Nomura Warns: AI Capital Retreat Could Pressure the Dollar on Three Fronts
nashnova research
Nomura's head of G10 FX strategy warns that massive foreign inflows into U.S. AI assets have created a fragile link — if the AI trade unwinds, the dollar faces simultaneous pressure on rate differentials, the growth narrative, and capital flows, with haven money already bypassing the greenback for the yen and franc.
Why is the AI trade tied to the dollar?
Foreign capital has poured into U.S. tech stocks, cloud-computing corporate debt, and power-grid infrastructure over recent years, reaching all-time highs.
Most of this money is portfolio investment — stocks and bonds — not foreign direct investment like factories or acquisitions. This means → it can move out as fast as it moved in; one shift in conviction is enough.
Wells Fargo's head of global FX strategy, Erik Nelson, compares these inflows to emerging-market "hot money": institution-driven, and quick to rebalance once views on U.S. growth, rates, or tech valuations change.
If the AI trade reverses, how does the dollar fall?
CIBC FX strategist Noah Buffam notes that the AI trade repriced U.S. rates higher, which in turn lifted the dollar — if that transmission chain breaks, the hit comes from three directions at once.
Front one: rate-differential compression → Disappointing AI investment returns force the Fed to cut, eroding the dollar's yield advantage.
Front two: narrative collapse → Domestic investment slows, puncturing "U.S. exceptionalism" — the belief that America's economy will keep outperforming the rest of the world.
Front three: capital outflows → Institutional demand for U.S. corporate debt and equities fades, removing the dollar's structural bid.
What early warning signs have already appeared?
CDS spreads — a measure of how likely the market thinks a company is to default — on heavily indebted cloud firms like CoreWeave have widened sharply in recent weeks, spilling over into their stocks.
Scotiabank's chief FX strategist Shaun Osborne says: "From the CDS side, we can see fraying at the edges."
The more telling signal: when AI valuations came under pressure last week, haven flows went to the yen and Swiss franc, not the dollar. This means → the market is starting to treat AI risk and dollar risk as the same thing, questioning the greenback's safe-haven role.
How does this compare to the dot-com bubble?
Nelson cites history: after the Nasdaq peaked in March 2000, the dollar stayed strong for nearly two years — it only broke down when collapses like WorldCom triggered a U.S. credit crisis, compounded by a global growth recovery.
But this cycle's AI infrastructure build is far more U.S.-centric, concentrating the vulnerability. In plain terms = when the dot-com bubble burst, the damage was spread around; this time, if it breaks, nearly all of it lands on the dollar.
Nelson's data shows the real trade-weighted dollar has sat above its long-run average (since 1973) for twelve consecutive years — the longest stretch on record. Meanwhile, the U.S. is running a large fiscal deficit, unlike the surplus near the 2000 tech peak. This means → if countercyclical stimulus is needed, the policy room is far smaller than it was then.
What signal would actually trigger a deep dollar decline?
Nelson stresses that the key trigger is not whether tech stocks fall, but whether pressure morphs into "a U.S.-specific credit and growth problem" that reshapes expectations for the Fed's policy path.
If that scenario materializes, the yen is the most likely major beneficiary.
There is an exception, though: if stress escalates into a systemic dollar-liquidity crisis, precedents from 2008 and March 2020 show investors scrambling for dollars to meet dollar-denominated liabilities — producing a brief but powerful dollar spike. Not every extreme scenario is dollar-negative.
Heading into 2027, what is the dollar's core risk?
Nelson states plainly: "The sensitivity of global investors to a major reassessment or sell-off in the dollar is quite significant. Going into 2027, this is a vulnerability worth watching."
Some market participants argue that since the sharp dollar sell-off triggered by Trump's sweeping tariffs in April 2025, the dollar has re-emerged as a core risk variable for global markets.
This reflects a deeper shift: whether the AI narrative holds is no longer just a tech-sector question — it has become the key test of whether the dollar's vulnerability turns real.
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