The European leaders were battling a pretty major storm that the ratings agencies helped create late last week when S&P cut the ratings on 9 euro-region countries. The most dramatic move was the loss of France’s AAA rating, leaving Germany as the sole AAA rated country in the currency union. Austria also lost its AAA rating while Italy and Spain fell by two notches and Portugal’s debt was cut to junk status. The ratings of Malta, Cyprus, Slovakia, and Slovenia were also lowered.
[Read more...]Global Manufacturing Takes a Hit
September 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Yesterday morning I told you that with the day being the last of the month, we could very well see some currency weakness, as traders square their books, and close out short positions in the dollar. And that’s exactly what I think we saw yesterday… The bias switched from dumping dollars to buying them, but not at breakneck speed, just a gentle flow…
[Read more...]The Chairman of the Federal Reserve is Clueless
August 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment
When it came to financial failure, there was no one in Washington – or on earth – who had masterminded more disastrous policies or produced more erroneous forecasts than Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke. Had he been an imperial soothsayer in a medieval court he would have lost his head or, at best, he’d be rotting in a dungeon.
[Read more...]Greece Dominates Markets’ Focus
June 28, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The mini-rally that began in Europe yesterday, remains in place this morning, with the currencies trading a very tight range all day yesterday. There was one brief bump higher about midday, but that didn’t last long… The reason for the “bump” was news from France that they were all set to roll the maturities of Greek debt… You can only imagine the joke I came up with when hearing that the French were the first to “roll over the maturities”… All in fun, no one was hurt, and no animals were used in the story!
[Read more...]Eurozone Finance Chiefs Deep-Six the Euro!
June 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The currency mini-rebound did well yesterday, all day… But then came the European session this morning, and more problems with the Greek bailout, and the bickering going on back and forth between the Eurozone Finance Chiefs… All this has deep-sixed the euro (EUR) this morning. The single unit is down 125 cents! So, when I left the office yesterday, the euro was 1.4445… this morning, it’s 1.4315, and looking like it wants to visit the 1.42 handle soon.
[Read more...]China Keeps the Global Growth Hope Alive!
June 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The currencies tried to mount a mini-recovery from Friday’s bloodletting, all day, with some success, but not a whole lot… Then overnight, the risk dial was turned to “ON”, as China reported that not only Retail Sales were strong (see more signs of domestic demand), but that Industrial Production was also strong… You know, it seems about every time the “Chicken Littles” come out of the woodwork to tell anyone that will listen that global growth is going to falter, China prints an economic report that refutes that claim by the Chicken Littles, and the risk meter is turned to “ON” once again.
[Read more...]Inflation Is Coming!
June 13, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Good day… And a Marvelous Monday to you! It’s not a Marvelous Monday for the currencies, stocks, commodities, the Miami Heat, or my beloved Cardinals… Of course, those two teams will get through their rough patches… But the risk assets… Talk about getting slammed on Friday… Whoa! That was one nasty move, and so, here we are on this Marvelous Monday sifting through the ashes of risk assets that got burned on Friday.
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Currencies Rally On Stock Earnings
Good day. It’s Anzac Day in Australia and New Zealand today — their end of the summer holiday, much like our Labor Day holiday. But just because we have these two on holiday today doesn’t mean we don’t have anything to talk about! There’s the FOMC meeting conclusion, problems in the UK (I told you they weren’t out of the woods) and a mini-currency rally going on.
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