ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
Stock Market Commentary Welcome to the start of the stock market’s three most dangerous months of the year. A weak jobs report for July helped to send market sentiment into a sharp reversal. The bad economic news suddenly turned the prospect of rate cuts into something to fear. These rate cut fears spun the market … Read more
Earlier this week, the iShares MSCI Brazil ETF (EWZ) tested its October, 2023 low. This test of support stopped just short of a 20% correction from the last high set on December 19, 2023. At the closing low, EWZ reached an 18.3% pullback from that last high. I decided to pull an early trigger on … Read more
The year 2024 may be seen as the time the Bank of Japan’s “free lunch” came to an end. For decades, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) ran a zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) that even descended into negative rates in 2016. The BoJ eased and eased monetary policy (aka printed and printed) to buy Japanese … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Stocks quickly invalidated the latest topping signals and recorded a statement week. This regular routine was further boosted by a Federal Reserve that dished out stronger forecasts for the economy and inflation and yet, much to my bemusement, “promised” the stock market three rate cuts are still likely ahead for the year. … Read more
In early December, I was hopeful that the Turkish lira would finally find its footing. The Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey (CBRT) was aggressively hiking rates and currency reserves sat at record levels. The high interest rate (40% at the time) made betting on eventual currency appreciation appear worth the risk. While collecting … Read more