Renminbi and HK devaluation update: New info fresh from the other side of the world (at least from where I'm writing from).
A close friend moved from NY to HK in Jan, and now lives and works in Beijing, though he's staying at a hotel because he hasn't found decent accoms yet. I hadn't spoken to him in a while and thought I'd email him about the devaluation rumors. By the way, the guy isn't into finance. Anyway, so he writes back that starting last week, his hotel has refused to accept Renminbi anymore for payment! He also says that the expectation of currency devaluation is so high that the black market rate for RMB/$US goes up DAILY. Plus, when he was in HK a month back, he overheard some I-bankers at a restaurant talking about how they expected an $HK devaluation and were pondering measures on how to profit off of it! In my opinion, if its that visible and obviously well-expected in both areas, its bound to happen sooner rather than later. The hotel is not taking its national currency anymore??!!
Anyone with similar stories?
P.S. I don't know how many people on this thread have thestreet.com memberships or trials going on, but in the commentary archives for January, currency trader David Derosa (now with Bloomberg) wrtoe a fine article on how the HK peg works, plus his expectations for it.
If you don't see Derosa's name listed in the commentary archives, go into some other writers archives for January and then Derosa's name pops up on the menu.
archive.thestreet.com |
