Ralph Shell @ 1:05 PM, Monday November 01 2010
While this week's marquee attraction may be the results of the FOMC meeting, to be announced Wednesday afternoon, this is not the only market moving event this week. Speculation about the size of QEII has become a parlor game for economists and followers of the dismal science. Will Helicopter Ben be satisfied, showering the countryside with a mere $500B, or will he set his sights on a couple trillion? Concerned with the Fed's pending decision, and fearing the deluge of dollars and even further USD weakening, central bankers in Britain, Japan and Europe will then hold their meetings.
On Thursday, the Bank of England will meet, and their has been speculation that Mervyn King might be inclined to favorably view additional monetary stimulation. Recent better than expected economic reports have probably postponed this decision. The views of the new PM David Cameron might be another reason Britain will not follow Bernanke's lead. Christoper Caldwell senior editor of The Weekly Standard reported that:
"Cameron, who is as widely read in economics as any Western leader, has an analytical objection to stimulus. It is that stimulus leaks. His understanding of our predicament seems to be roughly this: Some countries have current account deficits. That is, they import a lot more than they export, and cover the difference by borrowing money abroad. The current account deficits of the United States and the United Kingdom are spectacularly, dangerously large. Those deficits are a measure of the amount of credit that used to be sloshing around the U.S. economy. They helped crash the financial system, leaving people with less money to spend, which in turn threatens further economic contraction. To avoid that contraction, the government can stimulate, and if it does, people will keep buying things. But there is a problem: Why should their buying habits differ from the ones that got us into this mess in the first place? All you do by stimulating is prop up real estate prices at ultimately unsustainable levels and keep the flow of junky toys coming from China."
So if David Cameron prevails, Britain's version of QEII may be postponed for a long time.
Last week, The Bank of Japan moved their meeting forward to November 4th and 5th so they too could give a quick response and reaction to the Fed's new plans. Grappling with a very strong yen that will eventually cripple their exports, they have vowed to take vigorous decisive action to fight deflation and weaken the yen. Aside from the printing of more yen, and conversation about making some off shore ETF purchases, we will wait to see what that decisive action might be.
If all this were not enough for the speculators to worry about, on Friday we get the US Non-Farm Payroll Account. This report is expected to show an increased of 65k jobs, but the expert's guesses in this report are often wrong.
In the latest COT report speculators, perhaps afraid of some turbulent trading days ahead, did reduce their positions, and the daily open interest reports at the CME suggests this may be continuing. For the nimble there should be many opportunities this week, and it is usually easier to trade after the number than to guess what the report will show. Sometimes report weeks do produce exaggerated volatility. It looks to us like the pound may be turning to the up side, and we would like to buy the GPB/USD should that pair back off to the 1.5840 area, risking a trade under 1.57.
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.