Economists are often lampooned because of their inability to forecast changes in the business cycle. But the pandemic helped them overcome the challenge this time. A record contraction in Q2 was anticipated before in March. Similarly, economists generally expected the recovery after the March-April body blow. However, after an initial surge, some high-frequency data point …
I began my career as a reporter on the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, covering the currency futures and short-term interest rate futures for a news wire. Among other things, I learned that often, the locals, people trading with their own money and wits, would take the opposite side of trades of the institutional …
Cool Video: Dollar, Trade, and China on TDA Network Read More »
Here is a nine-minute clip of a chat I had with Ben Lichtenstein at TD Ameritrade. Ben captures futures traders’ energy and breadth of vision. Often in institutional settings, one develops a specialization, but in my experience, futures traders are more likely to look across the markets and asset classes. It is one of the …
Cool Video: TD Ameritrade–Stocks, the Dollar and the Trap Laid by the German Court Read More »
As the markets were re-opening in Asia earlier today, I joined Martin Soong and Sri Jegarajah on CNBC Asia. I had returned from a business trip and visited our summer house on the Jersey shore for what I thought was going to be a weekend more than a month ago. Oil prices had initially reacted …
Trade, central bank policy, and Brexit dominated the investment climate in September. The US-Chinese trade conflict stopped escalating. Although face-to-face talks are planned in October and the list of exemptions from the punitive tariffs has increased (US soy and pork, for example, are now exempt as are 10 components of Apple’s Mac Book Pro from …
It’s the last week of August. Several economic reports will be released in the coming days. They include the US deflator of consumer expenditures that the Federal Reserve targets, China’s PMI, and the eurozone’s preliminary August CPI. It is not that the data do not matter, but investors realize the die is cast. They are …
Overview: Soft data in Asia and the continued decline in the yuan (six days and counting) prevented Asian equities from following the US lead from yesterday when the S&P 500 advanced by 0.8%. European shares are paring yesterday’s 1.2% advance despite an unexpected gain in the EMU flash PMI. US shares are little changed in …
Tick Up in EMU PMI Does Little, Waiting for Powell Read More »
My first book, Making Sense of the Dollar, was published by Bloomberg Press ten years ago this week. It was named a Bronze medal winner by Independent Publishers. It sought to counter the declinists of the period who, understandably, if even mistakenly, thought the dollar was on an exorable path that had been carved by …
1. As soon as it was clear that the ECB was not easing today, the euro began to recover, after making a marginal new low for the year (just above $1.11). 2. Draghi made it clear that easing was going to be delivered in September and on several fronts including rates (with mitigating measures like …
US President Trump recently bemoaned the fact that the euro is undervalued. While his critics complain that he is prone to exaggeration, in this case, the euro is undervalued. This Great Graphic is a long-term chart of the euro has moved around its purchasing power parity as measured by the OECD. Currently, the euro is about 22% …