Trenders Game

Monday’s highly anticipated Eurogroup meeting to determine the fate of the Greek bailout program ended in disarray as  Greek officials called the terms of extending the deal “unacceptable”, adding they “wont take orders” on the subject of the bailout. The point of contention continues to be the draconian austerity measures built into the current program. […]

Currency markets have been mixed on this Monday morning after the US Dollar made a significant move higher this past Friday in the wake of a blowout US jobs number. Strong growth in jobs as well as wages stemmed any doubts from weakness in recent US economic indicators.  Price action in the currency markets on […]

Liaquat Ahmed’s “Lords of Finance” tells the story of the American, British, French and German central bankers trying to hold the world together in the midst of the great depression. The most striking story in the book is the saga of Germany’s post World War I struggles to pay reparations. The German government printed trillions […]

After three years of an impeccable but relatively untested performance as President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi has finally backed himself into an inescapable corner. Global markets are now hinged on what over 90% of banks polled say is a imminent move to buy massive amounts of sovereign Eurozone bonds that will come […]

A broad set of manufacturing surveys has raised alarm that the US economy may be experiencing a slowdown related to the sharp decline in oil prices. In the last three weeks nearly every regional and national manufacturing PMI has missed estimates, along with a core durable goods orders that was much lower than expected. Various […]

The outlook for the US Dollar versus other zero yielding currencies has been unclear for the last month. EURUSD, GBPUSD and USDJPY all remain in relatively tight ranges even as we have seen a good string of data. ISM services, Retail sales and non farm payrolls are the standouts, with all coming in well above […]

This past Friday was one of the busiest days of central bank news in a very long time. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi made a speech in which he left no doubt that action will be forthcoming to boost inflation if nothing changes in the near term. China cut it’s state mandated 1 year […]

The last four weeks have seen quite the run for Dollar bulls. The Bank of Japan expanded its asset purchase program by about 15% to 80tn Yen per year. The European Central Bank showed it’s solidarity on the aim to expand the balance sheet by 1tn Euros. Commodities continue to drag the respective EM and risky […]

Some truly astonishing moves have been seen over the last two hours since the United States printed some of the most discouraging data of the year on prices, retail sales and manufacturing sentiment. There was already concerning data on slowing price increases out of the UK and China over the last 24 hours, as well […]

Commentary out of the world’s central banks over the last week has highlighted a growing concern about falling inflation expectations and slowing global growth. The Federal Reserve and the Bank of England are struggling to find consensus on how well their respective economies are actually doing. On the other end of the spectrum, the European […]