SNB & CHF

  Sweet Authoritative Nothings The People’s Daily. “Authoritative Person” may be hiding somewhere in the picture to the left. There is a mysterious figure making regular appearances in China’s government mouthpiece “People’s Daily”, which simply goes by the name “authoritative person” (AP). This unnamed entity always tends to show up with bad news for assorted speculators, by suggesting that various scenarios associated with monetary and/ or fiscal stimulus are actually not in China’s...

  Federal Reserve – still managing to maintain enough confidence Photo credit: Adam Fagen / Flickr Confidence Not Lost Yet The price of gold moved down about sixteen bucks, while that of silver dropped about three dimes. In other words, the dollar gained 0.3 milligrams of gold and 0.04 grams of silver. We continue to read stories of the “loss of confidence in central banks.” We may not know the last detail of what that will look like—when it occurs one day. However, we will wager an...

Don’t Plan on Living in St. Petersburg… GENEVA, Switzerland – When we left you last week, we were describing why neither democracy nor planning works on a large scale. Austrian School economist Friedrich Hayek described the problem with great thoroughness in his book The Fatal Conceit. The Fatal Conceit: central economic planning is literally impossible – there can be no centrally planned rational economy. Individual planning is distinct from central planning, in that the many...

The most notable thing is not what has happened, but what has not happened.  The market has not responded to the soft Chinese data over the weekend.  Chinese equities began softer but recovered fully and the Shanghai Composite closed on its highs.  The MSCI Asia Pacific Index is snapping a two-day losing streak with a 0.5% gain. The Australian dollar is often perceived be influenced by developments in China.  China’s disappointing industrial output figures (6.0% from 6.8% in March and...

EM ended last week on a soft note, and that weakness seems likely to carry over into this week.  Dollar sentiment turned more positive after firm retail sales data on Friday, though US rates markets have yet to reflect any increase in Fed tightening expectations.  Over the weekend, China reported weaker than expected April IP, retail sales, and fixed asset investment.  This continues a string of weak data for the month, and will undercut notions that the world’s second largest economy is...

The US dollar extended its recovery that began on May 3.  Its technical condition remains constructive, even though up until now, the gains are still consistent with a modest correction rather than a trend reversal.   The details of the employment report, if not the headline, coupled with the 1.3% increase in retail sales, have boosted confidence that the US economy is rebounding in Q2 after a six-month slow patch.   The average of the Atlanta Fed (2.8%) and NY Fed GDP trackers (1.2%) is...

The US dollar staged an impressive reversal against many of the major foreign currencies on May 3. In the following week, speculators in the currency futures market made significant adjustment in their holdings. We identified a change in the gross position in the currency futures of 10k contracts or more to be significant.  In the week ending May 3, there were two such adjustments. In the CFTC reporting period ending May 10, there six of the 16 gross position we track surpassed the 10k...

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Descrizione

The US dollar continued the recovery begun May 3 and rose against most of the major currencies over the past week.  A nearly 3.5% rally in oil prices, the fifth weekly gain in the past six weeks (a $9.5 advance over the period), helped the Norwegian krone turn in a steady performance.  The Canadian dollar's 0.2% decline put it in second place.   With the strongest rise in US retail sales in a year, prompting the Atlanta Fed's GDPNow tracker to rise to 2.8% for Q2, many observers are...