Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, March 14(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click to enlarge FX Rates UK Prime Minister May got the parliamentary approval the courts ruled was necessary to formally trigger Article 50. It is not clear what UK she will lead out the EU. Scotland is beginning the legal proceedings to hold another referendum on independence. There is some talk that Northern Ireland, which...
Read More »Why Silver Went Down – Precious Metals Supply and Demand
See the introduction and the video for the terms gold basis, co-basis, backwardation and contango. Rumor-Mongering vs. Data The question on the lips of everyone who plans to exchange his metal for dollars—widely thought to be money—is why did silver go down? The price of silver in dollar terms dropped from about 18 bucks to about 17, or about 5 percent. The facile answer is manipulation. With no need of evidence —...
Read More »Gold and the Fed’s Looming Rate Hike in March
Long Term Technical Backdrop Constructive After a challenging Q4 in 2016 in the context of rising bond yields and a stronger US dollar, gold seems to be getting its shine back in Q1. The technical picture is beginning to look a little more constructive and the “reflation trade”, spurred on further by expectations of higher infrastructure spending and tax cuts in the US, has thus far also benefited gold. From a...
Read More »Mugged By Reality; Many Still Yet To Be
In August 2014, Federal Reserve Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer admitted to an audience in Sweden the possibility in some unusually candid terms that maybe they (economists, not Sweden) didn’t know what they were doing. His speech was lost in the times, those being the middle of that year where the Fed having already started to taper QE3 and 4 were becoming supremely confident that they would soon end them. At Janet...
Read More »Trump Administration Modifying Stance on Way to G20
Summary: Confrontation with China has been dialed down. Criticism of the Fed has been walked back. There is less talk about the dollar. Employment data has been embraced. As a candidate, Trump took a hardline. China is manipulating its currency. The Federal Reserve is acting to help Clinton get elected. The jobs data is fake. Over the past week, the each of these three positions has been considerably softened. It is...
Read More »Boosting Stock Market Returns With A Simple Trick
Systematic Trading Based on Statistics Trading methods based on statistics represent an unusual approach for many investors. Evaluation of a security’s fundamental merits is not of concern, even though it can of course be done additionally. Rather, the only important criterion consists of typical price patterns determined by statistical examination of past trends. Systematic trading on the basis of statistical...
Read More »FX Daily, March 13: Bonds and Equities Rally, Dollar Heavy
Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, March 13(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click to enlarge FX Rates The UK is edging closer to triggering Article 50 to start the formal negotiations of its exit from the EU. The House of Commons is expected to reject the amendments submitted by the House of Lords. If the House of Lords passes the stripped version, Prime Minister May could announce her intention to trigger...
Read More »Bi-Weekly Economic Review
Economic Reports Scorecard The Federal Reserve is widely expected to raise interest rates again at their meeting next week. They obviously view the recent cyclical upturn as being durable and the inflation data as pointing to the need for higher rates. Our market based indicators agree somewhat but nominal and real interest rates are still below their mid-December peaks so I don’t think a lot has changed. More...
Read More »Earnings Update – A Poor Sort of Memory
“I don’t understand you,’ said Alice. ‘It’s dreadfully confusing!’ ‘That’s the effect of living backwards,’ the Queen said kindly: ‘it always makes one a little giddy at first–‘ ‘Living backwards!’ Alice repeated in great astonishment. ‘I never heard of such a thing!’ ‘–but there’s one great advantage in it, that one’s memory works both ways.’ ‘I’m sure mine only works one way,’ Alice remarked. ‘I can’t remember things...
Read More »Weekly Sight Deposits and Speculative Positions: EUR/CHF suddenly higher after ECB
Headlines Week March 13, 2017 We were arguing in the last weeks, that the EUR/CHF is trending towards parity. There are three reasons: Continuing SNB interventions Strengthening Swiss local demand, as also visible in the GDP release. Speculators increase their dollar shorts against Euro and reduce them against CHF. Point 3 was not fulfilled last week. FX Last week: The EUR/CHF suddenly appreciated with the ECB meeting...
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