Mixed Signals Surround the Steady Creep Higher In Interest Rates

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on August 7, 2013. Click here to read the entire piece.) Tuesday’s trading (August 6, 2013) brought out the taper tantrum jitters again. Officials from the Federal Reserve are once again reminding financial markets about the potential for September to bring the … Read more

Word from Lancaster, CA: This Recovery Is For Real

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on July 25, 2013. Click here to read the entire piece.) Something special must be happening in Lancaster, California, a small town of 155,000 people about 70 miles north of Los Angeles. After finding a thriving land development project in Lancaster, American … Read more

An Uneven Recovery from the Interest Rate Blues

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on July 17, 2013. Click here to read the entire piece.) The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) released the minutes from its monetary policy decision meeting earlier this month. It contains some great detail on the RBA’s assessment of global financial conditions. … Read more

Surging U.S. Dollar and Carney Overwhelm Bullish Underpinnings for the British Pound

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on July 8, 2013. Click here to read the entire piece.) Last week was a great week of economic news for the United Kingdom. The apparent economic improvement seems to be unfolding just as Mervyn King seemed to suggest in his final … Read more

The San Francisco Bay Area’s Housing Micro-Climates: A Microcosm of A Two-Speed Recovery

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on April 28, 2013. Click here to read the entire piece.) The San Francisco Bay Area is known for its micro-climates. {snip} This area also has matching housing micro-climates. The crash and recovery from the housing bubble has exacerbated these micro-climates. In … Read more

A Crescendo Looms for the Australian Dollar Even As Traders Cast About for New Forex Leader

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on June 6, 2013. Click here to read the entire piece.) On Monday night (June 4th, Tuesday morning in Australia), the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) decided to leave its cash rate steady at 2.75%. The statement contained no new news and … Read more

Another Strike Against Canadian Dollar As the Public Sector Continues to Lead Job Growth

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on May 15, 2013. Click here to read the entire piece.) Friday’s employment report from Statistics Canada demonstrated once again how the public sector is leading the way in job growth in Canada: {snip} So, jobs in the private sector are stagnant, … Read more

Weakening Trend Likely Ready To Resume for Canadian Dollar

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on April 21, 2013. Click here to read the entire piece.) On April 17th, the Bank of Canada decided to leave interest rates unchanged. In its Monetary Policy Report Summary, the Bank of Canada extended out its forecast to mid-2015 as the … Read more