Foreign Exchange Insights and Next Week
Next Week
May 11, 2012
An interest rate meeting is scheduled next week in Iceland, and the FOMC releases minutes from its last meeting. EU finance ministers meet Monday and Tuesday, and the G7 leaders hold their annual summer summit at Camp David on Friday and Saturday. Important state elections in Germany’s most populous region, North Rhine Westphalia, are set […] More
Foreign Exchange Insights and Next Week
Dangerous to do Business
May 11, 2012
Risk aversion is back in vogue. One saw this in equities more quickly than in foreign exchange. Investors can think of many reasons to be averse. The May 6th elections in Europe improved the probability of Greece leaving the common currency bloc in 2012. Four years and 10 months after the onset of the global […] More
Deeper Analysis
U.S. and Canadian Trade and Labor Market Trends
May 11, 2012
Canada’s labor market continues to outperform its southern neighbor’s. U.S. non-farm payroll employment climbed only 134.5K per month in March-April, roughly half the 271.5 monthly rate of increase in January-February. The U.S. April jobless and participation rates were 8.1% and 63.6%, and people working represented 58.4% of the country’s population. Average hourly earnings were 1.8% […] More
Central Bank Watch
Malaysian Monetary Policy Not Changed
May 11, 2012
Officials at the Bank of Malaysia decided not to change the overnight policy interest rate, which has been at 3.0% since a 25-basis point hike in May 2011. Three similarly-sized hikes were implemented from a base of 2.0% in March 2010, May 2010, and July 2010. A Monetary Policy Statement on Bank Malaysia Negara’s web […] More
Central Bank Watch
Peruvian Monetary Policy Unchanged
May 11, 2012
The last reference interest rate hike by the Board of the Central Reserve Bank of Peru in May 2011 culminated a series of ten 25-basis point increases totaling 300 basis points from 1.25% to 4.25% that was begun a year earlier in May 2010. It is now May 2012, and yesterday’s Board announcement kept the […] More
New Overnight Developments Abroad - Daily Update
J.P. Morgan Disclosure and Chinese Monthly Data Rattle Equities
May 11, 2012
The last thing fragile world financial markets needed was another credit derivative trading bomb shell. After U.S. markets closed Thursday, J.P. Morgan disclosed a loss of at least $2 billion incurred in trading credit derivatives, and share prices fell today by 1.4% in South Korea, 1.2% in Vietnam, 1.1% in Taiwan, 1.3% in Hong Kong, […] More
