In the UK Telegraph today, Henri Guaino, a key adviser to French President Sarkozy, is quoted as saying: “The euro at $1.50 is a disaster for the European economy and industry”. We guess the silence on the EUR strength was too much for the French to handle. Overall, rhetoric around the USD weakness has been relatively civil and sporadic. Japanese policy makers, who are usually the first to…
The burden of sovereign debt concerns still weighs heavy on the market, despite encouraging data overnight from New Zealand and Australia. Had this been a few weeks ago, such hawkish sentiment would have had a contagion effect across to most other risk assets, but today, AUD and NZD are the sole beneficiaries of the RBNZ outlook and Australian jobs data. It seems clearer now than ever that the…
It seems that the worries over quasi- sovereign and sovereign debt are still lingering in traders psyche, as risk correlated trades failed to pick up any traction. And perhaps for good reason, since defaults generally come in waves. In Athens, the Greek Prime Minister Papandreau provided an outline of further fiscal measures to support the promise to cut deficit to 3% over the next four years….
The holidays are clearly upon us, with trading increasingly being defined by range bound sessions and thin liquidity exaggerating moves. The DXY continues to push higher as better than expected US existing homes sales data helped propel the greenback in NY trading, while disappointing New Zealand GDP provided USD support in Asia. In addition, Greece and fears over sovereign debt came back into…
Coming a day after yesterday’s UK debt worries, European markets were given a fresh reminder of the fragile state of Greece’s predicament as Reuters reported comments from ECB’s Stark that the rest of the EU would not save Greece from its fiscal difficulties. These remarks have quickly been followed up by counter comments from Greece’s Finance Minister Papaconstantinou; who strenuously denied…
Japan’s Kan held the first press conference this morning in his new role as Finance Minister; and FX markets were treated to some unexpected JPY commentary that will likely underline the case for further currency weakness in 2010. While it is nothing new that officials from both the BoJ and MoF have been uncomfortable with JPY strength in recent months; the near 10% rally in USDJPY from…
The increase in Australian Employment released overnight more than trebled analysts’ estimates (+35.2k vs. 10.0k expected), sending the Unemployment Rate tumbling to 5.5% against consensus forecasts for it to rise to 5.8%. Australia has unquestionably been one of the first out of the blocks in the recovery amongst the G10, a fact that saw AUDUSD appreciate over 27% in 2009 on the expectation of…
Markets seem to have shrugged off the disappointing US non-farm payrolls data, with equity and commodity prices rallying as yields slipped. Friday closed with the S&P up 0.3% and yield curve steepened further, with US 2yrs rates dropping 5bp. Comments from Fed’s Bullard today gave risky assets a boost, as he noted major G10 economies monetary policies were to stay exceptionally loose for some…
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