By Peter Schiff

As a contrarian, it is my nature to worry when too many people start agreeing with me. Currently, many of my most vocal critics, who had previously ridiculed my warnings about the dollar, now concede that it will continue to decline. With so many people now on the bandwagon, some currency watchers have asserted that sentiment now has nowhere to go but up, and that the stage is set for a dollar rally. Although I am unnerved by the company, I take solace in the fact that the conclusions that many of these nouveau-dollar bears draw are completely off the mark.

The group is united by two basic assumptions. First is that the dollar’s decline will be orderly, and second is that the decline will actually be positive for both the U.S. economy and the stock market. Therefore, other ways to confound the consensus would be for the dollar’s decline to be disorderly or for it to be negative for both the U.S. economy and the stock market.

For the dollar to register a significant short-term bottom based on negative sentiment, I feel there would have to be a much greater sense of panic associated with its weakness. However such is clearly not the case. The overwhelming consensus is that a weak dollar is good for America. Ironically there is more worry in Europe over the strong euro than there is in America over the weak dollar. My prediction is that before we get any significant dollar bounce this complacency will need to be replaced by outright fear, and that the dollar needs to fall more sharply as investors actually act on those fears by dumping dollars.
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