Recent currency rallies across Asia make zero sense, especially considering how central banks are increasingly heading in that direction — and beyond.
Consider South Korea, which led the pack in March with an 8 percent surge. Slowing economic growth? Accelerating disinflation? A sudden bubble in North Korean missile launches? Nothing, it seems, can keep the won down. Or take Malaysia, site of Asia's most troubling corruption crisis involving $700 million found in the prime minister's bank account. Intrigue in Putrajaya didn't stop the ringgit's inexplicable 7.8 percent jump in March, the biggest since Malaysia's last brush with political chaos in 1998.
The yen has been on an upward tear of its own. Never mind that the economy is sputtering, wages are flat and the Nikkei is tanking — the Japanese currency is a buy. Even the Thai baht is booming as the military junta shooting one of Southeast Asia's most promising economies in the foot shows no sign of holding elections.