Download PDF In the previous article of our series, we highlighted the questionable use of cross currency swaps and concluded that this kind of window dressing techniques are a manifestation of the larger issue of problematic debt management on the sovereign entity scale. In this article, we delve deeper into Read more…
The purpose of the article is to provide an explanation on the economic policies of the third largest economy in the world. In particular, explanation of Abenomics’ three arrows, their effects on Japanese economy and our view on the next steps that policy makers are likely to undertake. With this Read more…
US The market movers in the week just past us in the US were certainly the news on the labor market; non-farm payrolls soared past estimates at 295,000 and unemployment tumbled at 5.5 per cent. The latter figure is the upper limit of what has been previously defined by the Read more…
US This week we have seen almost only positive data about US economy, which explained dollar strength with respect to all major currencies (EUR, GBP and YEN). Gains were relatively small against Euro and Pound. The substantial advance with respect to the Yen was mainly due to Yen’s weakness during Read more…
Two days ago, during its regular policy meeting, the ECB left interest rates unchanged and Mario Draghi said the “council was comfortable acting next time.” He signaled that there was a unanimous belief that the current inflation rate of 0.7% is unacceptable. He also stated that the strength of the Read more…
The main idea of the trade is to buy IND and sell USD, implementing what in jargon is called a carry trade. In the chart above we can see the 3-month trend of this risky pair, which has actually been under the spotlight in the past couple of months since Read more…
Who is Janet Yellen, the woman everyone seems to be talking about these days? Why have we been hearing this name so often and what implications will it have on us? Well, we will presumably be hearing of Janet Yellen for quite a long time: last Wednesday President Obama nominated Read more…
Not so long ago, prices of oil, steel and gold (just to name a few) were thought to continue floating upwards forever as China entered its third decade of growing with breakneck speed. However, commodity prices have been deteriorating since 2008-2009, in line with sluggish growth and fall in demand Read more…
After three days we decided to close our position on the EURUSD as our trade did not play out. In the end we were almost flat so we did not lose money. However we keep our bullish view on the USD and we decided to change the pair and to Read more…
This week was dominated by the US and European central bankers speeches. They both confirmed their accommodative monetary policy. However the FED just confirmed its commitment to the bond buying program until the economy would have showed sign of improvement. The ECB, on the other side, decided to take really Read more…
After having come very close to the 100 peak, this week the USD lost some ground to the JPY trading close to the 98 level. We believe that the next target is obviously the breaking out of the 100 line. On the one hand we have updates from BOJ governor Read more…
We believe that in case of a strong distress the Nikkei index can suffer the most. Why not European equities? We believe that European equities have already suffered from the recent turmoil while the Japanese index has been heavily unaffected and has recently rallied dramatically, completely diverging from fundamentals whose Read more…
We believe that the strong fundamentals of the US economy will further push the USD that recently has underperformed its counterparties. However we believe that in the long run the currency will appreciate. We suggest two ways to take advantage of this outlook: First by selling put options on the Read more…