Currencies Hold Ground Ahead of Jobs Jamboree

This morning, the currencies look pretty much like they did yesterday when I left the office… There’s still the Sword of Damocles hanging over the euro (EUR), in the form of Greek negotiations to obtain help from private lenders. This has dragged on now for over two weeks, and I’ve given up on it happening… You only have to disappoint me twice before I get the message!

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Who’s Still OK With Deficit Spending Now?

I had to laugh yesterday when the New York traders came in and didn’t sell the currencies right away… I said to myself, “Self, maybe the ‘big boys’ read the Pfennig and now know that I’ve uncovered their ‘game,’ so they have to lay low for a while!” HA! Whatever the case, the currencies held their gains most of the day, and even added on in some cases.

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Currencies Rally on Eurozone Agreement

The currency rally that stalled yesterday was back on last night… I have to tell you that I was up most of the night on Sunday and after getting poked and stuck at the doctor’s office yesterday, I went home, straight to my recliner and slept for the next five hours! Then I woke up, went to my computer and checked the overnight markets, and I saw the currencies had turned around, along with gold. So naturally, I began to scour the news to see what was going on.

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Greece Disappoints Again!

Here we are… The last couple of days of January… So the first month of 2012 is just about over, and already, we’ve heard the Fed push their rate forecast for near zero rates out further, and the Fed laying the groundwork for another round of QE… But… When we began the month/year, everyone was pounding their chests, and talking about what a great year 2012 would be (economic-wise)… Talk about deflating the balloon in the first month of the year!

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Home Prices Keep Falling

Good day… Should be an interesting week, as the ECOFIN people meet and Greece is still working on their debt and… this will be my first full week of work in over a month, so all in all, pretty interesting!

What I also found interesting on Friday was the price action of silver… I don’t know if you follow silver or not… I do — very closely, I might add! But silver was outperforming gold by a long shot, rising over $1 on the day, which you don’t normally see in the silver price action. My colleague Aaron yelled over the desk to ask me what was going on with silver, as he too watches it closely… I couldn’t really find anything out there, so the thought came to me very quickly that silver must be playing “catch-up”…

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China to Show More Manufacturing Weakness?

What looked like a workable situation for Greece and private creditors has taken a turn that has the euro (EUR) vulnerable again this morning. It’s not as if the situation is unworkable. It’s just that they are struggling to come to an agreement, and since it’s not as smooth as Jiffy, then the Chicken Littles come out of the crowds… But then, quite frankly, I have been surprised by the strength the euro has displayed this week. The euro has always shown resiliency, but as I’ve said a couple of times now this year… I wouldn’t be surprised to see it fall to 1.18 and then rebound to 1.40… But we have 49 more weeks to go in 2012. There’s a lot of give and take here, so buckle up, yes, that’s right: Click it or ticket…

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Do Investors Pay Attention To Ratings Agencies?

Both Germany and the IMF have cut their growth forecasts for this year. Germany for Germany, and the IMF for global growth… But both are cutting their forecasts because of the same thing… Eurozone weakness, due to the debt problems, which are pushing austerity measures, which will cut growth for certain!

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Euro Reverses Slide in Short Squeeze

The Jobs Jamboree on Friday proved to be a real boost for the economy and the dollar, which rallied on a “strong jobs number” for the first time in a month of Sundays. I highlight “strong jobs number” because, this is what this has come to… 200,000 jobs were created, so says the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in December, which is the strongest number of jobs created in another month of Sundays… The jobs reports have been so weak for so long now, that the media, and markets are all lathered up and calling this a “strong jobs number”… It’s stronger than previous ones, yes…

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France Has a Successful Bond Auction

Front and center this morning, the euro (EUR) has plunged overnight, and now sits 2-cents below where it was yesterday when I was writing the Pfennig. France auctioned bonds this morning, and had to ratchet up the yield, as many buyers are afraid of the rumors that France’s AAA rating is about to be slashed. But this is old news, and shouldn’t have caused the move in the euro that we’ve seen since yesterday.

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