Archive for March, 2010
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Wednesday, March 17th, 2010Fed Stays the Same! At yesterday’s FOMC meeting, the Fed didn’t move on interest rates and maintained the “extended period” language that we have been hearing for, well, an extended period. So how long exactly is “an extended period”? Well unfortunately for the US, this could be a long time. Take a look at Japan, [...]
Fed Day Fun!
Tuesday, March 16th, 2010Today is the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) interest rate announcement and policy meeting that will set the tone for rate policy going forward. While virtually no one expects a rate hike at today’s meeting, once again the market will be listening for changes in the language that may foreshadow what the Fed intends to [...]
The Week Ahead!
Monday, March 15th, 2010Not much happening today except the Empire Manufacturing number and Euro zone employment figures. There is speculation in the market that the Greek Tragedy will not be voted on at the 2-day EU meeting, making today’s theme risk-aversion to start the day. Tomorrow will be the wrap up of the second day of meetings of [...]
Retail Sales Improve!
Friday, March 12th, 2010All eyes were on the US retail sales figures, as the US consumer represents some two-thirds of US GDP. There was speculation that bad weather would affect this number, causing it to be lower than expected. Well, that hedge turned out to be unnecessary, as there was a negative expectation of -.2%. The number came [...]
Which Way to Go?
Thursday, March 11th, 2010As I mentioned yesterday, the currencies are now seemingly beginning to shed the risk on, risk off labels and are starting to trade more on individual fundamentals. While I don’t want to completely abandon risk themes, I’m not going to be so quick to dismiss market movement as risk-taking or risk-aversion. That makes it a [...]
Fundamentals Do Matter!
Wednesday, March 10th, 2010Now that the fears of global collapse have abated—for now—the markets have returned to heavier scrutiny on the fundamental numbers being reported in various countries. It is times like these that remind traders that indeed the fundamentals do matter. The longer the global economy can sustain itself without Armageddon taking place, the more and more [...]
Risky Business!
Tuesday, March 9th, 2010From an outside perspective, some might be shocked at how quickly the market can flip-flop from market euphoria to fear on what seems almost like a daily occurrence. It’s like John Kerry on steroids! I kid, I kid. But on a more serious note, the market can wipe out days of gains in a single [...]
France to the Rescue?
Monday, March 8th, 2010Bet you never thought you’d hear that unless it was the punch-line to some joke. All kidding aside, this past weekend French President Sarkozy gave Greece his support and claimed that if Greece was allowed to fail, then the Euro would be “pointless”. I’m not sure how this is going to sit with Germany, who [...]
Employment Gains!
Friday, March 5th, 2010In a scene out of the movie, Trading Places, all eyes were on the US Non-Farm Payrolls report this morning. In today’s version of the Frozen Concentrated Orange Juice crop report, the number game in at -36K jobs lost, vs. an expectation of -65K. The unemployment rate also held steady at 9.7%. So what does [...]
No Interest Rate Hikes!
Thursday, March 4th, 2010As expected, neither the BOE nor the ECB raised interest rates today with the ECB citing fiscal problems in Greece and the BOE putting a hold on further quantitative easing to see if previous measures have been enough. In other news, US initial jobless claims came in as expected, though all eyes are on tomorrow’s [...]
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