Strong Euro to Cut Region’s 2014 Growth, Nomura’s Nordvig Says

 The euro, the second best-performing major currency this year, has increased so much that it will weigh on economic growth in the euro region going into 2014, according to Nomura Holdings Inc.’s Jens Nordvig.

The strength of the 17-nation shared currency, which has increased 2.4 percent versus the dollar year-to-date, the most after Denmark’s krone, will trim euro area growth by 0.5 percent in 2014, said Nordvig. The shared currency was the fifth-worst performer among the greenback’s 16 most-traded counterparts in 2012.

“If you look at how much the euro has moved, and the impact that’s going to have on exports, it’s starting to be a real issue,” Nordvig, the New York-based managing director of currency research at Nomura, said in an interview on Bloomberg Radio’s “Surveillance” with Tom Keene and Michael McKee. “Last year, it was a dilemma about coming up with policies that really stated very clearly the euro is here to stay. It’s an ironic situation.”

The euro depreciated 0.4 percent to $1.3508 at 12:19 p.m. in New York after earlier falling as much as 0.5 percent. The shared currency rose to $1.3832 on Oct. 25, its highest level since November 2011.

Europe’s currency climbed to a four-year high against the yen on Nov. 19 after a European Central Bank board member said policy makers must be “very careful” about using negative interest rates to counter low inflation.

The ECB is the only major central bank that hasn’t entertained the idea of quantitative easing, which means it has to consider different ways to come across as dovish in order to stem the rise in the euro, according to Nordvig.

“It’s absolutely crucial that the ECB signals more clearly that they have more tools and are willing to use them as needed,” Nordvig said. “We should see urgency, and I think hopefully the ECB will start to get more aggressive.”

The 17-nation euro has gained 6.8 percent this year, making it the best performer out of 10 developed-nation currencies tracked by Bloomberg Correlation-Weighted Indexes. The dollar gained 4 percent and the yen slipped the most, 13 percent.

(Source: Bloomberg)