Central banks moving away from "historical artifacts" and into alternatives
Central-bank reserve shifts indicate the best foreign-exchange returns may be found by avoiding the "fading four" most-traded currencies in favor of the next tier, according to Samson Capital Advisors LLC. ...
"The overweight in central-bank reserves to what we'll call the fading four, the U.S. dollar, the euro, yen and the pound, those overweights are historical artifacts," Jonathan Lewis, chief investment officer in New York and a founder of Samson Capital, which oversees $7.3 billion, said March 6 in a telephone interview.
Central-bank holdings denominated in dollars, pounds, euros and yen made up 94.4 percent of the $5.6 trillion of allocated reserves as of 2011, compared with 98.4 percent in 2001, according International Monetary Fund data. The IMF's central bank claims in other-currencies category rose to $297 billion from $20.1 billion during the decade that ended in 2011.
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