ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
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
The referendum that punted the UK out of the European Union (EU), “Brexit”, is practically a forgotten memory for most people outside of Europe. For example, the aftermath of this vote now looks like an event that quickly shook out the most eager sellers in the stock market and thus paved a course for a … Read more