A constitutional referendum is planned to be held in Turkey in in the Spring of 2017. A survey is showing that the people are not really in favor of handing endless power to the President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Voters are expected to decide on amending 18 articles of the Constitution of Turkey. The amendments have been […]

It was not a pretty site for most stock markets today with much of the mainstream media blaming Trump. The first press conference will probably be remembered for the resulting stock market volatility. As Asia opened the mood was heavy but having watched futures markets take much of the immediate repercussions cash tended to take […]

QUESTION: Do language and currencies move in line with each other? Is language a leading indicator to currency i.e. Spanish in California. Will they create their own currency if they separate from the states? ANSWER: There is a direct link between currency and language. When I was doing interviews in Europe, I explained the euro would […]

President of China Xi Jinping made a statement last year that has sparked a number of comments over the past few months. Xi Jinping said: “The world is on the verge of radical change. We see that the European Union is gradually falling apart, how the US economy is crashing, and that all this will […]

The demand for safe-haven JPY returned with a vengeance today even though Japan was on a national holiday (Coming of Age Day) but in the futures markets the Nikkei lost almost 1.3%. The Yen traded stronger all day and in late US trading was seen slightly under the 116 level. Both the Shanghai and Hang […]

After a 2% jump in the Nikkei yesterday we was no surprise to see a little profit-taking today. The JPY was a major talking point today with a very healthy bounce back to the mid 115 level, a 1.5% price move in the day. The Hang Seng was the star core performer within Asia closing […]

COMMENT: Martin, A few weeks ago (12/13/2016) my wife received a notice from her company about changes to her 401K and I thought I was in a Kafka film. The notice basically identified “the investment elections you can make and the actions that will occur if you do not make you elections by the deadlines […]

Asia has started the new year in positive mood especially after some better than expected China data. The Chinese PMI rose to 51.9 from an expected 50.7 forecast helping the core markets register a 1%+ increase today. This comes on the heels of a change in the calculating factors for the Yuan. As we reported […]

Although the cash markets for Japan, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Australia were closed some of the exchange traded futures market did open. All were better bid, closing in positive territory but as you would imagine, volumes were extremely thin and even the Indian Sensex closed unchanged. It was the European markets that tended to drive […]

The only thing about international trade is that someone cannot have a trade surplus without another experiencing a trade deficit. We all cannot have trade surpluses simultaneously and we have to begin understanding this reality. The net capital movements around the world are showing clear signs that things will be intensifying and the net capital […]