Commodity Currencies Benefit as FOMC Officials Avoid Interest Rate Hints – 1st October 2015
William Dudley, the president of the New York Federal Reserve, was talking last night and kept investors in the dark about interest rate policy saying "it's not for me to say what the market expectation should be". Jim Bullard, the St Louis Fed president, and...
#AUD #NZD and #ZAR as flight to safety reverses – 30th September 2015
Another day and another change of heart from investors. On Monday it was all about the flight to safety as money fled from the allegedly risky commodity-oriented currencies - the Australian Dollar, the NZ Dollar and the South African Rand - and into the supposedly...
Safe haven currencies gain as #AUD and #NZD drop – 29th September 2015
Falling commodity prices are making themselves felt in the production chain and yesterday it had a considerable impact on exchange rates. Yesterday, shares in Glencore, a huge mining and trading firm, fell by nearly a third sparking a wider sell-off in commodities and sending share prices...
An uneventful day sees the Kiwi Dollar on top – 28th September 2015
The NZ Dollar finished the strongest currency on Friday last week after a two-day surge. With no domestic or Chinese data to influence the NZ Dollar the buying was driven by technical factors. On Thursday the GBP/NZD exchange rate moved below an uptrend that had supported...
Markets focus on Thursday’s FOMC decision with a quiet day yesterday – 15th September 2015
Malcolm Turnbull was sworn in this morning to replace Tony Abbott to become Australia's fifth prime minister in eight years. Investors were not even slightly ruffled by the change of leadership. Perhaps that is because he and his New Zealand counterpart are both ex-investment-bankers. It led...
#FOMC interest rate decision this week – 14th September 2015
For some time economists and investors have been speculating when and if the Federal Open Market Committee will raise interest rates. Well the waiting is nearly (until the October 28th anyway) over as the FOMC convenes on Wednesday and Thursday to debate whether or not now...
#GBP ends the week on a high after a strange week of currency reactions – 11th September 2015
This week has been a strange one for currency reactions. For example, Sterling has strengthened by an average of 1.1% against the other dozen most actively-traded currencies despite some pretty mediocre economic data releases. The British Retail Consortium reported increased retail sales but at lower prices....
#GBP remains calm whilst currencies do the opposite – 9th September 2015
Efforts by China's Securities Regulatory Commission over the last two months to stabilise Shanghai equity prices is starting to bear fruit. Investors seem to have decided that fresh stimulus measures by the authorities in Beijing will finally start to put the Chinese economy to rights. So...