Carry-Trade Losses Smash Records Amid Mad Dash Into Dollars

  • Emerging-market carry trades have lost 13% this year
  • Indonesia’s rupiah is particularly vulnerable to more losses

Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg

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Emerging-market carry trades are hurtling toward the biggest quarterly loss in at least two decades as the coronavirus fuels a wild rush into the world’s reserve currency.

Returns on trades in which investors borrow in dollars to invest in developing-nation currencies have slumped 13% so far this year, the most since at least 1999, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.