Economic Conditions

The US dollar's strong advance in the second half of May showed signs of tiring as last week drew to a close.  It could be a function of month end flows, but the magnitude of the dollar's advance and the...

A light bout of profit taking has seen yesterday's strong dollar gains pared.  Yesterday, the Dollar Index rose 1.3%, its biggest single day rise since July 2013.  There has been a dearth of fresh trading incentives, and consolidative tone has...

A two-page paper published by John Nash in 1950 is a seminal contribution to the field of Game Theory and of our general understanding of strategic decision-making. That paper, “Equilibrium points in N-person games”, introduced a cornerstone concept, which came...

I’m not much for glossing over the true state of affairs just to make things look better, which is why I take issue with many government reports.  When it comes to providing clear information on the economy, the U.S. government...

As this year’s crop of college graduates don their caps and gowns and listen to inspiring commencement addresses before embarking on uncertain futures, they’ll also hear a lot about the consequences of the large debts most of them amassed attaining...

The US dollar's recovery last week may not get the kind of fundamental support that medium and long-term investors would like to see to raise the confidence that the two-month correction has run its course.  The US dollar's recovery last...

LEE SNIDER PHOTO IMAGES / Shutterstock.com LEE SNIDER PHOTO IMAGES / Shutterstock.com When online shopping emerged as a global phenomenon in the early 2000s, I remember reading prophecies that consumers would now cruise far and wide across the internet for...

The US dollar extended its recent gains against the major currencies.  The euro returned to its break out level near $1.1060 after approaching $1.15 at the end of last week.  In three sessions, it has surrendered more than 38% of...

Disappointing US economic data and high volatility in the German bunds kept the dollar under pressure.  Over the past week the greenback fell against all the major currencies, save the New Zealand dollar (where interest rate cut expectations have built...

The combination of the disappointing US retail sales and small inventory build has encouraged a new bout of dollar selling.  The world's biggest economy may have contracted close to 1% in Q1 and Q2 is off to a weak start. ...

Equities and bond markets are mostly trading higher today.  The dollar changed little against the euro and yen, but it is softer against the dollar-bloc.  Sterling extended is a post-election rally with the help of a gain in average weekly...

The US dollar has begun the new week on firm footing, but the tone is more consolidative than trending.  The dollar-bloc currencies, led by the New Zealand dollar, are particular softer despite China's rate cut, which sometimes has been supportive...

1.  After the US economy appears to have contracted (-0.5%/-0.8%) in the first quarter, how is the economy doing here in Q2 which is half over this week? Last week we learned that after a simply dismal March labor report,...

The consensus for a 226k increase in April non-farm payrolls got as close as reasonably possible to the actual 223k increase.  The nearly 40k downward revision to the March report (85k down from 126k of the initial estimate) tempered the...

The polls proved wide of the mark. While we had detected a break toward the Tories over the past week, the results were stunning. The Tories appear to have won half the 650 seats.  Most of the contested seats swung...