ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
The bottom in Toyota’s stock is looking more and more firm. As U.S. auto and truck sales rose 24.3% year-over-year in March, Toyota soared 40.7% on the wings of an intensive ad campaign and generous sales incentives. While one can argue that Toyota bought future sales, these numbers remain astounding in light of the recent … Read more
Looks like the Swiss National Bank (SNB) tried to have the last laugh on this April Fool’s Day with another attempt to arrest the appreciation in its currency. This intervention was impressive with a 240 pip pop (2.3% move overall), but it only brought the currency back to last week’s trading levels. Source: dailyfx.com charts … Read more
Sometimes you can be smarter than the market – most times you cannot. When someone, or some institution insists on trading in one direction, you are usually smart to hop aboard or just get out of the way. These are two time-tested lessons I chose to ignore in playing the Swiss franc in anticipation of … Read more
I continue to read that the Swiss franc has been gaining on the euro because of the euro’s weakness. This observation appears correct when reviewing the euro’s slide against the dollar since early December (EUR/USD) and the parallel appreciation in the franc versus the euro (EUR/CHF). Yet, the euro has essentially stabilized versus the dollar … Read more
No new news in the Bank of Canada’s decision to maintain its overnight rate target at 0.25% and to start increasing this rate at the end of next quarter. The Bank of Canada continues to lament the stubborn strength of its currency despite these rock-bottom rates: “…the persistent strength of the Canadian dollar and the … Read more
In the past two years or so, I have often marveled at how differently the U.S. markets react from Asian and European markets when it comes to “bad” news released overnight (Eastern time). I do not yet have formal data or analysis, but I wanted to share some informal, personal observations. During the market recovery … Read more
The Australian dollar is my favorite currency. I have remained very bearish on the British pound since first writing about the currency last September (yes, there actually IS a currency I dislike more than the U.S. dollar!). For whatever reason, it only recently occurred to me to pull up a long-term chart comparing these two … Read more
INTRODUCTION When I first picked up “Making Sense of the Dollar: Exposing Dangerous Myths about Trade and Foreign Exchange” by Marc Chandler, I thought it would unlock dark secrets explaining how and why the dollar has generally declined for the past ten years. I was disappointed to discover that Chandler is actually extremely bullish on … Read more
The Royal Bank of Australia (RBA) surprised markets by leaving rates unchanged at 3.75%. Forecasts pegged the RBA for another 25 basis point increase. The markets reacted with an instant and steep drop in the Australian dollar against all major currencies. For example, the Australian dollar dropped over 1% against the U.S. dollar. (See chart … Read more
The U.S. dollar index is only trading back to levels from last summer. However, from a technical standpoint, the dollar has broken out: the short-term downtrend has ended, and the current move has considerable upside potential. *Chart created using TeleChart: The chart above shows that the dollar’s break below the 200DMA in May led to … Read more