Trading FX? You need to look at (international) trade data. With the greenback still overvalued against most currencies, currency investors are scouring for market where the USD is most likely to weaken. Stephan Kessler, head of research for the alternative strategy team at Goldman Sachs Asset Management, has been using trade-related data to evaluate the fair value of currencies instead of conventional methods such as PPP, which only compares prices of a similar basket of goods in two countries considering the nominal exchange rate while ignoring other economic data. Using trade data however is more reliable as it uses terms of trade and other trade-competitiveness indicators to examine the fair value of a currency, since the more competitive an economy is, the more valuable its currency. Read more on how trade data may carry useful signals for currency markets.

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