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Tag Archives: Europe

FX Daily, December 2: Euro Rally Stalls while Brexit Concerns Trip Sterling

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.39% to 1.0817 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, December 2(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview:  The selling pressure that drove the dollar lower yesterday has abated, and the greenback is paring yesterday’s loss, though the dollar-bloc currencies are showing some resilience.  EC negotiator Barnier briefed ministers that the same three issues that have bedeviled the trade talks...

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Meanwhile, Outside Today’s DC

With all eyes on Washington DC, today, everyone should instead be focused on Europe. As we’ve written for nearly three years now, for nearly three years Europe has been at the unfortunate forefront of Euro$ #4. We could argue about whether coming out of GFC2 back in March pushed everything into a Reflation #4 – possible – or if this is still just one three-yearlong squeeze of a global dollar shortage. Either way, Europe gets at it first. In 2018, what had been...

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Consumer Confidence Indicator: Anesthesia

Europeans are growing more downbeat again. While ostensibly many are more worried about a new set of restrictions due to (even more overreactions about) COVID, that’s only part of the problem. The bigger factor, economically speaking, is that Europe’s economy has barely moved, or at most not moved near enough, off the bottom. To interrupt now what has already proved to be a seriously impaired rebound should get people thinking more realistically about 2021. Once...

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Second Wave Global Trade

Unlike some sentiment indicators, the ISM Non-manufacturing, in particular, actual trade in goods continued to contract in May 2020. Both exports and imports fell further, though the rate of descent has improved. In fact, that’s all the other, more subdued PMI’s like Markit’s have been suggesting. Getting closer to a bottom. Unlike any of the sentiment numbers, however, these trade figures better demonstrate just how far from a rebound let alone recovery the world...

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FX Daily, June 26: Investors Wrestle with Notion that More Covid Cases mean More Stimulus

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.01% to 1.0635 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, June 26(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: It may be that a new surge in virus cases will elicit more policy support from officials, but the immediate focus may be on the economic disruption. The number of US cases is reaching records, and at least a couple of states are stopping their re-opening efforts. Several other...

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ECB Doubles Its QE; Or, The More Central Banks Do The Worse You Know It Will Be

A perpetual motion machine is impossible, but what about a perpetual inflation machine? This is supposed to be the printing press and central banks are, they like to say, putting it to good and heavy use. But never the inflation by which to confirm it. So round and round we go. The printing press necessary to bring about consumer price acceleration, only the lack of consumer price acceleration dictates the need for more of the printing press. It never ends. If you...

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Miracles Aren’t Shovel-Ready

The monetary mouse. After years of Mario Draghi claiming everything under the sun available with the help of QE and the like, Christine Lagarde came in to the job talking a much different approach. Suddenly, chastened, Europe’s central bank needed assistance. So much for “do whatever it takes.” They did it – and it didn’t take. Lagarde’s outreach was simply an act of admitting reality. Having forecast an undercurrent of worldwide inflationary breakout (how...

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FX Daily, April 24: Markets Limp into the Weekend

Swiss Franc The Euro has risen by 0.05% to 1.052 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, April 24(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The reversal in US equities yesterday set the stage for today’s losses. All the Asia Pacific bourses fell today but Australia. For the week, the regional index is off more than 2%. Europe’s Dow Jones Stoxx 600 was flat for the week coming into today’s sessions. It is off around 0.5% in...

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The Greenspan Bell

What set me off down the rabbit hole trying to chase modern money’s proliferation of products originally was the distinct lack of curiosity on the subject. This was the nineties, after all, where economic growth grew on trees. Reportedly. Why on Earth would anyone purposefully go looking for the tiniest cracks in the dam? My very first day on the job, as an intern my first boss told me to prepare myself. I was embarking on a career in the most absurd industry...

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Schaetze To That

When Mario Draghi sat down for his scheduled press conference on April 4, 2012, it was a key moment and he knew it. The ECB had finished up the second of its “massive” LTRO auctions only weeks before. Draghi was still relatively new to the job, having taken over for Jean-Claude Trichet the prior November amidst substantial turmoil. The non-standard “flood of liquidity” was an about-face from his predecessor (who had been raising rates in 2011 before the wheels...

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