The U.S. dollar is slumping, but investors could still make some greenbacks off of a few key stocks.
FX strategists at Goldman Sachs predict the trade-weighted USD will weaken some 5.3% in the coming year, off of a roughly 4% slump from mid-May, strategists at the firm wrote in a note Friday.
To be sure, the dollar has taken a beating recently (the U.S. Dollar Index is down about 4% in the last month)—And there are those that are predicting the coronavirus crisis could topple its supremacy altogether. But despite the selloff, strategists at Goldman believe “the greenback remains overvalued by most metrics and offers poor fundamentals.”
Indeed, Morgan Stanley’s chief investment officer Lisa Shalett wrote in a Monday note that “we finally see the dollar bull dying, too, as the forces that created dollar scarcity—superior relative growth and yields, a shrinking current account deficit and more effective post-crisis policies—fade.”
For investors, that means it might be time to consider repositioning. While a weaker dollar likely bodes ill for domestic-heavy stocks like consumer discretionary, strategists at Goldman point out it could be a boon for a few key sectors with a heavy focus in international sales: Namely, “international-facing” tech and energy (which have 57% and 39% of sales internationally, Goldman points out).
And the big news? Goldman notes since times of weakness for the USD typically make U.S. stocks more appealing for foreign investors, strategists at the firm expect foreign investors to snap up $300 billion of U.S. equities
this year “and replace corporations as the largest source of US equity demand,” strategists wrote.
While the firm notes that “exchange rates are often a reflection of underlying economic conditions rather than a direct driver of stock returns,” stocks in info tech and energy (and those that are higher growth and quality) have historically been the stronger performers. Or, in other words, “When the USD weakens, investors should favor firms with a larger share of revenues generated abroad,” the strategists wrote.
Some stocks that should benefit?
Those with a high concentration in international sales like tech giants Nvidia, Applied Materials, Qualcomm, Texas Instruments, Facebook, Alphabet, and Intel; and some energy names including Baker Hughes and TechnipFMC.
Additionally, the firm points out that stocks with higher sales in Western Europe and BRICs countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) have also performed well while the U.S. dollar was down. A few top names in those baskets include PayPal, Accenture, Exxon Mobile and Netflix.
