U.S. trade deficit
Mulling Service-Sector PMI Results and Waiting for the ECB Rate Hike
May 4, 2023
The dollar is modestly softer this Thursday, with drops of 0.2% against the yen and 0.1% versus the euro, Canadian dollar, and sterling. Ten-year sovereign debt yields have risen six basis points in Italy, 4 basis points in Spain, 2 basis points in Germany and the United States and a basis point in Great Britain. […] More
Takeaways from Today’s U.S. Data Releases
January 26, 2023
Quarterly U.S. real GDP growth of 2.9% annualized in the final quarter slightly exceeded expectations and was only marginally slower than the third quarter’s 3.2% pace. Despite back-to-back contractions of 1.6% in 1Q and 0.6% in 2Q, GDP still managed to expand on average by 2.1% in 2022 after the prior year’s rebound of 5.9%. […] More
Escalating Financial and Political Chaos in Ukraine and Russia, and Rest of World Feeling Pain, Too
February 28, 2022
Ukrainian and Russian talks in Belarus are unlikely to defuse the military conflict. Russian President Putin seeks to replace Ukraine’s government and has insinuated that he may use nuclear weapons if Nato doesn’t back off. In this high stakes game game of chicken, Nato allies seek to decapitate the Russian ruble and financial markets and […] More
Continuing Market Reverberations from FOMC Minutes
January 6, 2022
FOMC minutes released yesterday afternoon, which served notice that the federal funds rate is likely to rise further in 2022 than implied earlier and that central bank balance sheet reduction will commence sooner too, have helped allay concerns that monetary officials are treating the threat of inflation too lightly. Given this change, investors on the […] More
U.S. Sets Records for Monthly Trade Deficit and Number of New Covid Cases
December 29, 2021
With 2021 winding down, the dollar settled back overnight by 0.3% overnight against sterling and peso and by 0.2% relative to the euro, Swissie, Australian dollar, kiwi, and weighted DXY index. However, 2021 has been a robust year for the dollar, which sports a 7% weighted on-year advance. Identified cases of Covid are busting out […] More
Two-Day FOMC Meeting Ends Today with Likely Same Dovish Message
July 28, 2021
Against the backdrop of rising Covid-19 infections in the United States, this isn’t the time for the Fed to express a lot of concern about inflation or to show greater urgency as official begin to contemplate a plan to taper monetary stimulus. In the three days of July 25-27, new U.S. coronavirus cases averaged 57.3k […] More
Dollar Ending 2020 at Year’s Weakest Point
December 30, 2020
The trade-weighted DXY dollar index hit a new 32-month low today of 89.68, some 13% below the year’s high last March. Overnight losses amounted to 0.8% relative to the Australian dollar and sterling, 0.7% versus the New Zealand dollar, 0.5% against the yen, 0.4% vis-a-vis the Mexican peso, 0.3% against the Canadian dollar, 0.2% versus […] More
Price of Oil Jumps and Dollar Falters
August 5, 2020
Overnight declines in the dollar amount to 1.0% against the Mexican peso, 0.9% versus the Australian dollar, 0.6% relative to the euro, Swiss franc and loonie, 0.5% vis-a-vis the kiwi, yuan and sterling and 0.2% against the yen. The price of WTI oil leaped 3.2%, partly in response to an enormous explosion at the port […] More
Brief Comment on U.S. Jobless Insurance Claims and Trade Deficit
April 2, 2020
New weekly jobless insurance claims, which are a proxy for layoffs, shot up by a much greater-than-forecast 6.648 million workers. This was the second big overshoot in a row, yielding a 2-week total of 9.955 million. The weekly average of new claims in the first two months of 2020 had been 212-3/8K, by comparison. As […] More
Trade Tensions Trigger Stampede Out of Risk
August 2, 2019
U.S.-China trade talks do not appear to be going well, and U.S. June trade data didn’t help investor confidence that the problem may get resolved. Stock markets and sovereign debt yields tumbled around the world, as investors ran from riskier assets. Among currencies, traditional safe havens like the yen (up 0.8% against the dollar overnight) […] More
