Which currency is truly strong after 20 years of USD swings?
From 2006 to 2026, the story isn't just about "which currency gained the most against the USD." A durably strong currency needs three things: a healthy external balance, fiscal policy that doesn't break the anchor of confidence, and a central bank credible enough to fight inflation without breaking the financial system.
Currency is a country's price tag for confidence
If a stock is a condensed indicator for a company - how much the market is willing to pay for its earnings, growth, debt, governance, and future risk - then a currency is the macro version of that same logic. It isn't a country's "stock price" in a simple sense, since a weak currency sometimes helps exports and a strong currency sometimes hurts competitiveness. But over the long run, the exchange rate is still a very real price tag for confidence: the market is pricing a country's ability to preserve purchasing power, control inflation, finance deficits, protect its external balance, and maintain policy credibility.
The IMF frames this mechanism in macro language: the current value of an exchange rate reflects expectations about the future path of economic fundamentals; when expectations about fundamentals shift, the exchange rate shifts. The BIS doesn't treat exchange rates as just a bilateral trading number either: its effective exchange rate dataset is used as a gauge of international competitiveness, financial conditions and transmission of external shocks. In short: a stock price asks "is this company trustworthy?"; a currency asks "is this country trustworthy enough to preserve purchasing power?"
So this piece doesn't just rank which currencies rose or fell against the USD. Performance is the market price; the "intrinsic" layer behind it is the quality of a country's balance sheet: fiscal discipline, central bank discipline, current account, FX reserves, productivity, institutions, and shock resilience.
How to read the table
I calculate performance from the perspective of someone holding the local currency: how many USD one unit of local currency buys. So a positive number means the local currency has strengthened against the USD; a negative number means it has depreciated against the USD.
For pairs quoted as USD/JPY, USD/CNY, USD/SGD, I invert the rate before calculating. For EUR/USD, GBP/USD, AUD/USD, NZD/USD, I use them directly. Spot and historical data come from the Yahoo Finance chart endpoint, checked through 2026-06-02. Some anchor dates fall on a weekend or holiday, so I use the prior trading day; the 10Y anchor uses 2016-06-02, and the 20Y anchor uses the trading day before 2006-06-01.
Performance vs USD
| 1 | CHF | +0.8% | +3.9% | +14.8% | +15.3% | +14.4% | +22.5% | +26.1% | +53.8% |
| 2 | SGD | +0.5% | +0.5% | +5.7% | +5.4% | +3.5% | +9.5% | +7.6% | +23.1% |
| 3 | MYR | +2.1% | +7.3% | +18.7% | +16.4% | +4.0% | +7.8% | +2.9% | -8.2% |
| 4 | GBP | +0.0% | -0.7% | +5.7% | +7.5% | -5.0% | +7.0% | -6.5% | -28.4% |
| 5 | CNY | +3.5% | +6.6% | +7.1% | +4.9% | -5.6% | +5.0% | -2.8% | +18.5% |
| 6 | EUR | -0.8% | +1.7% | +7.3% | +8.2% | -4.6% | +4.1% | +4.4% | -9.8% |
| 7 | AUD | +7.3% | +10.5% | +7.9% | +9.2% | -7.2% | +3.9% | -0.7% | -4.4% |
| 8 | CAD | -1.1% | -0.9% | -1.6% | -2.9% | -13.0% | -2.4% | -5.4% | -20.4% |
| 9 | THB | -3.3% | -0.1% | +13.0% | +6.3% | -4.4% | -3.0% | +9.4% | +17.1% |
| 10 | TWD | -0.6% | -4.6% | +3.3% | -2.7% | -12.4% | -5.0% | +3.7% | +1.7% |
| 11 | NZD | +2.6% | -1.8% | -3.4% | -2.1% | -17.9% | -7.0% | -12.9% | -5.8% |
| 12 | VND | -0.2% | -0.9% | -3.1% | -10.6% | -12.3% | -11.4% | -16.0% | -42.2% |
| 13 | KRW | -5.3% | -9.4% | -9.0% | -13.6% | -26.9% | -19.7% | -22.0% | -38.4% |
| 14 | IDR | -6.5% | -8.9% | -9.2% | -16.6% | -20.1% | -19.8% | -23.9% | -48.3% |
| 15 | JPY | -2.1% | -10.8% | -1.6% | -13.1% | -31.4% | -31.9% | -31.8% | -30.0% |
Price source: Yahoo Finance currency market data. Historical data comes from Yahoo's chart endpoint for each pair, converted to USD per local currency.
