Yen’s safety status at risk from corona rates collapse
Trend shift seen as good for Japan, headache for ECB
Updated 01 October 2020
Reuters
LONDON: The coronavirus epidemic — and the collapse in global interest rates it has sparked — may have blown a hole in conventional market wisdom that Japan’s yen strengthens during crises, triggering a warning bell for investors.
The yen has long been among the assets in greatest demand during disasters, when waves of overseas-held capital traditionally flee back to Japan, pushing the currency higher.
And for more than two decades, the trend has held.
Since 1997, a 5 percent fall in the US S&P500 index was accompanied 76 percent of the time by yen appreciation, according to a study by Nordea.
In mid-March, when the pandemic shock was at its height, that didn’t happen. US equities tumbled 9 percent and 15 percent in successive weeks, but the yen fell, too. In subsequent selloffs, including this month’s 4 percent equity slump, the currency has barely budged.
“The correlation with stocks didn’t hold during the corona crisis, which is a game changer as to how everyone looks at the yen,” Andreas Steno Larsen, chief global FX strategist at Nordea Markets, said.
The inverse 90-day yen-S&P500 correlation has since weakened to near decade-lows, he noted.
Between Jan. 20 and Sept. 9, the yen firmed 2 percent against a basket of major currencies, State Street calculates — a stark contrast with its 27 percent surge during the 2008 crisis.
Any lasting shift carries profound implications.
For Japan’s export-reliant economy, having frequently contended with sudden yen spikes, it is a positive. Investors though, face a hunt for other havens, should the yen lose that status.
It is a source of unease for investors such as Aaron Hurd, senior currency portfolio manager at State Street Global Markets, who uses the yen as a counterweight to risky assets in some investment models.
While Hurd doesn’t believe the yen has shed its safe-haven role, he said its gains during recent risk-off episodes had been “a bit disappointing” and needed monitoring.
The yen’s reputation stems from Japan’s stash of foreign assets, at $3.5 trillion the world’s largest international investment position. But it is also linked to a well-established market trend — the carry trade, where low-yield currencies are borrowed and then sold for higher-yield assets overseas.
That makes the yen prone to periodic spikes; when world markets go into reverse, so do carry trades, fueling a rush back into the funding currency to limit losses.
But yen-funded carry trades declined to around 8 trillion yen ($75.5 billion) in July, estimates Tohru Sasaki, JPMorgan’s head of Japan market research, down from a steady 10 trillion yen or so in recent years and a 2007 peak around 23 trillion yen.
What has changed is that this year’s worldwide collapse in short-term rates has eliminated the yield discount the yen has held since 1995, when Japanese benchmark rates fell to 0.5 percent.
Oliver Brennan, macro strategist at TS Lombard, said Swiss and euro zone interest rates were below Japan’s, so “if yen shorts from carry trades are going to be much smaller then the yen would no longer act as a risk-off currency.”
While Japanese three-month money market rates are at minus 0.1 percent, equivalent US rates have fallen to minus 0.2 percent versus 2 percent a year back and euro rates are at minus 0.52 percent, down from minus 0.4 percent.
It is still early days; after all, acute dollar shortages in March saw all other currencies being brushed aside. But guessing the identity of the next haven currency is already “the hottest topic in FX markets,” said Nordea’s Steno Larsen.
The shifting FX dynamics may test the European Central Bank.
With minus 0.5 percent interest rates, a balance of payments surplus, large capital markets and recent improvements in European cohesion, the euro might well be a candidate to replace the yen.
One central bank official recalled the euro’s sudden spike to 14-month highs in March, driven possibly by carry traders who had used it for funding before turmoil erupted.
“It may be due to the fact that running up to the COVID-19 stress there had been some shifts in the preferred funding currency for carry trades and the euro emerged as the currency you want to be short,” he said.
Creativity, heritage and technology converge in a new generation of artists
Updated 13 February 2026
Nada Alturki
RIYADH: As Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 places creativity, culture and technological innovation at the core of national development, the impact of these priorities is becoming increasingly visible across a wide range of disciplines and practices.
Through the use of artificial intelligence, young Saudis are integrating technology into their creative work both as a practical tool and as a medium in its own right. In doing so, they are expanding their capabilities, exploring personal and collective identity, and finding new ways to preserve and reinterpret cultural heritage.
“AI gives young Saudis a new way to interact with their own cultural inheritance,” said Dmitry Zaytsev, founder of Dandelion Civilization, a platform designed to help individuals shape unique professional paths.
Dmitry Zaytsev, founder of Dandelion Civilization. (Supplied)
“Traditional design elements such as calligraphy or geometric motifs were once difficult to modify. Experimentation required resources and formal approval. AI removes that barrier and makes exploration immediate. A creator can test many versions of a pattern and see which ones still feel authentic to them,” he told Arab News.
According to Zaytsev, this emerging form of expression does not signal a rejection of tradition, but rather a deeper engagement with it. “The young creator discovers what can change and what must remain constant. AI becomes a sketchbook that allows culture to evolve through curiosity rather than fear. When creators correct a model or push it toward local rhythm, they strengthen rather than dilute cultural identity,” he explained.
Sarah AlBaiz, an art adviser, researcher and artist, uses code to blend visual art with concepts drawn from culture and philosophy. While her early practice focused primarily on painting, her trajectory shifted during the 2020 AI Artathon, a pioneering international event highlighting collaboration between humans and machines in artmaking, where she discovered how to merge her engineering background with her creative work.
