Gyroscopic Investing

What might be the likely ramifications for the PP, and particularly for the bonds component, if world markets were to (gradually or not) replace the USD as the reserve currency?

For me, diversify my long bond and possibly some cash portion into other sovereign fiat currencies from stable governments (japan, Britain).

Since reserve currency status means other governments of the world force their population to accept a lower exchange rate (because that government uses the home currency or other wealth of the people to buy and hold US bonds), US interest rates get downward pressure and the dollar is stronger that it otherwise would be.

Rates are "artifically" lower and the dollar is "artificially" stronger than it otherwise would be without reserve currency status.

As Moda has said, nothing involving currencies is free market though since they are all based on coercion.

That being said, if governments around the world divest themselves of dollars and replace them with something else as reserves our import prices will go up and our export prices will go down.

Interest rates will get upward pressure over time hurting LTB returns (until the rates overcome the principle loss), and probably gold and stocks will outperform as the dollar get weaker relative to real things.

I think this is happening and has been for a long-time but we are still in the early enough stages where you have time to prepare. I think it will be a gradual process but at anytime we could have a big move in that direction over the course of a year or two with the occasional bear market dollar rally (2008).

I wouldn't change anything.  Maybe purchase some stocks from the new reserve country(ies).

I don't like the idea of purchasing foreign bonds since the currency fluctuations will make them extremely volatile, and hedging the currency risk is generally expensive and results in large tracking errors.  As long as your government is reasonable stable with its own central bank then I'd stick with domestic bonds.

Gosso wrote: I wouldn't change anything.  Maybe purchase some stocks from the new reserve country(ies).

I don't like the idea of purchasing foreign bonds since the currency fluctuations will make them extremely volatile, and hedging the currency risk is generally expensive and results in large tracking errors.  As long as your government is reasonable stable with its own central bank then I'd stick with domestic bonds.

I don't like that either, but if you consider the downside risk of the US government allowing/forcing the US to default, having some other sovereign fiat currencies could prove extremely useful. Sticking with foreign stocks in the event of all the instability (potentially) caused by such a transition is not the route I'd feel comfortable with. The bond/cash portion of my PP is my deflation/recession portion of the PP. I want those to be the areas that I've done the most robust diversification if need eventually reveals itself.