US dollar is a better bet, relatively speaking

Looking around, crisis everywhere. No exception! I have said for weeks now that the stock market is not something you want to touch generally speaking, unless you see some interesting and justifiable opportunities very selectively. I'm mostly sitting sidelines and watching except something like RIMM which was too attractive to pass. 


If you are itchy and really want to do something, I think you should consider the currency trade. While stocks can go down all together, currency is relative to each other. If one currency is going down, there must be something going up. Therefore, if you are right with one or two currencies, you may still make money even if the overall stock markets are doing poorly. So what is relatively better right now? You know what I'm thinking by the title. Yes, I think the US$ is a better bet at the moment. Although I really dislike the US$ as a long term trend, I think it does fare better as compared with other major currencies at the moment. Look, the US$ has been beaten down for most part of the year but at least any problems related to it are something within one single country. See what's going on with the Eurozone countries, where no one country can do anything independently and they cannot make any sound and reasonable decision without huge hurdles. Do you really see any other countries doing better than the US in proportion to the degree of the US$ depreciation in the past 8 months or so? I'm not so sure. So among all the garbage and trashes, I think the US$ is relatively better than others in the short term (several months to half a year).


If you agree with me, you may bet for the US$ appreciation via UUP, an ETF called PowerShares DB US Dollar Index Bullish. UUP is designed to replicate the performance of being long the U.S. dollar against the euro, Japanese yen, British pound, Canadian dollar, Swedish krona and Swiss franc. I believe you may make some good money to stay long with the US$ in the next few months. Of course, it is not a trade based on fundamentals but purely a speculation. So trade accordingly.