Even with much of core Asia selling-off Japan managed a small positive return aided by the ever weakening currency. There was a similar picture painted in China where the Shanghai exchange managed a small gain but to the detriment of the Yuan. The PBOC set the currency at its weakest in eight years at 6.9508 […]

Asia was encouraged by the wests acceptance of the Italian vote and especially the Euro’s strength. Bouncing off of the key 105 levels has created a triple bottom which, if breaks, propels the market lower. we were already aware of the Nikkei’s performance through the futures contract and so cash opening created the days highs […]

The key conversation was always going to be surrounding the Federal Reserve rate decision today despite any data releases. In Japan we saw the release of the Tankan (sentiment survey) which, at 10, repeated the same level as previous release as the Nikkei closed almost unchanged on the day. The Hang Seng was a similar […]

Jill Stein is really playing very fast and loose with this whole recount thing that serves no purpose. In Wisconsin, 95% of the votes were recounted, and as of December 11, Hillary Clinton gained just 25 votes on Republican Donald Trump. President-elect Trump won the state by more than 22,000 votes. This is some sort of publicity […]

The Dallas Police and Fire Pension System’s Board of Trustees officially suspended all withdraws last week. The move stopped $154 million of withdraws requested last week alone. If those withdraws would have been allowed, the fund would be below the $600 million in liquid assets that is required to maintain the $2.1 billion fund. Over […]

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 […]

The euphoria created yesterday by the ECB continued in to Asia and especially Japan – again. The Yen has started to feel the heat as prices take out the 114 handle again and we make our way towards 115. The Nikkei closing the day up 1.25% has established a new high for the 2016. Producer […]

The Nikkei closed today at its highest level for the year which included a well behaved Yen. Closing up +268 points (+1.45%) certainly puts it in good shape for the year end rally. Shanghai and Hang Seng were mutually off-set (+0.2%/-0.2%) with many just waiting for the ECB rate decision and being led by the […]

Asia was encouraged by the wests acceptance of the Italian vote and especially the Euro’s strength. Bouncing off of the key 105 levels has created a triple bottom which, if breaks, propels the market lower. we were already aware of the Nikkei’s performance through the futures contract and so cash opening created the days highs […]

It was time for a little retracement in the Nikkei having seen some strong gains and with NFP’s only hours away that was exactly what we saw. The yen gained ground again trading into the the 113’s and was influenced by more selling in the Shanghai and Hang Seng indices eventually both closing around 1% […]