ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on December 21, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) On December 20th, the Bank of Japan rolled out more stimulus and more accomodative monetary policy as expected: {snip} The Bank of Japan is clearly trying to get more aggressive in … Read more
Last week, I expected that heightened Fiscal Cliff fears would lead to renewed interest in buying the Japanese yen (see “Peering Over The Fiscal Cliff, The Yen Gets ‘Cheap’, Australian Dollar ‘Expensive’“). That interest turned out to be VERY temporary. As post-Christmas trading opened, the U.S. dollar surged yet again against the yen (FXY). It … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on December 5, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) After the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) cut interest rates on Monday night, the Australian dollar (FXA) bounced down, up, drifted lower, and then rallied. It is too easy to call … Read more
Today, market traders are noting that the yield on 10-year Japanese government bonds, also known as JGBs, dropped to 9-year lows at 0.72%. This weakness in yields stands in stark contrast to the Japanese yen’s (FXY) spate of weakness over the past two months and especially over the past two weeks. A week ago, I … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on November, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) Japanese yen (FXY) traders have been here before. Earlier this year, the U.S. dollar (UUP) ripped from historic lows against the yen around 76 to a peak just above 84 in just … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on October 25, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) This week, the S&P 500 (SPY) has broken down, providing an early warning that QE3 is not working as expected. The S&P 500 is resting precariously at support formed by the … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on September 11, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) In August, 2011, Prime Minister Naoto Kan stepped down from power to resolve gridlock over the budget of the Japanese government. On September, 7, 2012, current Finance Minister Jan Azumi made … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on June 19, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) {snip} I was looking for confirmation of the increasingly bullish outlook, but I did not get it. In “Bearish Implications of A Rare Convergence of Extremes in Yen vs S&P 500 … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on May 20, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) I have written about my skepticism regarding the British pound’s newly found “safe haven” status (for example, see “Hard Currency: My Reactions To The Financial Times’ Promising Podcast“). During my last … Read more
A month ago I declared the weakness in the Japanese yen had ended. At the time, the U.S. dollar versus Japanese yen currency pair, USD/JPY or the inverse ratio in the Rydex CurrencyShares Japanese Yen Trust (FXY), had slipped for three days in a row. I turned out to be about a week too early … Read more