Bank of Israel Buys Equities and Foreign Currencies

As I have been pointing out, inflationism has now become a central banking standard.

The Bank of Israel has reportedly bought $200 million of foreign currencies

From Ynet News.com

The Bank of Israel bought an estimated $200 million of foreign currency on Tuesday in a bid to weaken the shekel after it hit a 19-month high, although the move had little effect.

With exports comprising 40% of Israeli economic activity, the central bank has made it clear it will not allow a steep rise in the shekel.

So nearly every country have been attempting to “devalue” against another, which should provoke a competition or a race to the bottom. Some call this the currency wars.

This also shows how global central bankers will put to test the current paper money standard to the limits. Current developments have made them believe that they have attained a policymaking nirvana or where money printing bears no consequences to the real economy.

Also Bank of Israel is one example of countries supposedly diversifying into equities.

From Bloomberg:

The Bank of Israel plans to almost double equity holdings by the end of the year after falling bond yields prompted the central bank to invest in European shares for the first time.

The bank will increase its stock holdings to as much as 6 percent of foreign-exchange reserves, or about $4.5 billion, from 3 percent at the end of 2012, according to Yossi Saadon, a Bank of Israel spokesman. Investments in shares rose to about 4.5 percent of assets in the first four months of 2013 as the institution made a “small allocation” to European equities in addition to its U.S. funds, he said.

Aside from the political motive, central bank operations seem to have transitioned into hedge fund operations but underpinned by the “guns and badges” institutions.

Bank of Israel’s equity exposure on the European and US equities could be interpreted as providing support on the equity markets of the US and Eurozone.

Ironically, this comes as the shekel is deliberately being devalued by them.

Bank of Israel’s actions thus appears to be tweaking profits via foreing currency-foreign equity arbitrages through policies. 

Are these not insider trading or manipulations? At whose expense? Market players and the economy?

I am not sure whether Bank of Israel’s equity purchases has been entirely foreign.

Nonetheless Israel’s TA-25 appears to be on mends following a downdraft in 2011. (chart from tradingeconomics.com)

Bank of Israel’s recent actions are examples of implicit guarantees on asset prices that only balloons the global pandemic of asset bubbles.