Foreign Exchange Insights and Next Week
Next Week
February 25, 2011
Being the first week of a new month, a bunch of central bank meetings, purchasing manager surveys, and U.S. labor market indicators are planned for the week of March 4. The monetary policy announcements will be made in Australia, Canada, Brazil, Euroland, the Czech Republic, Indonesia, Poland and Mexico, plus the Fed Beige Book, which […] More
Central Bank Watch
Rate Raising Comes to Colombia Finally
February 25, 2011
The Colombian interest rate was raised today by 25 basis points in the first advance since July 2008. The benchmark central bank rate had been 3.0% since a 50-basis point cut on April 30, 2010 that culminated and 8-step, 700-basis point reduction beginning in December 2008. 600 bps of that drop was done in 2009. […] More
Foreign Exchange Insights and Next Week
A Murkier Currency Market Outlook Due to the Uncertain Fate of Oil Prices
February 25, 2011
A risk remains that oil and other commodity prices will remain extremely volatile in the period ahead. The market is trading on political news headlines and therefore intrinsically less stable than when markets march to the beat of economic data. At the high of $103.41 per barrel yesterday, oil prices had shot up 22.6% since […] More
Central Bank Watch
Russian Monetary Policy Tightened: Refi Rate and Reserve Requirement Both Raised
February 25, 2011
Bank Rossii today escalated its attack on inflation. Propelled mostly by higher food costs, the 12-month rate of CPI inflation had risen to 9.6% in January from 8.8% in December, 8.1% in November, 7.5% in October, 7.0% in September, 6.1% in August and 5.5% in July. The medium-term inflation goal is 7%. Central Bank officials […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
Better Market Tone as Middle East Fear Ebbs
February 25, 2011
Stocks recovered 1.8% in Hong Kong and Singapore, 1.7% in Sri Lanka, 0.9% in Thailand, 0.7% in Japan, 0.6% in Australia and 0.4% in India. In Europe, equities climbed 1.2% in Paris, 0.5% in Frankfurt, and 0.2% in London. Ten-year sovereign debt yields rose three basis points in Germany, two bps in Britain and a […] More