Author : Marc Chandler

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...

Three developments drove the dollar last week.  The Eurozone bond market sell-off exhausted itself with the help of softer than expected German industrial orders and an outright decline in...

1) The Brazilian central bank indicated less FX swaps and additional monetary tightening, 2) After a delay, Israel has a new government, 3) Saudi Arabia will open up its...

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...

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...

Japan and the yen seem sidelined.  Japanese markets were closed for the first half of the week during for the Golden Week holidays.  The weakness of the US economy...

The dramatic sell-off in European bonds continues apace today.  In part, sparked by the easing of deflation pressure, there is a taper tantrum of sorts playing out.  The 10-year...

The change in the Greek negotiating team appears to have helped reinvigorate the talks with the official creditors.  However, insufficient progress has been made that would allow a resumption...

The key issue today is whether the ADP estimate of US private sector employment growth in April will be sufficient to fuel a dollar recovery.  Yesterday's trade balance blowout...

Venezuela's recent experience is instructive.  The Chavez regime had moved away from the fiat US dollar and had the bulk of its reserves in gold.  Last month, Venezuela's reserves...