Banking

It is official.  The Chinese yuan will be in the SDR.  At a 10.4% share, it is a bit more than I expected, but less than the 14%-16% share that the IMF staff has intimated a few months ago.  This...

Recently, the International Monetary Fund's staff and its chief Christine Lagarde suggested that the yuan should join the basket of international reserve currencies (the Special Drawing Rights, or SDR). Expected approval of the inclusion is likely to come at the...

The US dollar recorded its high for the year against the Swiss franc on January 14 near CHF1.0240.  It closed that day a little below CHF1.0190.  The next day the Swiss National Bank surprised the world by lifting its cap...

On 13 November 2015, the IMF’s Managing Director, Christine Lagarde, released a statement that an IMF Executive Board meeting will come on 30 November to decide whether to include the Chinese reminbi (RMB) in the Special Drawing Rights’ (SDR) valuation...

The Canadian dollar is more than a petro currency.  It is also subject to the same forces of divergence that have lifted the US dollar more broadly.  Since the beginning of the year, the US two-year yield has risen 26...

The US dollar broadly consolidated its recent gains over the past week.  Data and officials mostly confirmed what most investors had already anticipated.  The Federal Reserve is most likely to hike rates in the middle of December. The ECB will...

This Great Graphic, created on Bloomberg, shows the recent price action of the Australian dollar.  For the past month, corrective upticks have held a trendline.  It comes in near $0.7150 today and a little below $0.7115 by the end of...

The latest leg down for the euro began in mid-October when the single currency met a wall of sellers in front of $1.15.  Draghi's dovishness at the press conference following the October 22 ECB meeting sent the euro toward $1.11. ...

The IMF will decide this month whether to make the Chinese renminbi the fifth international reserve currency. For the euro, that would not be a win or lose game. Behind the facade, there has been much debate about the inclusion...

There were three significant speculative gross position adjustment among the currency futures in the Commitment of Traders reporting week ending November 3.  They were all expanding the gross short positions. Speculators added 30.9k contracts to lift the gross short euro...

Sometimes the mountain peak is clearer from the valley than from the summit.  It may be easier to understand the changes in China’s currency regime if we take a step away and try to look at the big picture.  To...

Of the world’s two largest international financial centers, London is warming up to the renminbi, but Wall Street is running behind.  Recently, the former mayor of New York City Mike Bloomberg congratulated President Barack Obama and President Xi Jinping for...

The US dollar fell against most of the major and emerging market currencies for the second consecutive week.  The combination of market positioning, weak confidence that the Fed will hike rates this year, and the rise in some industrial commodities,...

This is the sixth consecutive session the Canadian dollar is appreciating.  The US dollar reached an 11-year high on September 29 near CAD1.3460.  Today it traded to almost CAD1.2970.  There have been four main drivers of the Canadian dollar advance. ...

The US dollar begins the fourth quarter on a mixed note.  The dollar-bloc currencies are trading higher, helped by stabilizing commodity prices and the slightly better than expected Chinese manufacturing PMI (49.8 vs 49.6 expected after 49.7 in August).  Australia's...