ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
In late February, I wrote “Forget The Yuan – The Devaluation Of The British Pound Is Breathtaking.” At the time, I suggested that Google Trends on the search term “Brexit” indicated that the breathtaking losses in the British pound should soon abate (against the U.S. dollar). Sure enough, the pound printed a bottom within a … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on June 1, 2016. Click here to read the entire piece.) After London’s former mayor Boris Johnson first announced his support for Great Britain’s exit from the European Union (EU), aka “Brexit,” the British pound (FXB) sold off for the rest of … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on February 24, 2016. Click here to read the entire piece.) Americans do not get to vote as a nation on anything unless it is something like American Idol or Dancing With the Stars; definitely nothing political. Our nation’s founders sought fit … Read more
In the previous week, forex traders extended existing positioning trends. This consistency reveals an on-going confidence in the given trends. Where these changes are consistent with currency moves, traders seem indeed justified in the confidence. However, there are some cases where these positions are starting to run counter to potential shifts in currencies. I expect … Read more
The Bank of England (BoE) released its latest pronouncement on monetary policy on April 14, 2016. As has been the case for what feels like forever now, the BoE kept policy the same with Bank rate at 0.5%, and it maintained the stock of purchased assets at £375 billion. The BoE concluded that the outlook … Read more
The following data cover the latest from the CFTC’s Commitment of Traders as reported by Oanda from the week of Monday, March 21, 2016. From Oanada: “The Commitments of Traders (COT) is a report issued by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). It aggregates the holdings of participants in the U.S. futures markets (primarily based … Read more
(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on March 13, 2016. Click here to read the entire piece.) When I last wrote about the British pound (FXB), the currency was reaching the bottom of its latest downdraft. I did not know the bottom was near, but I did claim … Read more
As I wrote in “Forget The Yuan – The Devaluation Of The British Pound Is Breathtaking,” I was eager to see how speculators would respond to the setting of a date for a referendum on “Brexit” and the subsequent stated support for Breixt by London’s Mayor. These vents heightened the stakes for Breixt; they sent … Read more
Currencies are a transmission mechanism. Since the financial crisis, central banks have become increasingly adept at manipulating them as agents of monetary policy. Traders who ignore currencies may have critical blindspots as stock markets twist and turn through currency transmissions. From time-to-time, I will post “Forex Critical” to highlight currency charts that I believe are … Read more
What a difference 19 months make. It was June, 2014 when Bank of England (BoE) Governor Mark Carney confidently warned financial markets that rate hikes could come earlier than implied at that time by the market. Less than a month later, the British pound (FXB) (or sterling) peaked against the U.S. dollar (DXY0). Peaks against … Read more