The winners and losers of dedollarisation

LET'S start with the winners: first up, countries rich in commodities but no longer dependent on selling them in dollars.

- Peter McGahan

Think Russia, Brazil, the UAE, even Saudi Arabia, nations whose natural resources now trade in local currencies or via regional blocs like BRICS. That means when they sell oil or gas the money comes straight into their economy in a currency they control. There's no longer a need to hold dollars, hedge against currency shocks or follow the US Federal Reserve's every move. Whoop.

Winning asset classes? Gold and tokenised gold, already being accumulated by central banks as the ultimate non-dollar safe asset. It’s increasingly used in BRICS financial infrastructure.

Real assets: farmland (why Gates is buying up so much in the US), water rights, energy infrastructure sectors directly aligned with tangible value in a de-financialising world.

Digital assets: sovereign backed central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) and possibly Bitcoin, as a stateless reserve alternative, but only in jurisdictions open to them.

These countries now enjoy greater policy independence. They're not dragged along by US interest rate hikes and they're able to reinvest their commodity income into long-term projects such as roads, power stations and digital infrastructure in ways that can create sustainable domestic growth and attract foreign investors. Read about the extraordinary success China has had with this. That's why, increasingly, investors are chasing yields in real, productive assets in these markets.