Jan 26, 2011

Very interesting mix of vote in the last Bank of England interest rate meeting. We now have2 people calling for interest rate increases on account of the higher risks to inflation. The market had been pricing in a more hawkish Bank of England prior to yesterday’s very weak 4th quarter GDP results. Official Release: PDF     From Bloomberg: Bank of...

Jan 25, 2011

For January Provided by: Conference Board Present Situation: 31.0, pr. 23.5 (Nov), 25.4 (Oct), Expectations: 80.3, pr. 71.9 (Nov), 73.6 (Oct) Very strong consumer confidence report from the Conference Board today. The overall index jumped to 60.6 in January from 53.3 in December, beating expectations by 6 points, and moving to the highest level since May of...

Jan 25, 2011

The Canadian Dollar reversed course last week, after having moved to the 0.9840 area last Tuesday. Since then, the USD/CAD returned back above parity at 1.0050 but for the past couple of sessions confined itself to a pretty narrow range between 0.99 and 0.9985. Today’ after testing the bottom part of that range near 0.99, prior to the release of the...

Jan 5, 2011

US Data Continues to Impress, Blow-Out ADP Jobs Report Released Wednesday The US economy ended 2010 on very strong footing according to data relased this week. On Monday, the ISM Manufacturing Index for December rose to 57.0, the best reading since June 2009. The manufacturing sector has spearheaded the recovery as companies rebuild inventories during 2009...

Dec 28, 2010

Japanese data today was rather upbeat, helping to spark gains for the JPY and to spur risk appetite in broader currency markets as higher yielders (EUR, AUD, GBP and others) gained on the USD. The Japanese data showed that industrial production rose for the first time in six months, that retail sales increased more than forecast and the unemployment rate...

Dec 27, 2010

1. China Hikes Interest Rates, Mix of “Risk On-Off” Trading – Risk sentiment remained positive in Asia to start the week, despite the Chinese central bank hikes rates by 25 basis points. A move by China’s monetary authorities has been rumored the past few weekends, and so the surprise of the move, when it finally happened, was lackluster. Stock...