Intrinsic ranking table
20-year performance puts CHF, SGD, CNY, THB, and TWD at the top. But when ranked by a currency's "intrinsic" quality, the order still needs to change, because a long exchange-rate cycle can contain reform, a commodity boom, a financial crisis, and policy intervention all at once. I use five criteria:
- External balance: current account, FX reserves, creditor/debtor position.
- Fiscal discipline: deficits, public debt, the ability to raise taxes or cut spending without triggering a political crisis.
- Central bank credibility: fighting inflation, policy independence, signaling ability.
- Exchange rate regime: floating, managed, soft peg, capital controls.
- Institutional quality: rule of law, capital market depth, international investor confidence.
| Intrinsic rank | Currency | Assessment | Main reason |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | SGD | Very strong | A creditor nation with an extremely clean fiscal position; MAS uses the exchange rate as its monetary anchor, reserves are large, and institutional quality is high. |
| 2 | CHF | Very strong | A deep safe haven with low inflation, a credible SNB, conservative Swiss fiscal policy, and a large external surplus. |
| 3 | TWD | Strong but with geopolitical risk | A tech trade surplus, large reserves, and stable fiscal policy; the drawback is concentration in semiconductors and strait-crossing risk. |
| 4 | CNY | Strong but controlled | A trade surplus, large reserves, and state control over the capital account; the drawbacks are real estate, debt deflation, and policy intervention. |
| 5 | CAD | Fairly strong | Good institutions, a credible BoC, deep capital markets; the drawbacks are weak productivity, expensive housing, and dependence on the commodity cycle and the US. |
| 6 | EUR | Fairly strong but fragmented | The ECB has regained credibility after the inflation episode, and the euro is a reserve currency; the drawbacks are a weak fiscal union and divergence between Germany, France, and Italy. |
| 7 | GBP | Moderately strong | An independent BoE and London remains a financial hub; the drawbacks are twin deficits, higher public debt, the post-Brexit hangover, and wavering fiscal credibility. |
| 8 | THB | Moderately strong | Solid reserves and a stable external balance as tourism recovers; the drawbacks are low growth, politics, and an aging population. |
| 9 | MYR | Moderate | Recent performance has been very good, supported by palm oil, energy, and cheap valuation; the drawbacks are fiscal subsidies, politics, and FX liquidity. |
| 10 | AUD | Moderate | A credible central bank and an open market; but AUD is a high-beta China/commodity currency that weakens when the USD is strong or China slows down. |
| 11 | NZD | Moderately weak | Good institutions but small scale, a current account prone to deficit, and dependence on dairy, housing, and foreign capital flows. |
| 12 | KRW | Cyclical, prone to volatility | A strong industrial base, but KRW is a proxy for semiconductors, the China cycle, and global risk appetite; high household debt makes policy difficult. |
| 13 | VND | Managed stability | Good growth and FDI, but the exchange rate regime is managed, reserves aren't especially deep relative to import needs, and the VND is typically soft-pegged toward gradual depreciation. |
| 14 | IDR | High yield, high risk | Bank Indonesia has experience defending the rupiah, but IDR remains an EM carry currency dependent on capital flows, commodities, and fiscal confidence. |
| 15 | JPY | Internally conflicted | Japan holds large external assets, but public debt is extremely high, the population is aging, yields have been low for years, and the BOJ is stuck between inflation, JGBs, and the exchange rate. |
The truly strong group
SGD: Asia's best-managed currency
SGD doesn't need a shock rally to prove its strength. MAS uses the S$NEER - the nominal effective exchange rate - as its primary monetary tool instead of interest rates. For an extremely open economy, the exchange rate passes through to inflation faster than interest rates do. That's why SGD tends to rise slowly but durably.
CHF: the classic safe haven
CHF gained the most in the 20-year table. Switzerland has low inflation, conservative fiscal policy, a large external surplus, and an SNB willing to intervene when needed. The weakness is that when CHF gets too strong, the SNB dislikes it, since it creates deflationary pressure and hurts exports.
