Great performance of US stocks in 2017, particularly for US citizens, + 19 %, not noticing the erosion of their currency For a European investor who did not hedge, the FX rate move erased most of the gains
Why the European investor did not hedge by selling his/her $ forward ? Because early January 2017 just after the US presidential election, everyone was seeing the $ getting even stronger Quotes from major advisory institutions dated Dec16-Jan17 with DXY near 102 and €/$ 1.0550
Well, not everyone actually: This is how I started 2017 with my daily comment: My clients, being European for instance, were made aware of the risk for a weaker $ simply with the observation of a chart pattern. Consequently they could hedge their US currency exposure before it lost 13 % to the Euro