ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
When U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin helped send the dollar careening with commentary welcoming a weak dollar, the British pound (FXB) surged enough against the then hapless U.S. dollar to make me speculate on GBP/USD reaching a blow-off top. GBP/USD did indeed pull back from that point, albeit in very choppy fashion, for almost a … Read more
Last June, 2017, Senior Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada (BoC) Carolyn A. Wilkins stepped onto the stage with a surprisingly bullish message about the Canadian economy. This speech set the stage for the BoC’s rollback of “emergency measure” rate cuts that responded to the past collapse in oil prices. At the time, the … Read more
I heard commentary after the Fed’s proclamation on monetary policy on March 21st that the Fed is “one vote away” from 4 rate hikes this year. Yet, something strange happened along the way to over-speculation on the number of rate hikes in 2018: the traders putting their money on the line on the 30-Day Fed … Read more
New Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell had his say with Congress this week and some of the conventional financial media and pundits have been shrill with speculation about the potential for four rate hikes in 2018 as a result of Powell’s word choices and tone. This number of hikes is reportedly one more hike than … Read more
The Canadian dollar (FXC) is at an interesting juncture. Strong economic data has strengthened the currency but the Bank of Canada (BoC) has applied brakes on currency’s rally. The Canadian dollar weakened in the wake of policy statements in October and December. The last word of 2017 went to the economic data as hot inflation … Read more