ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Since the year 2000, delivering a different narrative for students and fans of financial markets: stocks, options, currencies, Bitcoin, and 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
A month ago, I described the Japanese yen (FXY) as a currency on edge given a sharp and abrupt response to a feared tightening cycle from the Bank of Japan (BoJ). So far, no tightening cycle has launched, but the yen has steadily strengthened over the last month. For example, USD/JPY broke down below support … Read more
I wrote little about the Japanese yen (FXY) over the past year or more. It’s time to pay closer attention. As every forex trader knows by now, on Tuesday, January 9th the Bank of Japan (BoJ) slowed down its purchase of bonds with more than 10 years maturity. The yields of these bonds ticked up … Read more
The Japanese yen (FXY) is the one major currency that has been notably weaker than the U.S. dollar for most of the past month. USD/JPY peaked in December, 2016, but it looks like the sell-off bottomed out in April. Source: FreeStockCharts.com This yen weakness has been particularly evident against strong currencies, like the euro (FXE), … Read more
It was a holiday shortened trading day in the U.S., but it was enough time to deliver a bit of relief for the U.S. dollar index (DXY0). The most significant move for the U.S. dollar was against the ever-weakening Japanese yen (FXY). USD/JPY broke out and stayed above resistance at its uptrending 200-day moving average … Read more
(T2108 measures the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages [DMAs]. It helps to identify extremes in market sentiment that are likely to reverse. To learn more about it, see my T2108 Resource Page. You can follow real-time T2108 commentary on twitter using the #T2108 hashtag. T2108-related trades and other trades are … Read more
A little over two weeks ago, I wrote “Yen Bulls Finally Back Down” to mark an important milestone: for the first time in a year, currency speculators went net short the Japanese yen (FXY). I closed out my long USD/JPY position and waited for the U.S. Federal Reserve meeting as well as confirmation of the … Read more
A full seven months ago I speculated that “maximum yen bullishness” was reaching feverish levels. As a result, I concluded that a bottom had to be imminent in USD/JPY even as the momentum at that time seemed to point to that bottom happening around 7% lower at 100. I acknowledged the potential for making an … Read more
In my last post, I wrote about the small solace I took in profits on my short AUD/JPY position as the Japanese yen (FXY) surged in response to a looming victory by Donald Trump for the U.S. Presidency. At the time, I closed out the position assuming that currency bearishness was over-extended by quick-trigger negative … Read more
The reaction caught me completely off-guard. On September 6th, the USD ISM Non-Manufacturing/Services Composite for August came in at 51.3, well below “expectations” of 54.9 and the lowest reading since February, 2010. The reaction was swift in financial markets. The 30-day Fed Fund futures pushed out the next rate hike from December, 2016 (54.2%) to … Read more