Australian GDP Growth Soars Despite A Large Drop in the Terms of Trade

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on June 6, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) Tuesday night, the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) reported a surprise jump in GDP of 1.3% quarter-over-quarter. With growing fears of a global economic slowdown, analyst consensus had pegged growth only … Read more

Reserve Bank of Australia Cuts Rates Again And Gives Weak Forward Guidance

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on June 5, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) Futures estimated a 63% chance that the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) would cut rates by 50 basis points tonight, but the RBA went with the analyst consensus of a 25 … Read more

Correlations Are Broken But Australian Dollar Still Leads The S&P 500

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on May 26, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) The Australian dollar…{snip}…has been highly correlated with the S&P 500 (SPY) for much of the last six years and more. The correlation has broken down at critical moments, the most interesting … Read more

Positioning More Bearishly Versus the Australian Dollar As It Loses 2012’s Gains

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on April 16, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) I have been writing more and more bearishly on the Australian dollar this year (for example, see “Reserve Bank Of Australia Seems Biased Toward More Monetary Easing“). After BHP Billiton (BHP) … Read more

The Australian Dollar Continues to Lose the Race Against the S&P 500 in 2012

Someone forgot to tell the Australian dollar that financial markets are in “risk on” mode. While the Australian dollar is still up for the year against the U.S. dollar, it continues to lag the S&P 500 (SPY) by a greater and greater distance. The Aussie is now up 2.6% versus the U.S. dollar whereas the … Read more