Archive for January, 2010
« Previous Entries Next Entries »Canada Rate Decision Imminent!
Tuesday, January 19th, 2010Canada’s interest rate decision is due out at 9:00AM this morning. It is widely accepted that they will leaves rates unchanged at .25%, which is a record low. Inflation appears to be well within the Central Bank’s target rate of 2%, which could mean that they won’t consider a rate hike until the second half [...]
Quiet Day Today!
Monday, January 18th, 2010Without the benefit of the US stock market trading today, the currency market is meandering around, trying to decide which way it wants to go. It appears as though there is slight risk-taking, with the commodity currencies up vs. the US dollar (USD) as traders re-establish positions that they had taken off for the long [...]
US CPI Shows Modest Increase!
Friday, January 15th, 2010The US Consumer Price Index came out this morning showing a slight increase and not as high as the general expectation, though relatively tame. While this number is not that unexpected or significant, it shows that as of this moment, the greater economic force to combat in the US is deflation, and not inflation. This [...]
US Retail Sales Numbers Stink!
Thursday, January 14th, 2010From the “unexpected” category: US retail sales fell .3% in December, vs. analyst expectations that it would GAIN .5%. This is significant in that the December holiday season is one of the busiest times of the year and December is supposed to be a great month for sales. Holidays, end-of-year bargains, etc usually bring the [...]
ECB Leaves Rates Unchanged!
Thursday, January 14th, 2010In what can only be described as “not surprising”, the ECB left their benchmark interest rate unchanged at 1%. As a result, the Euro (EUR) is down across the board today. Also weighing heavily on the Euro is German Chancellor Merkel’s remarks about the debt issue in Greece hurting the strength of the Euro. As [...]
Pound Gains!
Wednesday, January 13th, 2010The British pound (GBP) is trading higher after a BOE policy maker stated that interest rates in the UK may need to rise this year. This could signal the end to the Quantitative Easing (QE) policy the UK had undertaken to stimulate its economy. So what’s left to do? Sit back and wait. This is [...]
Earnings Start Slow, Move to Risk-Aversion!
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010US corporate earnings season began yesterday after the close as Alcoa (AA) kicked off Q4 with a less-than-stellar report by missing analyst expectations by 5 cents. While this is only one company reporting, the market is fearing that this could be a harbinger of things to come. One of the important things to note is [...]
Euro Gains on Weak Dollar, Oil!
Monday, January 11th, 2010The Euro is up today across the board and is at a 3-week high against the US dollar as dollar weakness is back on the table. In lieu of Friday’s NFP report, investors are betting that US interest rate hikes have now been pushed out even further, and world stock indexes and commodities are up [...]
Non-Farm Payrolls Disappoint!
Friday, January 8th, 2010The US Non-Farm Payrolls Report (NFP) is usually one of the biggest market moving numbers in the currency markets. Today’s number is no exception. The report came in for December at -85K, a very disappointing figure. Estimates were expecting this number to be flat, that we neither gained or lost jobs for the month. Although [...]
BOE Says: No Change!
Thursday, January 7th, 2010The British pound (GBP) is lower today after the Bank of England left interest rates unchanged at a record-low .5% for the foreseeable future. They also made no change to their bond buying (quantitative easing) program. While these moves were not unexpected, it is indicative of the greater economic problems going on in the UK. [...]
« Previous Entries Next Entries »