Posted in euro, inflation, monetary policy, politics on April 22, 2008 | No Comments »
PARIS (MNI) - With eurozone HICP at a record high and inflation
risks on the horizon as far as the eye can see, the European Central
Bank’s Governing Council is stiffening its resolve as the defender of
price stability, even at a time of great uncertainty about economic
growth, well-informed monetary sources have told Market News
International.
The ECB is still [...]
Posted in euro, inflation, monetary policy on April 19, 2008 | 1 Comment »
It’s almost as if the ECB wants Italy to quit the euro.
BERLIN (Reuters) - Wage and fiscal policy in the euro zone could buoy inflation and the European Central Bank may need to act, ECB Governing Council member Axel Weber said in a newspaper interview released on Saturday.
“I am concerned that, with regard to the [...]
Posted in euro, inflation, monetary policy, politics on April 16, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Silvio Berlusconi’s election victory, a landslide by Italian standards, has major ramifications for the euro, warns Ambrose Evans-Pritchard:
Silvio Berlusconi’s return to power in Italy is a nightmare come true for the European Central Bank, opening the way for a Rome-Paris axis with the political muscle to force a change in monetary policy.
The billionaire politician has [...]
Posted in dollar, euro, federal reserve, monetary policy on April 7, 2008 | No Comments »
via Bloomberg:
Dollar Bottom Proves Elusive as G-7 Meets, Bearish Bets Double
By Bo Nielsen
April 7 (Bloomberg) — Optimism for a dollar rebound that pervaded the currency market at the start of the year is fading.
Futures traders doubled bets against the greenback in the past two months, data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission in Washington [...]
Posted in euro, inflation, monetary policy on April 5, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Foreign banks flee Spanish property debt
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in Madrid
Last Updated: 1:28am BST 05/04/2008
International banks are scrambling to sell their holdings of Spanish mortgage debt at a steep discount, fearing that the country may be sliding into the worst economic downturn in its modern history.
A blizzard of grim data has soured the mood, capped [...]
Posted in dollar, euro, inflation, monetary policy, wall street on March 19, 2008 | 5 Comments »
Fannie, Freddie Surplus Capital Requirement Is Eased (Update3)
By James Tyson
March 19 (Bloomberg) — Regulators for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cut the companies’ surplus capital requirement in an effort to expand their combined $1.5 trillion in mortgage investments and revive the U.S. home-loan market.
The requirement was lowered to 20 percent from 30 percent, the [...]
Posted in dollar, doomsterism, euro, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy on February 27, 2008 | No Comments »
CURRENCIES
VALUE
CHANGE
% CHANGE
EUR-USD
1.5105
0.0130
0.87
USD-JPY
106.4700
-0.8100
-0.76
GBP-USD
1.9903
0.0032
0.16
COMMODITY FUTURES
VALUE
CHANGE
% CHANGE
Oil
100.68
-0.20
-0.20
Gold
958.40
9.50
1.00
Fannie Mae, Freddie Portfolio Limits to Be Lifted, Ofheo Says
By Jody Shenn
Feb. 27 (Bloomberg) — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the two largest providers of money for U.S. home loans, will have restrictions on the sizes of their portfolios removed.
The limits, imposed after accounting errors at the government-chartered companies, will [...]
Posted in euro, inflation, monetary policy, volatility on February 22, 2008 | No Comments »
Klaus Baader was one of the professional forecasters who defied conventional wisdom in 2006 and predicted that Trichet would continue raising interest rates, despite mounting political pressure.
He was proven correct then. Now he is going against the grain again, saying that Trichet will not cut rates, i.e., the euro is too cheap at the moment.
Trichet [...]
Posted in euro, politics, volatility on February 22, 2008 | No Comments »
Tax evasion has become something of a national pastime in major Western countries, thanks to symbiotic cooperation between legislators and lobbyists. Governments are realizing that there are trillions of dollars percolating around Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands, the Bahamas, the Virgin Islands, Jersey, Mauritius, Switzerland, Cyprus, etc.
However, the “war on tax evasion” is as stupid [...]
Posted in dollar, euro, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, politics, wall street on February 11, 2008 | No Comments »
Each way of my recent Chicago-NYC trip required a total of 18 hours, from five initially. Air travel in this country simply defies belief.
Part of my trip was occupied by Paul Kedrosky’s Money:Tech conference, which was a great occasion to meet some very smart hedge fund people. More on that later.
On that note:
China: Financial Bail-Out [...]
