(MarketWatch) Stephen Roach, a Yale University senior fellow and former Morgan Stanley Asia chairman, tells MarketWatch that his forecast for a sharp deterioration of the U.S. dollar could be a very near-term phenomenon, not an event that looms off in the distance.
“I do think it’s something that happens sooner rather than later,” the economist told MarketWatch during a Monday-afternoon interview.
His comments come as the financial expert has been warning for weeks of an epic downturn of the buck that could signal the end of the hegemony of the greenback as a reserve currency — an event that would ripple through global financial markets.
“In a COVID era everything unfolds at warp speed,” Roach told MarketWatch on Monday.
He pointed to the contraction of the U.S. economy from an employment rate that was hovering around a 50-year low at around 3.5% near the start of 2020 to one that shows some 49 million people unemployed since the pandemic took hold in March.
He also noted the rapid and unprecedented fiscal and monetary response that has ballooned the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet to more than $7.2 trillion from $4 trillion at the start of the year as examples of the celerity at which the currency market could change.
Roach is calling for the dollar to soon decline 35% against its major rivals, citing increases in the nation’s deficit and dwindling savings.
