In the News: Bloomberg

Japanese yen no longer Hard Currency, portfolio manager Axel Merk tells Bloomberg.

"Merk Hard Currency Fund exited its position in the yen after Japanese Finance Minister Naoto Kan said in his first day in office that he would welcome a weaker currency.

'Hard currencies are backed by sound monetary policy, which means focusing on price stability,' Axel Merk, president of Merk Investments LLC in Palo Alto, California, and manager of the $471 million fund, said in an interview today. 'Japan wants a weaker currency.'

...
'When the Swiss say they will weaken the currency it may be a buying opportunity -- the Swiss may not follow through,' Merk said. 'With the Japanese you have to be concerned that they will destroy the currency.'

Japan’s currency surged to 84.83 per dollar on Nov. 27, the strongest since July 1995. Then-Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii, who resigned Jan. 6, had said he didn’t support a weak yen and opposed 'easy intervention.' ...

The yen made up 12.8 percent of the Merk Hard Currency Fund portfolio in November 2008 and had fallen to just over 4 percent at the end of 2009, Merk said. The money has gone into commodity currencies including the Canadian dollar and the Norwegian krone, which “benefit from money printing the U.S. and Japan,” he said.'