Japanese machinery orders
Attention Shared by Central Bank Decisions & Year-end Data Deluge
December 17, 2025
The dollar rose overnight, led by gains of 0.5% against yen and sterling. The U.S. currency also appreciated 0.2% against the Australian currency and Mexican peso and 0.1% relative to the Swiss franc, euro, kiwi and won. Gold is 0.7% stronger, whereas Bitcoin has softened 0.4%. The price of gold bounced up 1.5%. Ten-year sovereign […] More
Sino-Japanese Geopolitical Tensions Reflected in Weak Yen and Nikkei Losses
November 19, 2025
Ramifications continued on Wednesday from Prime Minister Takaichi’s parliamentary comment that Chinese steps to seize control of Taiwan could elicit a military response from Japan. That insinuation during a Q&A session led to a forceful verbal response from Beijing officials. The yen fell another 0.4% overnight against the dollar and at 156.2 has depreciated by […] More
Quiet Monday So Far Aside from Large Gains in Tesla and Crypto
November 18, 2024
The weighted DXY dollar index has ticked 0.1% higher due to a 0.7% rise against the yen but mitigated by marginal dips against the euro, Swissy, and sterling. DOW and SPX futures are little changed, while a 3% advance in Tesla and a 1% rise in Bitcoin reflect President-Elect Trump’s transactional approach to governance. Most […] More
Chinese Monthly Data Out and Markets Unmoved by G7 Leaders Summit
June 17, 2024
The dollar firmed 0.3% against the yen, Mexican peso and Turkish lira but fell 0.1% against the dollar. Share prices closed down 1.8% in Japan, 1.4% in New Zealand, and 0.6% in China but are modestly firmer in Europe. U.S. stock futures have hardly moved away from Friday closing levels. 10-year sovereign debt yields climbed […] More
Competing Market Forces
April 15, 2024
The dominant theme of the first half of April has been the retreat in hopes that a cycle of Fed interest rate cuts might commence as early as June. This shift is being driven by data pointing to stalled U.S. disinflation and stronger-than-assumed economic growth. Monday’s menu of U.S. data includes Stronger-than-expected retail sales that […] More
China Reopens After Week-Long Lunar New Year Celebration but Global Market Depth Still Not Back to Full Strength
February 19, 2024
The Shanghai Composite equity index rose 1.6% on its first post-holiday session, but Hong Kong’s Hang Seng closed down 1.1% and Taiwan only edged 0.2% higher. In other Pacific Rim markets, share prices remained unchanged in Japan, fell 0.6% in New Zealand, and rose 0.4% in India, 0.2% in Taiwan and 0.1% in Singapore. European […] More
Awaiting U.S. March CPI Data and FOMC Minutes
April 12, 2023
Market attention today is fixated on these two U.S. economic releases. While a further deceleration is expected of total CPI inflation, which already has dropped from 9.1% last June to a 17-month low of 6.0% in February, a rise of core inflation (excluding food and energy) above February’s 14-month low of 5.5% also appears plausible. […] More
Market Reaction Muted to Missile Strike in Poland
November 16, 2022
A Russian-made missile struck a grain facility inside Poland, but it remains unclear who fired that round or from where such came. World leaders were fortunately already assembled in Bali, Indonesia, for the Group of Twenty annual summit, and an emergency meeting to forestall a direct Nato-Russian military conflict has so far prevented an outsized […] More
Inflation and Russian Invasion of Ukraine Casting Longer Shadows
March 17, 2022
Equities behaved in a widely diverse way overnight after the Fed enacted the first of many rate hikes. Share prices closed up by 7.0% in Hong Kong, 3.5% in Japan, 3.0% in Taiwan, 1.8% in India, 1.7% in China, and 1.1% in Australia. But stock markets so far are down this Thursday by 1.0% in […] More
China Reports Economic News; U.S. MLK Birthday Holiday Squelches Market Response
January 17, 2022
The U.S. observance of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday points to light market trading volume this Monday and will limit any immediate reaction to the release of Chinese data covering fourth-quarter GDP and capacity usage, December retail sales, industrial production, property prices, fixed asset investment, unemployment or the first interest rate cut by the People’s […] More
