Relationship between Carry Trades and the Dow has Broken

Over the past few weeks, there has been practically no correlation between the moves in carry trades and the move in the Dow.

This is a big departure from a year or even just a few months ago when risk appetite had the same impact on the currency and the stock market. On Friday, the Dow dropped over 200 points and yet EUR/JPY and CHF/JPY rallied. Since the middle of May, the stock market index has tumbled more than 1000 points and yet pairs like AUD/JPY has climbed 400 pips while EUR/JPY has climbed 500 pips during the same period. This suggests that the sell-off in stocks may not be entirely due to risk aversion.