[LINK] "Euro to Bear Brunt of Yuan's Inclusion in Reserve-Currency Club"

[rfmcdonald]

Bloomberg's Netty Idayu and Lillian Chen note that the Euro is set to face a challenge from the rising prominence of the Chinese yuan.

The euro’s worst year in a decade is looking even grimmer after the Chinese yuan’s inclusion in the International Monetary Fund’s basket of reserve currencies.

The 19-nation currency’s weighting in the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights basket will drop to 30.93 percent, from 37.4 percent, the organization said Monday. The yuan will join the dollar, euro, pound and yen in the SDR allocation from Oct. 1, 2016, at a 10.92 percent weighting.

The euro has tumbled 13 percent against the dollar this year, the most in a decade, and central banks have reduced the proportion of the currency in their reserves to the lowest since 2002. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi signaled on Oct. 22 that policy makers are open to boosting stimulus, after embarking on a 1.1 trillion-euro ($1.2 trillion) asset-purchase program in March.

“The euro will get the most impact from this weight adjustment,” said Douglas Borthwick, head of foreign exchange at New York-based brokerage Chapdelaine & Co. “The IMF is taking from euro to give to China; the other rebalancing amounts are largely negligible.”

China’s currency will exceed yen and sterling in the new basket. The levels will be 41.73 percent for the dollar, 8.33 percent for the yen and 8.09 percent for the pound, the IMF said. The dollar currently accounts for 41.9 percent of the basket, while the pound accounts for 11.3 percent and the yen 9.4 percent.