Between the lines

What message are Japan’s salary men delivering to the global economy? Many readers will be familiar with the concept of Mrs Watanabe, for those amongst us that aren’t here’s a quick synopsis; Mrs Watanabe is the personification of the Japanese housewife speculators, who are (occasionally) strong enough to affect international markets, especially foreign exchange markets. […]

Is the USA experiencing another bubble in housing? It’s generally accepted wisdom that for a failed financial phenomena to return it has to ‘hide’ for a generation or more, quite simply we need to forget the mistakes of the past. However, we may be witnessing a return of housing speculation in America after it’s remained

Positive PMIs fuel bullish sentiment in Asia, Europe and the USA… The start of the year’s third quarter trading period was positive; from the Asian session the bullish sentiment continued through to the London session, further extending in the New York session, although risk appetite fell away and the DJIA retraced and gave back some

Fools Gold… As we’ve pointed out several times over recent months one of the oddities regarding the current situation gripping the markets is the continual lack of ‘normal’ correlations.  For example, normal would be markets collapsing, ergo a rush into gold and other precious metals. Or for the DJIA to rise and the greenback lose

The UK waves goodbye to Mervyn King with a £375 billion tick a tape parade, otherwise known as quantitative easing… Tuesday saw the last statement from the UK’s outgoing governor of the Bank of England Mervyn King to the all party treasury select committee. This UK government committee overseas the decisions taken by the BOE

Major indices continue their slump taking certain currencies south in tandem China growth concerns, due to the HSBC ‘PMI’ numbers printing short of economists’ expectations, combined with the lingering impact of the FOMC comments of last week, caused a continuation of the sell off in US stock markets witnessed late last week. The DJIA falling

Sudden stock crashes and other tales of woe.. Two interesting stories caught our imagination over the past 24 hours, both concerned technology. Firstly, concern that American stock markets are more susceptible to micro- second crashes due to computerisation isn’t supported by the data, a Securities and Exchange Commission official stated on Tuesday. Gregg Berman, head

To taper or not to taper, that is the question? It’s fascinating to watch how market commentators and the wider trading world have become embroiled in the latest drama day after day through the mainstream media channels. We had the fiscal cliff back in late 2012, remember that? How the USA economy was going to

Is it too soon to mention the Hindenburg Omen again, a subject that we discussed last week? Probably, especially given the fact that all the conditions and parameters haven’t been met yet. However, the DJIA has closed down three days in succession, a first for this year and the drop has been quite substantial. The

The  greenback falls too much; up steps a Fed official to pump up the volume across the various media frequencies. The euro rises too much; up steps an ECB official, or politician with some weight and credibility to talk down the euro. The yen rises too much, well you’ve got the picture by now. Why