Love me tender? Not if you are Japan, or America, or Switzerland….

COMMENT

"The developed world's authorities are in a race to make their currency the cheapest."

So said the head of global interest rates at an asset manager in London last week. Far from loving their tender, a growing number of governments are trying to debase theirs as much, and as quickly, as possible. Japan’s government intervened at least twice over the past month, weakening the yen by 3% against the US dollar the day of its first push on 14 September, and by 0.34% since then. Washington then moved to devalue its own dollar versus China’s yuan – but by strong-arming Beijing into allowing the yuan to rise. Switzerland and South Korea also recently tried to devalue thei...