Economic Conditions

The notion of a middle-income trap has generated much interest and discussion, but little consensus. There is no agreement on what the trap is or how long a country needs to be at the middle-income stage to be considered trapped....

A string of soft data in Asia and Europe has helped underpin the dollar, but choppy range trading persists.  Asian shares still rallied, helped by the biggest rally in Taiwan in almost two-years on the back of reports that China...

Today, there have been several fundamental developments encouraging the dollar's slippage.  Japan reported its first trade monthly trade surplus in nearly three years; further easing of rate cut expectations by Australia; BOE minutes warning of a faster pass through of...

The US dollar is extending yesterday's gains but remains well within ranges that have confined the greenback for more than a month now. There are two main catalysts. First NY Fed President Dudley reaffirmed the idea that the Federal Reserve...

The US dollar is firmer against most of the European currencies but is weaker within the dollar-bloc and many emerging market currencies.  Against the yen, the greenback is little changed.  The US dollar has been pushed a more than a...

The US dollar's strong advance ended a month ago.  Weak economic data encouraged investors to push out their expectations of the Fed's first interest rate hike. Some are even shifting it out of 2015 entirely. At the same time, economic...

Six years after the US economic contraction ended, the Federal Reserve has still not raised interest rates.  Inflation has not accelerated as so many predicted.  The economy is chugging along in an irregular fashion.  The US economy appears to have...

The US dollar has largely been confined to yesterday's ranges, as it consolidates recent gains.  Today's March retail sales report in the US is important.  Retail sales have fallen three consecutive months.  Ideas that this weakness was a function of two...

The broadly higher US dollar is extending last week's recovery. In addition to the strong technical momentum, shockingly poor Chinese trade data is bolstering the greenback, which crushed currencies linked to commodities from Australia to South Africa to Latin America....

The key take away from recent developments is that the divergence theme that has lifted the US dollar remains very much in play even after the dovish spin given to the March FOMC meeting and the disappointing jobs data. The...

The market shrugged off Last week's soft US employment data as a one-off disappointment.  The JOLTS report and new cyclical lows in weekly initial jobless claims provide evidence of the continued improvement in the labor market.  The ECB's bond purchases...

The US dollar is broadly higher on follow through buying after recovering in North America yesterday, helped in part by the FOMC minutes.  The minutes suggested a greater risk of a June or even a September hike than many investors...

The disappointing US employment data reinforces our expectation that after a strong advance in Q1 the US dollar will correct lower in Q2.  The euro's performance is also broadly consistent with the US experience in which the dollar sold off...

The US dollar is mostly lower as liquidity thins, and soft economic data kept the bulls penned.  The soft ADP estimate and weaker than expected manufacturing ISM offset the heightened rhetoric about Greece's 460 mln euro payment due to the...

The US dollar remains bid as liquidity begins to slip away from the foreign exchange market, not to return until April 7.  The inability of the euro and especially sterling to trade higher despite favorable economic news is noteworthy.  At...