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 […]

Extremely poor data in Japan (Tankan est -0.7% actual -0.9% Previous +10.8) weighed heavily on stocks closing the Nikkei 3.55% lower and not a great start for the second quarter. Despite the better than expected Chinese Manufacturing report (49.7 versus an estimate of 48.2) it was not enough to turn sentiment around in Asia. It […]

When you have a consistent system that is running on absolutely everything around the world, you can simply look at it dispassionately and judge everything by the same standards. In gold, euro, Canadian dollar, DAX, and many other markets, we generally moved to weekly, monthly and/or quarterly reversals and then stopped shy of electing them. This typically reflects […]

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 […]

QUESTION: Marty; I attended your WEC in Princeton. It was really amazing. The year before you had pre-conference training session. That might be a good idea to bring back for this year. On another note, Trump seems to be just self-destructing and Cruz has effectively said the Republican Party is over for he will not […]

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 […]

Those in power who have something to lose always follow the same pattern of attacks. They are using the very same tactics against Trump and Farage of portraying them as racists because both are against immigration — but they are really against the establishment. When I was in London, I bumped into the very same […]

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 […]