Summer vacations have mostly ended.  The news stream has picked up.  Yet speculators have been mostly reluctant to make meaningful changes in their exposure to the currency futures. There are a few notable exceptions.  First, over the past several weeks,...

Germany and Japan didn’t want their currencies to go global, fearing appreciation and the resulting blow to their manufacturers’ competitive edge. China, in contrast, seeks to turn the renminbi (RMB) into a major global currency. To do this, it has...

Over the summer, the US dollar was out of favor with the speculators in the futures market. This means that gross long positions increased and gross short positions tended to fall.  Speculators are only short three of the eight currency...

It took the market a few days to overcome the shockingly poor non-manufacturing ISM (51.4 vs. 55.5). However, by the end of the week, the US dollar bulls had regained the upper end.  The September Fed funds was implying a...

On 30 November 2015, the IMF announced that the Chinese renminbi (RMB) was to be included in its special drawing rights (SDR) currency basket. Joining the SDR — the IMF’s chief international reserve asset for member states — meant that...

The US dollar was already trading with a heavier bias before the shockingly poor service ISM.  The August non-manufacturing ISM tumbled to 51.4, a six-year low, from 55.5 in July.  Markit, which does its own survey, showed a smaller decline...

Speculative activity remained light in the latest CFTC reporting period ending August 30.  There were no gross position adjustments that we recognize as significant, 10k contracts or more. There were only three gross adjustments by speculators of more than 4k...

How much growth has foreign exchange experienced from the last report in April 2013? Overall trading in foreign exchange has fallen from a year-to-year basis.  Markets in April 2016 saw turnover fall to $5.1 trillion from $5.4 trillion due primarily...

The World Bank sold the equivalent of about $700 mln of a three-year of a multiple currency bond that duplicated the composition of the IMF's Special Drawing Right or SDR.  There has been much fanfare.  It is the first SDR...

The summer lull for speculators in the currency futures market continued in the CFTC reporting week ending August 23.  Of the 16 gross currency futures positions we track, speculator adjustments were less than 3k contracts in all but three. The...

Summer doldrums continue to depress speculative activity in the currency futures market.  In the CFTC Commitment of Traders reporting week ending August 16 speculators made small adjustments to gross currency positions.  There was only one change more than 6k contracts....

Since late July, I have been looking for the Australian dollar to turn lower.  Instead, the Aussie has continued to climb.  It has risen in ten of the past eleven weeks.  As this Great Graphic, created on Bloomberg, these gains...

This Great Graphic was created on Bloomberg.  I use it to illustrate a possible head and shoulder pattern that has been carved by the US dollar against the yen.  Head and shoulders patterns are most often regarded as a reversal...

Today is anniversary of the final blow to the dollar-gold standard.  By August 15, 1971, the exchange of dollars for gold was limited to central banks, and US President Nixon unilaterally ended it.  There was a brief attempt to resurrect...

Speculative position adjustments in the currency futures continued at a low pace in the Commitment of Traders report for the week ending August 9.  There were though two distinct patterns. The first pattern is found in the euro, Swiss franc,...