Asia followed the bullish tone provided by the Federal Reserve with a gap higher opening of around 1%. Mainland China and Hang Seng managed to build upon this enthusiasm, eventually closing up almost 2.5% each. The same could not be said of Japan when the Nikkei had problems holding the 17k psychological level. Tomorrow being […]

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 […]

Goldman Sachs is at the center of a probe into the rigging of U.S. Treasury Auctions, which was the same allegation that resulted in the Treasury shutting down Salomon Brothers in 1991. I wrote about this incident when Salomon was caught. The fact that such rigging in commodities markets was standard for decades was common knowledge. When […]

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 […]

The strong Yen continues to weigh on the Nikkei even though other core Asian Indices performed. Minutes from the Jan BOJ meeting were released which showed that additional stimulus were discussed, including the possible expansion of QE. However, having opened unchanged and after a long week the Nikkei closed down -1.25% on the day and 2.5% lower […]

With both Asia and European markets were in pretty much a waiting station ahead of the FED, so it is probably worth us heading straight to where the action started! Even the events of the UK Budget were almost removed with talks of,  “It could all change come June 23rd anyway” so why get too hot under the […]

Asia closed mixed in a session dominated by central bank thinking and with the uncertainty of holding recent gains. The BOJ was vocal only in that they stated it was too early still to monitor the effects of the recent negative move. The JPY returned to previous highs and in late US trading Nikkei futures have dropped […]

  The usual domestic analysis has its usual blinders on like a horse pulling a carriage in Central Park. Typically, this analysis blames everything on the Fed and remains clueless about international capital flows or trends. They argue that the S&P 500 doubled in value from November 2008 to October 2014, coinciding with the Federal Reserve […]

Quieter equity markets across the globe today with gains decreasing as we move from east to west. Core Asian markets saw returns today of around +1.5% each but the week is to be dominated by central bank activity. Today sees the start of the BOJ’s two-day meeting, but no change in rate is expected by […]

While the markets have cheered the public admission that the central banks have completely failed in their quantitative easing and they will now buy more for longer, the technical profile is not as buoyant as it might appear on the surface. We have at least begun to enter the resistance area, but we have still […]