This is the portfolio shifting aspect.

It’s like if the corn crop dies and consumption remains the same, which would drive up the price.

But someone with a huge warehouse full of corn decides to sell it.

The price can go down until that warehouse selling winds down, and then the crop failure aspect takes over.

TOKYO (Nikkei)–Japanese retail investors fled euro-denominated assets in May as Europe’s fiscal troubles dragged on.

The balance of publicly offered euro-denominated investment trusts plunged to 3.92 trillion yen in May, down 14.3% on the month, according to data released Friday by the Investment Trusts Association, Japan. With the decline, euro funds became the third-most favorable type of foreign-currency investment trust — being passed for the first time ever by Australian dollar funds, whose balance slid 9.9% to 4.9 trillion yen.

U.S. dollar funds remained the most popular, with 9.76 trillion yen in assets.

Assets in foreign currencies as a whole fell 8.2% to 27.52 trillion yen.

The balance of all publicly offered investment trusts came to 60.5 trillion yen, down 7.5%.

The steep decrease in the value of euro-denominated assets prompted investors to keep taking their money out of such funds. Investment trusts that mainly target European stocks and those invested in bonds denominated in European currencies marked their 33rd and 20th straight months of fund outflows in May, according to the Nomura Research Institute.