Ralph Shell @ 1:26 PM, Friday July 16 2010
The dollar continued to be the week's loser against the euro, yen and the pound. Yesterday in the Telegraph.co.uk, Ambrose Evans-Pritchard quoted a currency analysis who said:
"The worm is turning," said David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC. "We're in a world of rotating sovereign crises. The market seems to become obsessed with one idea at a time, then violently swings towards another. People thought the euro would break-up. Now we're moving into a new phase because we're hearing alarm bells of a US double dip."
Mr Bloom said a deep change is under way in investor psychology as funds and central banks respond to the blizzard of shocking US data and again focus on the fragility of an economy where public debt is surging towards 100pc of GDP, not helped by the malaise enveloping the Obama White House. "The Europeans have aired their dirty debt in public and taken some measures to address it, whilst the US has not," he said.
Mr. Bloom is stating the obvious, but what has yet to be aired about the US debt is a mystery. The US economy news continues negative. Today the core CPI m/m was about as expected up 0.2%, no hint of inflation here, but the TIC Long Term Purchases showed that foreign purchases of US securities is slowing down. Later the Preliminary Univ. of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Survey took a nose dive to 66.5 down from an expected 74.2. The negative survey has taken its toll on the equities, with the Dow currently down over 200.
This week's White House meetings with former President Clinton and Warren Buffett failed to provide any solutions for the current economic malaise. Perhaps the new 2,300 page bank regulation bill providing for 243 new regulatory provisions in 10 different agencies will help the employment problem with thousands of new government regulators. Going back a few years the Dept. of Agricultural got so big that it had more employees than their were farmers. Chances are, however, that all these new regulations will continue the loss of private sector jobs in the US, sending many of them overseas.
This morning the Canadian leading indicators came in up 1.0% a little better than the 0.7% expected, but the C$ is tarnished because of the economic ails of the US. Next week the Bank of Canada is expected to bump the bank rate another .25%, but this has not stopped the sell off in the C$, now trading at 1.0535. Further weakness to the 1.0650 versus the USD looks interesting.
The failure of the Swiss National Bank to prevent their currency from gaining on the euro, and the losses incurred has been reported. With the euro problems abating, perhaps the SNB was right in buying the euro. The plunge from 1.52 handle to the low 1.30's seems excessive and a recovery rally might be in order. The weekly chart shows a reversal pattern and the futures open interest has been building on the recovery during the past week. We will be looking for a long trading strategy in the euro versus the franc.
Author: Ralph Shell - ForexRazor Analyst - Graduated from a small Ohio liberal arts college. Graduate studies in economics and history at Duke University. Ten years experience trading cash commodities in domestic and export markets. Former commodity analyst with Merrill Lynch in Chicago. Member of and floor trader at the Chicago Board of Trade for 18 years.