Re: What does it mean when a "country intervenes in the currency market"?

Intervention always ends up hurting more than it helps... it fakes demand similar to QE and all other forms of manipulation... it will come back to bite. If it moved up too far or down too far.. tough loss your decision to sign plaza accord creating a deflationary spiral for everyone else other than USD.

I think QE is worse then intervention. QE is determined to be long term manipulation and is very difficult and time consuming to unwind. The effects of QE will also not be immediately known.

Intervention on the other hand takes effect immediately and can easily be reversed by intervening in the other direction (or can simply cease intervening)

true... just a form of intervention obviuosly qe is worse or else us would have just done a normal intervention and used profits if any to bail ppl out etc but they needed money right away so.

Currency intervention only works when other countries are not intervening to make their currency weak as well. If that were to happen then the federal reserve would simply be selling euros to the ECB. QE will be necessary when many countries are attempting to intervene in credit markets, although it is much more complicated

No intervention is always against usd or eur.. usd and eur... Chf is the only one doing it vs eur because that is the major trade partner.. There is a currency war going on and it is a precursor to a real war(last stage)

Intervention is usually done "against" the local currency that the central bank is attempting to manipulate. Much of the trading via intervention is done against the dollar and the euro because they are the most heavily traded currencies however the intervention should affect the local currency against all currencies

yup and because those are the ones used across the world.. to drive exports local currency has to devalue however the swap rates allow carry trades against them thus they fight uphill battle.. Its $4 trillion everyday that you must fight... pretty much fruitless unless you want to lose trust in the system which is what is happening with everyone racing tot he bottom..

Not all countries have a "weak local currency" currency policy. Some will let the currency freely float against other currencies regardless of what the market does. The only currencies that will have the problem of being too strong are countries that have net exports as their currency will naturally get stronger as they sell products overseas, bring the profits home and buy the local currency.