The main topic again last night was the magnitude of the advancing Yen. Despite a convincing break below the 109 (and 108 in European trading) the Nikkei only managed to hold ground to show a modest (0.22%) gain on the day. The Shanghai fell over 1.3% overnight and only just managed to hold the psychological […]

Fridays NFP in the US did not help support the Nikkei despite the DOW’s strong closing rally. We did see a bounce off of the 16k figure but given that the Chinese markets were closed, holding any gains on the day proved just too lonesome. Late news on Friday about oil production continues to haunt […]

After an initial opening surge in the Nikkei, briefly topping 17k, sellers appeared and drove prices lower to close the day -0.7%. The JPY was weaker throughout the morning session but had also turned stronger to balance the Nikkei swing. With the 10yr JGB having turned negative recently, this will squeeze banks and foreigners in […]

Janet Yellen signaled that the Fed is grappling with the problem I have been warning about: the dollar has become the de facto currency and the Fed is indeed becoming the world’s central bank. Yellen has admitted that everyone is lobbying the Fed to surrender its domestic policy objectives for international ones. This is precisely […]

Most markets were undecided on which way to play ahead of today’s main event, and so moves were light and limited. Asia saw all core indices tussle between black and red, and with the exception of China all closed pretty much unchanged. Shanghai closed down 1.3% but that was after a late recovery rally at the […]

The Nikkei was the bright spot in Asian equity markets today closing up 0.8% whilst the JPY decline would have cost 0.3% of that gain. It was far better than the declines we saw in mainland China which closed -1.7%. Yuan gained small ground today and was last seen 6.5212. Given the majority of the […]

Today will be the close for the week and this will be an important indicator. A closing in gold below 1237.50 will warn of weakness. We have important technical resistance at the 1245 level and a closing back below that breakout line will also warn that the upward momentum is starting to decline. Gold bounced […]

We have many readers in Brussels who have my sincere sympathy for what is taking place in Europe. I have hesitated to be an alarmist with this aspect of our war cycle, but one reader sent this note today: Dear Martin, I could have been one of the victims today since I passed the Maalbeek […]

Shortly after the European open news broke of the Belgium terror attacks and we saw the usual flight to quality. Treasuries rallied, as did Gold and the US Dollar while stocks fell and in particular airlines and travel companies. At one stage we saw the DAX down over -1.5% with CAC, IBEX and FTSE not […]

With Japan on national holidays it was left to Shanghai and Hang Seng to show the rest of the world the way forward. With the help of the PBOC, adding ample liquidity and fixing the Yuan rate at  6.4824 (compared to 6.4628 on Friday) stocks saw a healthy 2%+ gain for the day. HSI closed marginally firmer. In […]