Reserve Bank of Australia Provides Some Relief for the Australian Dollar

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on September 4, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) On Sunday, September 2, the Australian dollar (FXA) drifted back to flatline for the year against the U.S. dollar. This move prompted me to tweet the following: “$AUDUSD close to flat … Read more

Watching for Intervention As U.S. Dollar Falls Toward Five-Month Lows Versus Yen

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on July 23, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) Japanese Finance Minister Jun Azumi has formed a habit of warning currency markets about the strength in the Japanese yen (FXY). For example, on May 31st, with USD/JPY slightly above 78 … Read more

The Japanese Yen Is Reasserting Itself

The U.S. dollar’s jagged rally from last year’s lows has finally brought it back to its “QE2 reference price.” At the same time, a carry trade seems to be lifting the Australian dollar in “risk-on” fashion. In the background, the Japanese yen is slowly but surely reasserting itself as the strongest of the major currencies … Read more

Australian Dollar Confirms Stock Rally As It Re-Emerges As A Leading ‘Risk-On’ Currency

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on July 6, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) The Australian dollar’s year-to-date performance against the U.S. dollar (FXA) is back to even. The leading “risk-on” currency has fought back from a large one month slide that featured losses of … Read more

Japanese Yen Confirms Returning Risk Aversion

I earlier argued that the Japanese yen held a critical piece of the puzzle to determining what’s next for risk attitudes (see “The Japanese Yen And Volatility Sit At The Cusp Of Renewed Risk Aversion”). On Monday, the yen seemed to confirm that risk aversion is indeed returning and likely to stay with us for … Read more