The currency markets were fairly calm yesterday, with the dollar pretty much unchanged from the levels I reported in yesterday’s Pfennig. There really wasn’t much new information to push the dollar one way or the other, and the news scrolling on the currency trading screens mainly rehashed concerns over China’s slowdown.
[Read more...]Additional Stimulus Remains on the Table
November 3, 2011 By Leave a Comment
It’s turning out to be a real awful week for Greek Prime Minister, Papandreou… As you know, Papandreou decided to let the Greek people vote on the Eurozone’s Grand Plan… Well… When the Prime Minister (PM) showed up in Cannes ahead of the G-20 meeting he found himself surrounded by Eurozone leaders that have bent over backwards for him and his country, and now feel as though they’ve been thrown under a bus…
[Read more...]Commanding a Recovery
September 2, 2011 By Leave a Comment
We’re in the Charles de Gaulle airport, in Paris, en route to the USA.
Not much to report anyway…at least not to you, dear reader. The Dow went down 119 points yesterday. Gold lost 2 bucks.
Nothing revelatory…no burning bushes…no booming voices from the heavens.
[Read more...]Morons and the Economic Elite
September 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Who’s the moron?
The month of August came and went. It was full of sound and fury — with big whipsaws in stocks — but what did it signify? Nothing?
Yesterday, nothing happened. Stocks were as flat and placid as a democrat’s brain scan.
But the activists aren’t dead. Fed governors. Newspapers. Economists. All are pushing for more intervention. It is just a matter of time; they’ll get it.
[Read more...]FOMC Already Discussing “Options”
August 31, 2011 By Leave a Comment
As Chris was telling you (and by the way, Thanks Chris!) the past couple of days…the markets are in a mood to take it out on the dollar… But not every non-dollar asset has seen the consecutive green lights that bring one to “rally town”. For instance, this morning, the euro (EUR), is seeing some weakness as economists are marking down their previous forecasts for global growth, which would hurt German exports… Yes, the Chicken Littles are out in force, claiming the sky is falling, the sky is falling, all over the world. So, that brings the worry warts to buy dollars… Strange, eh?
[Read more...]Bernanke Backtracks Stimulus Talk
July 15, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The dollar fights back… Yes… Back and forth from a “buy dollars” bias to a “sell dollars: bias. Billy Preston (the 5th Beatle) sang about this… Will it go round in circles… Will it fly high like a bird up in the sky… But, hey! That’s OK, because what this kind of trading does, is keep campers on both sides of the river…and that’s what makes a good liquid market, for when all the campers decide to get on one side of the river, it gets too darn crowded! And the campgrounds get overused, and run down…
[Read more...]Moody’s Warns of a Downgrade for US Debt
July 14, 2011 By Leave a Comment
Well… Big Ben Bernanke Opened Pandora’s Box of stimulus yesterday, and he had some words for our fave lawmaker, Ron Paul…
But first, front and center today we have gold heading toward $1,600, trading at a new all-time high of $1,593! WOW! Silver has followed gold’s line, and is trading above $39… So, what’s got the precious metals all lathered up? Ahhh grasshopper, it’s all about words… Words, between the lines of age, as Neil Young sang back in the ‘70s…
[Read more...]How to Stimuluate Inflation and a Weak Dollar
June 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment
The Dow Jones Industrial Average slumped another 61 points yesterday, giving the US stock market a jumpstart on a sixth consecutive losing week. Bad economic news is, apparently, bad news after all.
“US equities halted their longest streak of gains in a month,” Bloomberg News reported last Wednesday, “after companies added 38,000 workers to payrolls in May, according to figures from ADP Employer Services, less than one quarter of the median growth forecast by economists.”
[Read more...]
Successful Investing Strategies in a Government-Centric Market
You’ve heard of “risk on”; you’ve heard of “risk off”… But have you heard of “everything off”?
That’s the trade that seems to be underway right now. Investors are dumping everything with a ticker symbol: US stocks, foreign stocks, government bonds, corporate bonds, precious metals, crude oil and almost every other commodity.
[Read more...]