Tag Archives: newslettersent

Take a moment to consider the Neocon camp’s over-reaction to the inchoate challenge to its dominance posed by the Trump administration. When we speak of The Long Game, we speak of national/alliance policies that continue on regardless of what political party or individual is in office. The Long Game is always about the basics of national survival: control of and access to resources, and jockeying to diminish the power...

Opportunity Cost Rears its Head Last Thursday’s wanton attack on a Syrian air field by the US and its bellicose actions toward North Korea have brought the real cost of candidate Trump’s landslide victory last November to the forefront. It didn’t take long for Donald Trump to drop his non-interventionist mask. The decision was likely driven by Machiavellian considerations with respect to domestic conditions, but that...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, April 11(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click to enlarge GBP/CHF The Swiss Franc could be in for a particularly volatile with the recent developments in Syria and now North Korea. Both the Swiss Franc and US dollar generally perform very well in times of global economic and political uncertainty as their status as safe haven currencies becomes apparent once again. The...

It is hard not to notice that the chart above has a lot less red in it than it has in some time. That is true of the month to month data as well as the year over year changes. There has been a widely reported gap between so called soft data – surveys and polls – and the hard data – actual economic activity reports. Bulls say the gap is there because the soft data always leads the hard data. Bears say the soft data...

Summary: Japanese investors bought foreign bonds in the last week of March for the first time in nine weeks. Foreigners bought the most Japanese stocks since last April. The pain trade is for a break of JPY110. Japan’s Ministry of Finance reports portfolio flows on a weekly basis with a week lag. The data just reported covers the last week in March, as the Japanese  fiscal year was drawing to a close. Japanese...

The payroll report disappointed again, though it was deficient in ways other than are commonly described. The monthly change is never a solid indication, good or bad, as the BLS’ statistical processes can only get it down to a 90% confidence interval, and a wide one at that. It means that any particular month by itself specifies very little, except under certain circumstances. This month just happens to be one,...

Headlines Week April 10, 2017 We were arguing in the previous months, 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. The tendency of point 3 had been interrupted when the ECB appeared to be less dovish. FX Last Week:...

Swiss Franc Speculators were net short CHF in January 2015, shortly before the end of the peg, with 26.4K contracts. Then again in December 2015, when they expected a Fed rate hike, with 25.5K contracts. The biggest short CHF, however, happened in June 2007, when speculators were net short 80K contracts. Shortly after, the U.S. subprime crisis started. The carry trade against CHF collapsed. The...

Swiss Franc EUR/CHF - Euro Swiss Franc, April 10(see more posts on EUR/CHF, ) - Click to enlarge GBP/CHF The Pound and the Swiss Franc have had a strange relationship since the missile strike by the US on a Syrian Government airbase last week. Pound to Swiss Franc exchange rates plummeted before recovering and then exceeding expectations as we entered into the weekend. The ‘anomaly’ as some are now calling it,...

Stock Markets EM FX ended the week on a soft note, as the weaker than expected US jobs data was unable to derail the dollar’s rally. For the week, the worst performers were ZAR (-3%), TRY (-2.5%), and RUB (-2%). CZK bucked the trend, rising after the CNB exited the cap. This week, higher inflation readings in the US could draw market focus back to Fed tightening, which would be negative for EM. Risks of further flare...