The Nikkei continued its march in todays trading adding an additional +0.5% with the Yen behaving. The consensus appears to be happy the FED will raise which will likely hit the currency even more and have positive effects upon the Nikkei. The Shanghai responded to better than expected Retail Sales (10.8 v’s expectations of 10.1%) […]

This week will all be about the Federal Reserve and the outlook for rates into next. The strip is pricing in additional moves already but it is the long end that is having a worrying impact on many dealers. Obviously, the recent curve movement is music for the (US) banks and insurance companies but will […]

Today, any information ahead of something like a rate hike is seen as insider trading. But back during the 1970s going into 1981, things were different. The banks were not big proprietary traders. I would routinely get a call that the Fed would raise rates in 15 minutes. It was not that someone was trying […]

Trump is keeping his word so far. He has admitted that he was part of the problem paying lobbyists to get preferential treatment. As they say, if you want to catch a thief, you hire a thief. In this case, Trump has really been on the other side and admitted he even paid Hillary to […]

We hardly saw any excitement overnight other than the fact that the BOJ bought some 10yr JGB’s to keep yield around zero. This obviously has a detrimental affect on the currency and in late trading we see JPY trading close to 110. As a consequence of the weaker currency financial stocks traded heavy whilst the […]

Again, we saw good performance from the Nikkei but with the currency attempting the 110 handle having a neutral ling affect. The index closed up over 1% on the day and was helped by the renewed OPEC rumour of potential output cuts. Other Asian exchanges were equally better bid but could not sustain their performance […]

What appeared to be an uncertain start turned into smiles and hugs all around. The Nikkei opened unchanged and drifted into the red for a short time until the weaker JPY helped exporters and even late in US trading remains above the 104 handle. Shanghai also went from strength to strength and the Yuan continues […]

The Fed told Congress it would buy stocks if Congress allowed it. This statement has caused a lot of people to scratch their heads. Will this cause all the stock bears to rethink their prognostications of a major stock market crash? This was not even on the radar of most people. Some have reported this […]

The one thing that markets do not like is uncertainty and that is exactly what we have suffered from the past couple of days. Asia reacted to the Deutsche Bank news with heavy selling despite better than expected numbers from Japan and in late trading the futures have responded yet again. Having lost 1.9% in […]

Asia, specifically the Nikkei, traded heavy from the opening and although attempted a bounce mid-session by the close ended 1.3% down. The JPY therefore saw moves towards the 100 level but was eventually rejected reaching only 100.25 and by late US trading leveled at 100.75. Many traders speculating about the Shanghai playing with the 3k level […]