Friday, March 7, 2008

Four Ways you can Make Money off the Falling U.S. Dollar


Luke Mullins offers up four ways you can make some money off of the failing U.S. dollar. Each of the ways if in line with what's happening in the market, and some of them, like the "Multinationals, can be a long-term play, As a matter of fact, when you look at them overall, each one has a strong argument for long-term success.

The reason why is the policy concerning the money supply isn't going to go away any time soon, if ever. That offers great opportunity to bet against the U.S. dollar for the foreseeable future.

Here are four fairly safe plays you could make:

Commodities

Rather than take the risk in investing in individual commodities in a direct way, it would be bette to invest in those producing commodities, like those mining metals and oil companies. It would be worth looking into transportation of certain commodities as well (meaning transportation companies).

As the dollar falls, many of the commodities will continue to rise, which is creating this opportunity.

Multinationals

This one is pretty easy to understand, yet has a solid underpinning and safety involved. This is simply investing in multinational companies based in the U.S. The obvious bluechips like Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) and General Electric (NYSE:GE) are what to look for here.

The exchange rate will definitely help these types of businesses prosper. You want to be sure they have a large foreign presence to take advantage of this successfully.

Currency ETFs

If directly investing in the U.S. dollar is the way you want to go, then an ETF fund is by far the best way to go for the average investor.

The major reason is other stock funds may include ETFs, but the other instruments included in the package would dilute the impact you're looking for from the dollar's slide.

The "DB US Dollar Bearish" fund is built to serve this market.

Foreign funds

A couple of recommendations Mullins cites are from Morningstar senior mutual fund analyst Gregg Wolper, who recommends two funds that have a lot of exposure to currency trends. Those are the Artisan International fund, which has enjoyed over a 21 percent return over the last five years, and the "Julius Baer International Equity II fund, which has many blended currency plays across a number of key nations.

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