DID YOU KNOW?
• Saudi youth are using AI as a creative tool to reinterpret heritage, from calligraphy to folklore.
• AI is helping artists experiment faster without the traditional barriers of resources or formal approval.
• The Kingdom is backing creative AI nationally, with programs like SAMAI aiming to empower 1 million Saudis for an AI-driven future.
Operating within the field of computational creativity, where technology actively participates in the artistic process, AlBaiz explores themes of finance and faith. “Because they’re two sides of who I am,” she said. “When you talk about values, for example, that is both a term used in finance and trade from an objective perspective, but also moral and spiritual value.”
“When you understand prompting in AI, you can get it to produce almost anything. But it’s also informed by the training data it has,” she said.
Sarah Albaiz's "Diriyah II (2020)" melds a traditional Saudi landmark with the avant-garde. This generative artwork rejuvenates the historic Alsalwa Palace in Diriyah. By infusing Munira AlTheeb's artistry through GAN style transfer, the piece stands as a testament to the evolving narrative of Saudi heritage. (Supplied)
Rather than relying on a single platform, AlBaiz experiments with multiple AI models to test their limitations and audience reception. “I work a lot with language as well, so large language models are right up my street when it comes to computational creativity.”ee
Her work has gained international recognition. At the 2022 Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, she co-created an artwork under the banner of Super Artistic AI that generated Al-Qatt Al-Asiri motifs from southern Saudi Arabia. The piece received an Audience Award.
Beyond her artistic practice, AlBaiz is developing an intelligent art advisory system aimed at helping users navigate the Saudi art landscape. Designed as an initial point of contact, the system would guide users through potential pathways before they engage with a human adviser.
Inverting established gender norms, Sarah Albaiz's digital collage reimagines masculinity. Set against a generative backdrop, its core message "real men cry" challenges familial WhatsApp discourses. (Supplied)
“It’s about understanding what role AI plays in the pursuit of what you want,” she said. “When I decided to focus on Qantara and building the advisory, I recognized that many of the systems required would need to be intelligent systems that offload a lot of work from me and the team.”
“When AI is an enabler rather than the end result, it becomes less intimidating because it feels risk-free for the end user,” she added.
Zaytsev echoed this idea, describing AI as a kind of rehearsal space. “Young people practice conversations, explore sensitive topics and organize their thoughts without social risk. This builds emotional clarity and confidence,” he said.
While generative tools such as large language models attract much of the attention, AI’s creative applications extend far beyond text and image generation.
Fairooz Alawami, trained as both an architect and engineer, uses AI to create self-expressive visual works inspired by dance.
Fairooz AlAwami's work. (Supplied)
“My practice is focused on contextualizing movement,” she said. “Because of my architectural training, I work with 3D modeling software called Rhino, which includes a visual coding language. Within that environment, you can also write code in Python, JavaScript or C#.”
Alawami employs OpenPose to analyze videos of her dancing by mapping points across her body. She then applies another computer vision model, MIDAS, which converts images or videos into depth frames. “If OpenPose gives me a skeleton, MIDAS gives me depth,” she explained. The resulting data is fed into 3D modeling software, where it is refined and manipulated into finished artworks.
She began dancing at a young age. “I didn’t find it, it found me,” she said. Movement later became the foundation of her artistic practice, leading to her first major project around three years ago while completing her master’s degree using the Grasshopper plugin. At the time, the workflow was slow and fragmented, but the arrival of ChatGPT helped streamline the process by making it easier to write and learn code.
Fairooz AlAwami's work. (Supplied)
“I think my love for dance and my love for art and design came together in a way that felt uniquely me,” she said. “Once I found that space, I just ran with it. It is my singular voice.”
Her work also draws heavily on cultural and musical heritage. One recent project was inspired by folklore referenced in the iconic song “Al Leila wa Leila” by Umm Kulthum. Alawami extracted musical stems from the track and mapped them to characters within the narrative. “The vocals were Shahrazad, the storyteller, and each stem represented a different narrative element,” she said. Earlier works were influenced by Islamic architecture and the geometric patterns found throughout Saudi Arabia and the wider Arab world.
“There are some incredible artists using generative AI to do very impressive things, and I don’t think I fall into that camp,” she said. “For me, AI is more like a skills-gap tool that helps me reach where I want to go.
“As humans, whether we realize it or not, the act of creating feeds us in some way. Lowering the barrier to entry makes creativity less intimidating.”
Opinion
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Today, Saudi Arabia’s creative sector is supported by expanding national infrastructure. Initiatives such as the Cultural Scholarship Program place Saudi students in more than 60 universities worldwide, spanning disciplines from archaeology and literature to design, filmmaking and culinary arts. In parallel, the Kingdom launched the SAMAI initiative last year, aiming to equip 1 million Saudis with the skills needed to engage confidently in an AI-driven world.
Within Vision 2030, culture, tourism, digitalization and AI are treated as strategic sectors rather than peripheral concerns. As Saudi Arabia develops its creative economy as a form of soft power, its youth are becoming increasingly digitally fluent. AI tools are now embedded within creative workflows, enabling a new generation to explore heritage, remix traditional aesthetics and develop narratives that resonate on a global stage.
