Euroland CPI
Strengthening Case for Tighter Monetary Policies
June 2, 2026
This has been another day without the cause of peace being enhanced. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains mostly non-existent. Russia has escalated military bombardments of Ukraine. It remains unclear whether Israel will heed calls for it to deescalate its war in Lebanon. There has been a direct link between the geopolitical strife in […] More
U.S. PPI, Fed Decision and Powell’s Press Conference Loom on a Day With Many Other Central Bank Rate Decisions as Well
March 18, 2026
There’s been scant net movement in the dollar overnight. The Federal Open Market Committee is not expected to change the 3.5-3.75% federal funds target range, but today’s meeting has created considerable attention. It’s Chairman Powell’s next-to-last meeting as chairman, but he could stay on the committee into 2028 when his 14-year term as an at-large […] More
Shifting Expectations about What Central Banks Might Need to Do
March 3, 2026
All things considered, the reaction of financial markets yesterday to the quickly unfolding war in the Middle East was more muted than many had reason to expect. The media are having a hard time keeping up with the rapidly changing events, and a crisis-watcher is apt to be misled by anything but real-time breaking news. […] More
Dollar Unmoved by Record-Long State of the Union Address
February 25, 2026
Aside from a 0.5% overnight rise against the yen and a 0.5% drop versus the Australian dollar, the U.S. currency is narrowly mixed, and the DXY weighted dollar index is unchanged from Tuesday’s closing value. Major U.S. equity index rises of about 0.5% in pre-open futures trading show smaller increases than many other stock exchanges. […] More
Witching Hour
October 31, 2025
Halloween 2025 finds the dollar in treat mode, with overnight gains of 0.4% against the kiwi, 0.3% versus sterling, 0.2% relative to the loonie, Aussie dollar and Swiss franc and 0.1% against the euro. While many stock markets are closing the week on a down note, U.S. stock futures an hour before the opening bell […] More
News of Regional Bank Credit Strains Inject Fresh Fears into the Marketplace
October 17, 2025
The report of distressed loans by Zions Bancorp and Western Alliance Bancorp sent their share prices crashing 13.1% and 10.8% today and created an unsettling deja vu from 18 years ago. According to AI Overview, On August 8, 2007, the global financial crisis intensified as banks experienced liquidity problems stemming from the collapse of the […] More
Financial Markets Come Out of Summer in a Foreboding Mood
September 2, 2025
On this first U.S. business day of September, the dollar rallied strongly but only because of a wave of risk aversion sweeping through world financial markets. Overnight dollar gains include advances of 1.4% against sterling, 1.1% relative to the yen, 1.0% versus the kiwi, 0.9% vis-a-vis the Aussie dollar, 0.7% against the euro and 0.5% […] More
Perfect Storm: Tariff D-Day, U.S. Labor Market Shocker and A Lot of Other Data to Digest
August 1, 2025
It’s been a bad day for the dollar and equities. The weighted DXY dollar index has sunk 1.2%, led by 1.3% drops against the euro and Japanese yen and a 1.0% drop against the Swiss franc so far. The greenback has also fallen 0.7% relative to the Australian dollar and 0.5% versus sterling and the […] More
Dollar and Sovereign Debt Yields Up
July 17, 2025
Broadly based dollar rises overnight followed Trump’s denial that he plans to fire Powell and a Beige Book signaling modest to moderate growth in most Federal Reserve districts. There was some relief, too, that yesterday’s producer price report was less alarming the the consumer price data released Tuesday. Several more U.S. data reports are on […] More
Dollar Kicks Off A New Quarter With Another Decline
July 1, 2025
The weighted DXY dollar index slipped 0.4% overnight to a fresh 3-1/2-year low. The dollar lost 0.8% to the yen and Aussie dollar, 0.6% against the Swiss franc, 0.4% against sterling and 0.2% relative to the euro, which at $1.1809 currently is very close to the common currency’s launching level of $1.1876 at the start […] More
