One of the best performing currencies today was the EUR/USD. The euro found support from the ECB economic bulletin that described the “euro area economic expansion to be solid and broad-based across countries and sectors.” They also said “underlying inflation is expected to rise gradually over the medium term.” U.S. data was weaker with the trade deficit rising rather than narrowing as economists predicted, putting pressure on the greenback. Although manufacturing activity in the Chicago region accelerated jobless claims ticked higher. All of these factors helped to drive EUR/USD above 1.1950, capping a year of solid gains. On a te...
The fourth quarter of 2017 continued to produce records in the equity market, while the yield curve in the fixed-income market continued a flattening trend. The largest movement in yield was on the short end, as short-term rates continue to rise. As of December 20th, the 1-year and 2-year Treasury yields increased 42.6 and 41.9 basis points respectively, to 1.72% and 1.905% since the beginning of the quarter. The 10-year Treasury yield is only up 9.1 basis points to 2.425% while the 30-year Treasury yield is down 9.9 basis points to 2.761% for the same period. The main factor driving the flattening yield curve continues to be the Federal Open...
Gold has been very strong since the 12th of this month, but the precious metals miners are going to need some Herculean super-powers at this point to break their long-standing series of lower highs. This road trip may be almost out of gas....
(Audio length 00:12:38) There is no denying that 2017 has been a bad year for the US dollar. Chris Temple and I recap why everyone was wrong at the start of the year (expecting a strong dollar) and why now that everyone is a dollar bear could be wrong again....
from the Dallas Fed — this post authored by Grant Strickler and Martin Stuermer OPEC and some non-OPEC countries have agreed to extend their output cuts through next year despite losing market share. Crude oil prices have increased roughly 15 percent over the fourth quarter on the back of geopolitical turmoil in the Middle East and in anticipation of the agreement. This provides incentive to a U.S. energy industry that is gaining momentum in ramping up oil production. OPEC’s Meager Results OPEC and non-OPEC countries agreed to extend cuts of 1.7 million barrels per day (mb/d) for another nine months, from March to year-end 2018, broad...
The Census Bureau Advance Inventory Report shows wholesale inventories rose 0.7% while retail inventories were up 0.1%. Advance Wholesale Inventories Wholesale inventories for November, adjusted for seasonal variations but not for price changes, were estimated at an end-of-month level of $610.2 billion, up 0.7 percent (±0.4 percent) from October 2017, and were up 3.8 percent (±0.7 percent) from November 2016. The September 2017 to October 2017 percentage change was revised from down 0.5 percent (±0.4 percent) to down 0.4 percent (±0.4 percent). Advance Retail Inventories Retail inventories for November, adjusted for seasonal variations bu...
This has been a bumper year for the equity markets across the globe as almost all of them have risen every month for the first time in the 30-year history of the MSCI AC World Index. While the U.S. market is in the midst of the second-longest bull run in history with the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones heading for their best years since 2013, international investing has stolen the show on political gridlock in Washington. Encouraging domestic and international fundamentals as well as better-than-expected corporate earnings are the major catalysts to the global rally. Technology surge and high-flying Internet stocks have also added to the stren...
Four months ago, in a not entirely surprising move meant to circumvent US economic sanctions on Venezuela, President Nicolas Maduro announced that his nation would stop accepting dollars as payment for oil imports, followed just days later by the announcement that in a dramatic shift away from the Petrodollar and toward Beijing, Venezuela would begin publishing its oil basket price in Chinese yuan. The strategic shift away from the USD did not work quite as expected, because a little over two months later, both Venezuela and its state-owned energy company, PDVSA were declared in default on their debt obligations by ISDA, which triggered th...
2017 was a year defined by rising and falling tensions across the globe, leading to varying impacts on FX markets – sometimes to the extremes: In the United States, political partisanship reached new heights as President Donald Trump’s first term began and policy changes were overshadowed by Robert Mueller’s special probe over Russia. In Europe, the UK and the EU played a game of chicken over the details of Brexit, contributing to the weakest pace of wage growth in Britain in nearly 30 years. In the Middle East, Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, began a corruption purge and modernization effort that will redefine hi...
Just doing my usual looking-at-hundreds-of-charts routine that I go through each morning. Here’s one that stood out as a prospective short: Acadia Realty Trust (symbol AKR). I think I’ll short it with a stop-loss price of 27.79: ...