Market Brief, North America

With American policymakers issuing this generation’s version of former Treasury Secretary John Connally’s 1971 “the dollar is our currency, but it’s your problem” speech, a surging greenback is crushing all of its major rivals and triggering turmoil across the global financial system. Speaking with reporters yesterday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said “with the United States moving faster than many other countries, we’re seeing upward pressure on the dollar and downward pressure on many other foreign currencies,” and “these kinds of developments — which represent a tightening in financial conditions — are part of what’s involved in addressing inflation”. White House...

The British pound is selling off violently – a bit like an emerging market currency – after the government said it would borrow heavily to fund tax cuts and energy price subsidies. In a dramatic pivot away from long-standing fiscal orthodoxy, Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng said the United Kingdom would cut income, property, and dividend taxes, abandon limits on banker bonuses, and pour tens of billions of pounds into protecting households from rising gas and electricity prices. Gilt yields jumped by more than a third of a percentage point as investors braced for renewed inflation pressures and worried...