April 09

FOMC Fights Hawkish Fires

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Today’s FOMC minutes provided clarity on the March 19th Fed meeting that left markets with a hawkish impression on monetary policy. The original statement and forecasts of the fed funds rate initially sent the US dollar and short term interest rates higher. Markets expectations of easing have been adjusted lower substantially in recent days as […]

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April 08

U.K. Economy Takes a Breather

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Sterling has seen an impressive rally over the past 6 months with GBPUSD rising from 1.48 to 1.68.  This increase has been driven by an astounding turn around in sentiment on the UK economy. In early 2013 economists and market participants served up gloomy predictions for the United Kingdom. The British economy was seen as weighed […]

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April 04

Stage Set For US Dollar Rally

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2014 began with a wide market consensus that the US Dollar would begin a multi year rise driven by a normalization of Federal Reserve monetary policy. So far this move has not materialized as a harsh winter stalled economic momentum. Extraneous factors have also weighed on the Dollar in Q1 2014. A portion of the […]

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April 03

Draghi Talks QE

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The ECB’s Governing Council remained on hold today, initiating no new easing policy in April.  As discussed in yesterday’s post, the focus was going to be on Draghi’s rhetoric during the statement and Q&A. I was honestly surprised by the extent of Draghi’s explicit and clear elaboration on a possible quantitative easing program. EURUSD was […]

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April 02

Euro Vulnerable to ECB Rhetoric

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    Heading into the ECB meeting this month, FX markets have witnessed significantly different price action than the run up into the prior two meetings. This time around speculators appear to have much less appetite to step in front of the ECB and place bets on easing of monetary policy. Price action before and after the […]

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April 02

Falling Yuan is a Global Threat

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The Chinese currency has been weakening for just over a month now, but this move will have far reaching effects on currency markets and global inflation trends. It is widely accepted that China unfairly manipulates it’s currency to gain an unfair advantage over it’s trading partners. This manipulation is carried out by the People’s Bank […]

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