity to include what are historically institutional-only assets in their personal holdings.
The modern investor has a wealth of new tools to achieve real diversification. Small investors are encouraged to spread their portfolios across a range of stocks and bonds. Small caps, mid caps, large caps, value, growth, short and long-term Treasuries, and municipal bonds have been the staple of a diversified portfolio. Well, times have changed and so too should your notions of eggs and baskets.
It’s easier than ever to pick up the same kinds of exotic investments as the most sophisticated hedge fund in days of yore. Regular people can now include all types of commodities (from agricultural to energy and everything in between), currencies, and select stock sectors in their portfolios simply by purchasing exchange-traded funds (ETF’s).
Currencies, in particular, offer individuals a powerful alternative for hedging inflation and the decline of the US dollar, and adding a new level of diversification to offset adverse movements in stocks and bonds.
Negatively correlated assets held in the same portfolio reduce overall risk. Risk, as measured by variance of returns, can actually be lowered simply by holding assets that do not move in the same direction. For instance, if stock A decreases 70% of the time stock B increases, and vice versus, then you could construct a portfolio that has less total risk than either A or B by including both.
Someone holding predominantly US stocks in their portfolio should consider adding currencies that are negatively correlated. It turns out that Swiss Franc, Japanese Yen, and Swedish Krona move in opposite directions as US stocks, while Australian dollar, Mexican Peso, and Canadian dollar move in the same direction.
Holding Swiss Franc, Euro, Yen, or Krona would have yielded roughly between 12% and 17% in capital appreciation over the last year. Not only that, but each ETF has a dividend yield, representative of interest rates within each country.
An income investor should consider holding Mexican Peso, Australian Dollar, and British Pound, while avoiding Yen and Swiss Franc. There are many factors to take into consideration, but applying basic portfolio theory to your own holdings can have signficant long term results.
In a world of increasing energy and food price inflation, you can see how important it is to hedge these risks. Currency ETF’s offer such an opportunity; exposing investors to relativer currency price movements, as well as variable income opportunities from taking advantage of interest rate disparities in foreign markets.
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