After the hawkish narrative, delivered by the FOMC on Wednesday, USA equity investors appeared to take a collective time out on Thursday. Perhaps an atmosphere of puzzlement developed within dealing rooms and across various chat facilities, as the question; “where to next, what happens next?” took hold. U.S. equities slipped, as trading remained stuck in […]
Japan publishes a vast amount of economic data on Thursday evening and Friday morning, which should be closely monitored by traders who specialise in (or who favour) trading yen. In terms of its safe haven appeal to position traders, or as a major currency pair versus the U.S. dollar, the Asian currency can react to
The FOMC announced no rate change, at the conclusion of their two day meeting on Wednesday evening, the key rate of 1.25% remains unchanged. However, in the accompanying narrative, they suggested that one more rate rise could happen in 2017, with December the likely date. And as from October they’ll begin to relieve and gradually
President Trump delivered a jaw dropping first address to the U.N. assembly on Tuesday, in which he lashed out at just about everyone and everything, whilst voicing his overused and meaningless mantra; “to put America first”. From threatening to “totally destroy North Korea”, to insisting that the Iran truce, so delicately put together by the
In January 2017, the Fed chairperson Janet Yellen, delivered a fairly hawkish statement, indicating that the Fed would raise the key interest rate three times during the year, if both herself and her committee, felt the USA economy was robust enough to cope with the rises. True to her commitment, the rate was duly raised
We’ve become accustomed to many new buzz words and phrases since the various credit crises developed back in 2007/2008: TARP, asset purchase, credit crunch, ZIRP (zero interest rate policy), NIRP (negative interest rate policy), taper, taper twist, helicopter money etc. And how could we ignore the most infamous nuspeak of “Q.E.” (Quantitative easing). Well now
Last week was a (relatively) quiet week for: economic calendar news and events, market moving Trump tweets, whilst the narrative causing tensions with North Korea, also appeared to recede. Perhaps it was that stability and a return to a focus on key data, which created an environment and the underpinning sentiment, allowing fundamentals to determine
Not only did the pound surge versus its peers earlier in the week, after CPI inflation reached 2.9%, when the latest inflation figures were released on Tuesday, sparking rumours that the BoE might raise rates on Thursday, sterling then spiked when the “no change” base rate announcement was actually made. It surged as a result
Undoubtedly, the key economic calendar event for the coming week, is the FOMC decision on interest rates, which will be revealed on Wednesday. Currently at 1.25%, the FOMC/Fed rate has increased twice in 2017 and the FOMC did suggest earlier in the year, with the usual caveats and sophist language allowing adequate room to grow
In a relatively quiet day, for medium to high economic calendar events published in the USA, Wednesday saw the USA monthly budget statement come in beating the forecast at -$107b for August, still significantly ahead of the -$42.9 recorded for July, but the result was not as bad as many analysts had feared, who had