TWD: strong balance sheet, heavy geopolitics
TWD doesn't look great on 6-year performance because of exchange-rate management and the USD cycle, but the 20-year window shows it has held its value against the USD better than most of Asia. Taiwan has large reserves and strategic tech exports. The main risk doesn't sit with the central bank - it sits with geopolitics.
The rebound group that isn't necessarily durable
MYR ranks very high on 6-year performance thanks to a strong rebound from its 2024-2025 low, but it slides to the middle of the table over a 10-year window and turns negative over 20 years. Malaysia still needs to be watched on subsidies, the budget deficit, capital market depth, and political stability. MYR can keep performing well if the USD stays weak and commodities are supportive, but it isn't yet in the same intrinsic class as SGD or CHF.
AUD has risen strongly on a YTD and 1Y basis, but by nature it's a high-beta currency. When China stimulates, iron ore is strong, and risk-on returns, AUD jumps quickly. When USD funding tightens or China weakens, AUD falls just as fast. This is a currency that trades with the cycle rather than a store of value.
GBP has recovered well from the 2022 shock, but the UK's fiscal credibility is still a point that needs discounting. The BoE is credible and London still matters, but the current account and public debt don't give GBP as clean a foundation as CHF or SGD.
The group most clearly squeezed by the USD
JPY has lost about 30% against the USD over 20 years, and nearly 32% over the most recent 6-10 years. The cause isn't simply that Japan has gotten "poorer." Japan remains a major international creditor. The problem is that monetary policy is trapped: if the BOJ hikes rates quickly, the JGB market and public debt costs come under pressure; if it hikes slowly, the carry trade keeps selling JPY.
KRW and IDR are both clearly weak over 20 years, but for different reasons. KRW is a cyclical industrial currency, sensitive to semiconductors, exports, and risk sentiment. IDR is an EM carry currency that typically needs high yields to compensate for capital-flow risk. When the USD is strong, both get sold off; over the 20-year window, IDR is the weakest currency in the table.
VND has lost 11.4% over 6 years, 16.0% over 10 years, and 42.2% over 20 years - a smoother path than JPY, KRW, or IDR because the SBV manages the exchange rate within a band and intervenes. But nominal stability doesn't equal absolute strength. For VND, the central questions are FX reserves, the VND-USD interest rate gap, FDI flows, and the ability to preserve confidence in the banking system.
Ranking conclusion
Looking only at 6-year performance, the order is: CHF, SGD, MYR, GBP, CNY, EUR, AUD, CAD, THB, TWD, NZD, VND, KRW, IDR, JPY.
Stretching the window to 10 years, the order changes to: CHF, THB, SGD, EUR, TWD, MYR, AUD, CNY, CAD, GBP, NZD, VND, KRW, IDR, JPY. The biggest difference is that THB and TWD look better, while GBP and CNY no longer look as good as in the 6-year window.
Stretching the window to 20 years, the order changes again to: CHF, SGD, CNY, THB, TWD, AUD, NZD, MYR, EUR, CAD, GBP, JPY, KRW, VND, IDR. This is the window that most clearly shows the structural strength of CHF/SGD, CNY's long appreciation phase after 2005, and the persistent depreciation of many EM currencies.
Looking at durable currency strength, I'd rank them: SGD, CHF, TWD, CNY, CAD, EUR, GBP, THB, MYR, AUD, NZD, KRW, VND, IDR, JPY.
The key point: the strongest currency isn't necessarily the one that rose the most over the past 12 months. MYR and AUD currently have good momentum, but SGD and CHF are the two currencies with the best "balance-sheet quality". Conversely, a cheap JPY doesn't automatically mean strength; it can be cheap because policy is genuinely stuck.
Sources and notes
- Spot and historical FX prices: Yahoo Finance currency market data.
- The argument that exchange rates reflect expectations about fundamentals: IMF, Exchange Rates and Economic Fundamentals.
- Macroeconomic data, fiscal balance, gross debt, current account: IMF World Economic Outlook Database, April 2026.
- Fiscal Monitor and Global Debt Database: IMF DataMapper.
- REER/NEER framework for checking trade-weighted strength: BIS Effective Exchange Rates.
- Singapore's exchange-rate-centered policy mechanism: MAS exchange-rate-centred monetary policy system.
03 Discussion
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