Looking for Silver’s Higher Margin Requirements to Create A “Cooling Off” Period

A surprise increase in margin requirements after the close of business November 10th apparently contributed to the climactic end to silver’s parabolic move on Tuesday. This also explains why gold’s fade was not nearly as bad a silver’s. Details are available in the following references in order of publication: CNBC (Tues): “CME Taps the Brakes … Read more

Will the Real Safety Currency Please Stand?

In “The Dollar Is Headed Lower“, Randall W. Forsyth wrote in Barron’s that “The dollar’s trend now is unequivocally lower. And that’s apparent whether you look at fundamental factors or the technical picture on the charts.” He does a good job of summarizing the current condition of de facto competitive devaluation that is increasing the … Read more

Doubting the Decade of the Franc

The Swiss franc is back to all-time highs against the euro, and the extrapolations have begun. This morning, Bloomberg reports that UBS expects the franc to remain strong for the entire decade: “The Swiss franc will stay strong and investors should hold it as a proxy for the old German deutsche mark as the currency … Read more

U.S. Dollar Enjoys Largest One-Day Rally In 19 Months

Now THIS is the way to start a relief rally. The U.S. dollar index surged on Wednesday 1.84%, marking its largest one-day gain since a 2.72% gain on January 20, 2009. At that time, the dollar was in the middle of a sharp and major bounce off its 200-day moving average (DMA) support on its … Read more

Australian Dollar Firming But Resistance Looms

I last wrote about the Australian dollar during its worst slide since the financial crisis. At the time, I claimed that the slide was probably good for a short-term bounce, but the currency could easily go even lower given macroeconomic concerns. Since then, the Australian dollar has firmed up nicely and formed a potential “W-bottom” … Read more