Summary: Notable that as the CRB Index moves lower, MSCI emerging market equities have done well. European banks are retreating after the stress test results. Tokyo elected its first women governor as this seem to be in part a sign of protest against Abe. August has begun off with clear price action. The US dollar is stronger against nearly all the major currencies. Bond yields are higher. Equities and...
Read More »FX Weekly Preview: After this Week, Does August Matter?
Summary: RBA meeting is a close call. BOE meeting consensus on rate cut, maybe new QE and lending-for-funding. More details of Japan’s fiscal policy. U.S. jobs data. After this week, and outside of RBNZ rate cut, August may be uneventful. There are four events this week that will command the attention of global investors. The Reserve of Bank of Australia is first.It is a close call, though the median in the...
Read More »FX Daily, July 14: Will BOE Ease on May Day?
Swiss Franc The euro-Swiss is moving back to reality, after the risk-on run in the beginning of the week. The continued yen weakening is slightly negative for the franc given that some algorithms correlate the two safe-haven currencies. Click to enlarge. United Kingdom After a nearly three weeks of turmoil following the UK referendum, there is now a sense of order returning to UK politics. Two elements of the new...
Read More »FX Weekly Preview: Sources of Movement
Summary: Electoral politics remains significant. BOE is likely to cut rates, while BoC may tilt more dovishly. US Q2 earnings season formally begins. Investors are under siege. A growing proportion of bonds in Europe and Japan offer negative yields. The German and Japanese curves are negative out 15-years, while one cannot find a positive yield among any tenor of Swiss government bonds. Despite a string of...
Read More »Next Up for Central Banks: Infrastructure Investments?
In the years following the global financial crisis, the world’s leading economies have found relief through aggressive monetary policy. But with interest rates slashed to historic lows and central bank balance sheets significantly larger as a percent of GDP than they were before the financial crisis, policymakers will need alternatives to interest rate cuts and conventional quantitative easing when the next recession comes along. U.S. central bankers have cut real interest rates between...
Read More »ETF Securities Reports Biggest One-Day Gold Inflow Since Financial Crisis
It never ceases to amaze how vastly different the investment styles of gold paper vs physical traders are: while we have documented previously how the latter tend to buy progressively more the lower the price (as traditional “buy low, buy more lower” investing would suggest), “investors” in gold paper-derivatives such as ETFs and ETPs are quite the opposite: in fact, they rarely buy until someone else is buying and...
Read More »Brexit and what if means for the Bank of England
“Some market and economic volatility can be expected as this process unfolds,” Carney said in a televised statement in London after the referendum result. His comments followed Prime Minister David Cameron’s announcement that he will step down this year, which will inject political uncertainty into an already volatile period. His full announcement is below and his statement can be found here: [embedded content]...
Read More »Central Bankers Around The Globle Scramble To Defend Markets: BOE Pledges $345BN; ECB, Others Promise Liquidity
There was a reason why we warned readers two days ago that "The World's Central Bankers Are Gathering At The BIS' Basel Tower Ahead Of The Brexit Result": simply enough, it was to facilitate an immediate response when a worst-cased Brexit vote hit. And that is precisely what has happened today in the aftermath of the historic British decision to exit the EU. It started, as one would expect, with Mark Carney who said the Bank of England is ready to pump billions of pounds into the financial...
Read More »Bank of England Opens Access to Payment System
A progress update by the Bank of England describes the Bank’s intention, over time, to extend direct access to RTGS to non-bank Payment Service Providers (firms granted the status of E-Money Institutions or Payment Institutions in the UK), collectively known as PSPs. By extending RTGS access, our objective is to increase competition and innovation in the market for payment services.
Read More »The British Referendum And The Long Arm Of The Lawless
Submitted by Danielle DiMartino Booth via DiMartinoBooth.com, “Kings have long arms, many ears, and many eyes.” So read an English proverb dated back to the year of our Lord 1539. And thus was born an idiom that today translates to the very familiar Long Arm of the Law. It stands to reason that such a warning was born of feudal times when omnipotent and seemingly omnipresent monarchs personified the law, possessed...
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