Why Investors Keep Losing Money Betting Against the Hong Kong Dollar Peg

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Every week, hosts Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway take you on a not-so-random walk through hot topics in markets, finance, and economics.

For years, macro hedge fund managers have been stalking the Hong Kong dollar. Since 1983, the currency has been pegged at around 7.75 per U.S. dollar, and it basically has never budged from that. But that hasn’t stopped investors from taking big bets, with potentially major payoffs, that the Hong Kong Monetary Authority would sever the peg in some way. So why do traders keep making this bet, and is now the moment when it finally pays off? On this episode, we speak with Christopher Wiegand, the chief investment officer and co-founder of Royal Bridge Capital, about the history of the Hong Kong dollar, and the factors that have made betting against it such a loser over the years.

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