Tag Archives: FOMC

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.21% at 1.1169 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, June 19(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: Risk-taking was bolstered by the dramatic shift in Draghi’s rhetoric less than two weeks after the ECB meeting and a Trump’s tweet announcing that there was going to be an “extended” meeting between him and Xi at the G20 meeting and that...

Understand what the word “transitory” truly means in this context. It is no different than Ben Bernanke saying, essentially, subprime is contained. To the Fed Chairman in early 2007, this one little corner of the mortgage market in an otherwise booming economy was a transitory blip that booming economy would easily withstand. Just eight days before Bernanke would testify confidently before Congress, the FOMC had met to...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.24% at 1.1253 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, May 22(see more posts on EUR/CHF, USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview:  There is a nervous calm in the capital markets. Yesterday’s rally in US shares failed to excite global investors. China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan markets fell, while Japan was mixed. Foreign investors continued to sell Korean shares, but the...

Before the stock market’s slide beginning in early October, for most people they heard the economy was booming, the labor market was unbelievably good, an inflationary breakout just over the horizon. Jay Powell did as much as anyone to foster this belief, chief caretaker to the narrative. He and his fellow central bankers couldn’t use the word “strong” enough. After the market slide through Christmas Eve, everything...

Swiss Franc The Euro has fallen by 0.23% at 1.1401 EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, May 01(see more posts on EUR/CHF and USD/CHF, ) Source: markets.ft.com - Click to enlarge FX Rates Overview: The May Day holiday has shut most markets in Asia and Europe, making for subdued market action. Equity markets that are open, like Australia and the UK, advanced and US shares are trading higher helped by Apple’s upbeat forecasts and...

The combination of the dovish hold by the Federal Reserve and the eurozone’s miserable flash Purchasing Managers Index casts a pall over the economic outlook. Japan’s flash PMI remained stuck at February’s 48.9, while core inflation unexpectedly eased. Three months after the European Central Bank stopped buying bonds, the German 10-year Bund yield fell below zero for the first time since 2016. Japan’s 10-year yield is...

The Federal Reserve sounded more dovish than many expected and this prompted a 5-7 bp drop in US rates, and the dollar fell to new lows for the week against many of the major currencies. The median Fed forecast now anticipates no hike this year but one next year. The Fed will also taper the roll-off of its balance sheet and completing it by the end of September. In December, 11 officials anticipated two or three hikes...

Nothing the Fed did today, or has done up to today, has changed the curves. Eurodollar futures and UST’s, they are both still inverted. The former sharply inverted. The only thing that has changed since early January is the narrative – and not in a charitable way. It is treated as a positive when it is a pretty visible signal about deteriorating circumstances. Interpretations matter. Conventional wisdom seems settled...

The main issues for investors have not changed. There are three dominant ones: Trade, growth, and Brexit. Unfortunately, there won’t be any closure in the week ahead, and that may make short-term participants reluctant to turn more aggressive. United States The US reported exceptionally poor December retail sales and January industrial output figures. Growth forecasts were adjusted. The St. Louis Fed’s GDP Now tracker,...

Today was supposed to see the release of the Census Bureau’s retail trade report, a key data set pertaining to the (alarming) state of American consumers, therefore workers by extension (income). With the federal government in partial shutdown, those numbers will be delayed until further notice. In their place we will have to manage with something like the Federal Reserves’ Beige Book. It may not be close to the same...