Currency Markets in the News
Preview of Bank of Japan Quarterly Business Survey
June 30, 2008
The Tankan survey gets released at 23:50 GMT tonight and is expected to reflect an additional deterioration of business conditions, the weakest capital spending plans in six years, and scant profits. The diffusion indices of business conditions in the March 2008 survey had their weakest values since 4Q03 for both large and small manufacturers. The […] More
Australian Monetary Policy Preview
June 30, 2008
At 04:30 GMT on Tuesday, the Reserve Bank of Australia will announce results of its July policy meeting. One can bet the ranch that the cash rate is held at 7.25%. Like their counterparts in many other economies, monetary officials are balancing excessive inflation against a slowing domestic economy. CPI data due July 23rd will […] More
Canadian GDP Improved in April
June 30, 2008
Real GDP in Canada grew 0.4%, led by increases of 2.1% in wholesale trade, 1.9% in factory output, and 0.6% in retail sales. April’s improvement failed to offset fully negative growth in both February and March. GDP fell 0.4% at an annual rate during the six months to April and advanced only 1.2% from April […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
New Developments Abroad: Oil Again Soaring And Dollar Soft
June 30, 2008
Oil (142.88/barrel) is 1.9% above Friday’s closing level and near the $142.99 record high. Gold firmed 0.4% to $935.40/ounce. The U.S. dollar shows fresh losses of 0.8% against the Australian dollar, which hit its strongest level since February 1983, and the yen. The buck also lost 0.6% against the kiwi, 0.3% against the Canadian dollar […] More
Bonds and Stocks
Tough Decade for Equities
June 27, 2008
A 17-1/2 year uptrend in the Dow Jones Industrials carried that index from 777 on August 12, 1982 to a peak of 11,723 on January 14, 2000. It took until October 3, 2006, nearly seven years, for the DOW to overtake the 11,723 peak, and yesterday it fell below that benchmark yet again. So after […] More
Foreign Exchange Insights and Next Week
Foreign Exchange Insights
June 27, 2008
Net oil-consuming nations face a common enemy in soaring energy costs, which lift inflation and cut economic growth. Since the end of the first quarter, oil prices have advanced 38%. The weakest major currencies since end-March have been the yen and Swiss franc, the historic financing vehicles in carry-trade investments. The strongest currencies in 2Q08 were the […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
New Developments Abroad
June 27, 2008
The dollar clawed back 0.1% from the euro and sterling but otherwise extended its losses, dropping 0.8% against the Canadian dollar, 0.6% against the kiwi, 0.5% relative to the Australian dollar, 0.4% against the yen, and 0.2% against the Swiss franc. Oil touched a new high of $141.71 per barrel overnight and is 1.0% higher […] More
Currency Markets in the News
Market to Fed: Wake Up!
June 26, 2008
My first reaction to yesterday’s FOMC statement, laid out in Fed Mum This Time on Dollar, was that an opportunity had been dropped to reinforce the new U.S. policy sensitivity to dollar depreciation. Monetary policy controls the supply-side of money, which must be aligned to demand to safeguard the internal value of that money (measured […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
New Developments Abroad
June 26, 2008
The dollar is 0.4% softer against sterling, which was buoyed by Bank of England King’s assertion that his letter on inflation had been meant to be balanced, not dovish as some in the market had perceived it. The dollar also lost 0.4% against the Swiss franc and is down 0.2% against the euro and by […] More
Fed Mum This Time on the Dollar
June 25, 2008
In his Chatham speech earlier this month, Chairman Bernanke took the extraordinary step of digressing to comment about the dollar and warn about the association of depreciation and internal inflation. Several other verbal salvos in defense of the U.S. currency followed. But the dollar is nowhere to be found in the FOMC statement released earlier […] More
