The Bank of Japan went into the 2nd quarter of this year with a rather bullish outlook on the economy and price inflation. The April 1st sales tax hike from 5% to 8% has taken effect and it is now becoming clear that the Abe administration underestimated the impact. In the last few months, inflation has […]

Today is the first day in some time that there has been obvious and even broad dollar strength. The Dollar rally began during the London session and took another leg higher after the great consumer confidence numbers that came out at 10am. The trends we see with today’s price action should provide valuable clues for […]

With the entire market standing around waiting for some totally obvious FOMC shift in forward guidance, Janet Yellen may have subtly delivered that change this morning. The Fed Chief’s semi annual testimony today was a long and arduous  rehashing of current Fed policies without much noticeable change in content. As I tuned in today two […]

In early January of this year selling the Canadian Dollar was a consensus trade. The Bank of Canada was making a shift towards dovish language, repeatedly saying that ‘rate cuts were not off the table‘. BoC Governor Stephen Poloz seemed to capitalize on an extremely harsh Winter in Canada as a reason to become more […]

On July 3rd Reserve Bank of Australia Chief Glenn Stevens made a noticeable change in tone during a speech at the Australian Conference of Economists. The governor said that his central bank has more ‘ammunition’ to make further rate cuts. He also said that investors are underestimating the chances of a material decline in the […]