Currency Basket

A portfolio that holds more than one currency.

Author: Adin Lykken
Adin Lykken
Adin Lykken
Consulting | Private Equity

Currently, Adin is an associate at Berkshire Partners, an $16B middle-market private equity fund. Prior to joining Berkshire Partners, Adin worked for just over three years at The Boston Consulting Group as an associate and consultant and previously interned for the Federal Reserve Board and the U.S. Senate.

Adin graduated from Yale University, Magna Cum Claude, with a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Economics.

Reviewed By: Rohan Arora
Rohan Arora
Rohan Arora
Investment Banking | Private Equity

Mr. Arora is an experienced private equity investment professional, with experience working across multiple markets. Rohan has a focus in particular on consumer and business services transactions and operational growth. Rohan has also worked at Evercore, where he also spent time in private equity advisory.

Rohan holds a BA (Hons., Scholar) in Economics and Management from Oxford University.

Last Updated:October 25, 2023

What is a Currency Basket?

A currency basket is a portfolio that holds more than one currency. It can be thought of as various currencies, each having its own weight in one wallet. It is mainly used to value one cash or to decrease currency-specific risks for investors.

Countries’ monetary authorities use currency baskets to value their currency. Using it helps a central bank protect its currency’s value from significant fluctuations. However, respecting money against only one currency or asset may result in volatile exchange rates.

Fluctuations are much less severe when using a currency basket consisting of different weights of international currencies to value another cash. This helps avoid significant changes in exchange rates.

Also, worldwide investors prefer holding currency portfolios to protect their returns from fluctuations in international currencies. This is because significant changes may eliminate profits or turn them into losses.

It is crucial to mention that there are two types of currency baskets:

1. Dual Currency Basket:

This is a portfolio including only two currencies. However, it is essential to note that currency duos are rarely used among investors and central banks.

2. Multi-Currency Basket:

This is a portfolio consisting of more than two currencies. This type of portfolio is more commonly used worldwide.

Currency Basket Example

One of the most famous currency baskets is the US Dollar Index. It was founded in 1971 and is used to evaluate the US dollar against six different currencies:

  1. Europian euro: EUR
  2. Japanese yen: JPY
  3. British pound: GBP
  4. Swedish krona: SEK
  5. Canadian dollar: CAD
  6. Swiss franc: CHF

It is important to note that the weights of each currency are decided based on the relevance of a coin to the USA.

As Europe is USA’s top trading partner, the weight of EUR in the USDX is 57.6%, forming its most significant component. JPY follows with a weight of 13.6%, with GBP weighing 11.9%. The consequences of the three remaining currencies are 9.1% for CAD, 4.2% for SEK, and 3.6% for CHF.

As observed, all currencies included in the US Dollar Index refer to powerful nations worldwide to ensure stability in the dollar value against its index.

Making a Currency Basket

When creating a currency basket, deciding on the currencies to include is crucial. Users choose currencies based on their purposes. For example, investors seeking to eliminate currency risk would use stable and trusted coins.

Thus, they would build their baskets seeking to eliminate a country-specific risk. The major currencies in the world will generally form the most significant stake in the basket. Such currencies may include American dollars, European euros, or Chinese yuan.

On the other hand, when valuing a currency against a currency basket, users would choose currencies that are relevant to the valued currency's country. They would select the coins of the country's trade partners and the significant financial forces in the world that affect the country.

For instance, as we observed above, more than half of the US Dollar Index consists of euros because Europe is America's top trading partner.

Using a Currency Basket

Investors who operate worldwide hold various currencies. This exposes them to a country's currency-specific risk since they will be subject to diminishing earnings should there be fluctuations in the value of a given currency. 

Thus, investors tend to include various stable currencies for optimal usage of the baskets. To minimize their currency-specific risk, they increase the number of coins in their baskets and decrease each currency's weight. 

They also make sure that chosen currencies do not depend on each other. In other words, their currencies should behave in different ways. For example, this ensures depreciation in the value of a currency does not drive depreciation in the value of an entire basket.

On the other hand, central banks tend to use currency portfolios to value their currency to limit its fluctuations. As a result, money valued against only one asset is more likely to vary than a currency valued against a weighted average of different currencies.

Returning to the era when all currencies were valued against gold, we can see that it was simple to love money. Its value was associated with the value of only one asset, gold.

However, the currency would be susceptible to that asset in this case. Therefore, any fluctuations in the asset's value may result in significant losses or gains on that currency.

Using a currency portfolio to value a currency may be a complicated process. Each coin has many political, economic, and natural drivers that affect its value. Thus, the valuation of a currency against a currency portfolio would embed many sophisticated worldwide drivers.

This results in a more stable currency. In other words, a coin that depends on a breadth of drivers is much more stable than a currency valued against only one driver.

Currency Basket FAQs

Researched and authored by Mohamad Hayek | LinkedIn

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