Posted in dawn to decadence, dollar, doomsterism, euro, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, volatility, wall street on February 3, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Bernanke Ease Makes Bulls out of Dollar Bears Seeing New GrowthBy Bo Nielsen
Feb. 4 (Bloomberg) — Ben S. Bernanke’s decision to lower interest rates 1.25 percentage points last month will end the dollar’s two-year slide, according to the world’s biggest currency traders.
For the first time since 2003, investors are focused on relative growth prospects rather [...]
Posted in euro, inflation, monetary policy on January 29, 2008 | No Comments »
We now know that the European Central Bank bailed out Spanish banks to the same tune that the UK bailed out Northern Rock (although not nearly as much as the FHLB and Fed have in the United States).
This kind of secretive bailing out reinforces my conviction that central banks must be abolished. European savers were [...]
Posted in euro, inflation, monetary policy, politics on January 23, 2008 | No Comments »
On the heels of Mervyn King’s not-quite-credible vow [*] to continue fighting inflation (which he predicted would surge), Jean-Claude Trichet has effectively signalled that he will bring Europe into recession if that’s what it takes to attract global savings to Europe. He is not interested in following in the Fed’s inflationistic footsteps.
[...]
Posted in euro, inflation, monetary policy, volatility on January 16, 2008 | No Comments »
… on the back of European rate-cutting noises. Even Axel Weber, the German chairman of the ECB, suggested that European central bankers “shouldn’t over-dramatize” the current rates of inflation. Yves Mersch, the banker whose comments triggered today’s euro sell-off, is also considered a hawk.
“Mersch is considered to be a hawk,” said Joerg Kraemer, chief [...]
Posted in china, dollar, doomsterism, euro, geopolitics, inflation, volatility on January 2, 2008 | No Comments »
CURRENCIES
VALUE
CHANGE
% CHANGE
EUR-USD
1.4725
0.0132
0.90
USD-JPY
109.4790
-2.1660
-1.94
GBP-USD
1.9802
-0.0062
-0.31
COMMODITY FUTURES
VALUE
CHANGE
% CHANGE
Oil
99.46
3.48
3.63
Gold
861.60
23.60
2.82
Natural Gas
7.76
0.27
3.63
The dollar is 2-3% stronger than it was at the previous gold/oil highs. Interestingly, the Treasury market is still discounting dollar pessimism. When the yield curve goes down, bonds are going up.
How far will commodities go?
Geopolitical volatility doesn’t explain the current commodities movements, unless Israel is about to bomb Iran.
Furthermore, [...]
Posted in china, dollar, euro, inflation, monetary policy, wall street on December 28, 2007 | No Comments »
Plunging MZM = bullish. MZM has been historically high, and is now dropping rapidly.
Plunging commercial lending ( = TOTCI) = bearish. Commercial credit is also at a secular extreme — although the 2001-04 plunge was also a secular extreme.
The dollar has tanked a lot in recent days, which implies that MZM is falling with it [...]
Posted in china, dollar, euro, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, volatility on December 21, 2007 | No Comments »
On December 17, the hastily improvised dam that was European Central Bank credibility disintegrated in spectacular fashion, with a $500 billion injection into the European banking system.
Jean-Claude Trichet, chairman of the ECB, has built up for himself a substantial wellspring of respect for currency observers as a currency hawk, even as private bankers fumed [...]
Posted in dollar, doomsterism, euro, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy on December 19, 2007 | No Comments »
While the mainstream morons predictably spam the information spectrum with ex post finger-pointing over what happened 4 months ago, the monoline-insurance earthquake is the one that forward-looking traders should be worried about.
Via Bloomberg:
Ambac, MBIA Outlook Lowered by S&P, ACA Cut to CCC (Update2)
By Christine Richard
Dec. 19 (Bloomberg) — MBIA Inc. and Ambac Financial Group [...]
Posted in euro, inflation, monetary policy, volatility on December 17, 2007 | No Comments »
Japan’s latest export bound for the European market: tried and failed monetary policy.
By Ralph Atkins in Frankfurt, Gillian Tett in London [...]
Posted in china, dollar, euro, federal reserve, inflation, monetary policy, russia on December 3, 2007 | 4 Comments »
My money is on 50 basis points at the Fed’s December meeting. Contrary to the now red-faced predictions of the GaveKal crowd, inflation, even by their favored indicators, has not abated, despite the total chaos in the private market for loans. Inflation is still accelerating, according to CPI-U, PPI, and chained PCE, the three big [...]
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