Chinese rate hikes will build pressure on its Pacific partners April 5, 2011 TODAY the interest rate hike announced by the Chinese central bank will kick in. This follows yesterday’s announcement by the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) that the benchmark one-year lending rate will increase to 6.31 per cent from 6.06 per cent. At the same time, the one-year deposit rate will rise to 3.25 per cent [...]
AUSSIE: RATE RISE NOT IN SIGHT OF RBA April 5, 2011 DIRECTOR OF CURRENCY RESEARCH, GFT OVER the past week the Australian dollar has been setting fresh post-float highs nearly every day, reaching a peak of Au$1.0416 on Sunday. The currency’s recent rise has been driven by stronger commodity prices, improved risk appetite and the return of the carry trade. At 4.75 per cent, the Aussie [...]
THE TIPSTER April 5, 2011 THE Japanese yen remains under significant pressure, which is not being helped by news of supply chain disruption at Toyota’s US facilities. What should have been a valuable source of funds ready to be repatriated is being taken out of the equation. The concern now has to be that the situation is going to get [...]
FOREX ANALYST PICKS April 5, 2011 FOREX STRATEGIST JOHN KICKLIGHTER My pick: Short euro-dollar, short Australian dollar-dollar, long euro Expertise: Fundamental and Technical Analysis with Risk Management Average time frame of trades: 1 day to 1 week Neither the short euro-dollar nor the short sterling-dollar setups I laid out last week were triggered, as sentiment and rate expectations held up. That [...]
Rate rise in euro would expose weak periphery April 5, 2011 MARKETS are expecting a quarter point rise from 1 to 1.25 per cent when the European Central Bank (ECB) meets tomorrow. However, even if Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the ECB, announces the quarter point rise, the euro could still come under pressure, as attention focuses on the impact of higher interest rates upon Europe’s beleaguered [...]
UNLEASH THE MATRIX TO GET ACTION April 5, 2011 CONSULTING ANALYST, INTERTRADER Do you remember the film Trading Places with Eddie Murphy? The key scene takes place in the commodities trading pit for orange juice in the World Trade Centre. Two traders observe that Randolph and Mortimer, the two old-timers running the show, are buying every orange juice contract in site. Then those two [...]
Commodities send FTSE 100 up to six-week high April 4, 2011 STRENGTH from commodity stocks helped Britain’s top shares inch up to its highest close in six weeks yesterday, but trading was light and investors were sceptial about prospects for further gains. The FTSE 100 closed up 7.06 points, or 0.1 per cent, at 6,016.98, adding to the six-week closing high seen on Friday after solid [...]
Wall Street fails to make progress on low volumes April 4, 2011 THE S&P 500 met tough resistance yesterday, failing to break a level that has held since mid-February even as a spate of deals and underlying strength in the economy spurred optimism. But caution ahead of earnings season held volume to its lowest level this year and suggested the recent rally may be fading. The benchmark [...]
Cuts and consequences April 4, 2011 IN WESTMINSTER, “the markets” are increasingly attributed sentience and an opinion on the world around them. In the lower chamber, we hear much pontificating on “what the markets want”. Traders in contracts for difference (CFDs) may want to ask the opposite question: if the deficit is not brought under control, or maybe more importantly, is [...]
THE WORLD IS FRAGILE FROM EAST TO WEST April 4, 2011 CFD MARKET STRATEGIST, GFT THE first quarter of 2011 finished last week with a number of the world’s major stock indices registering impressive gains. This was quite an achievement given the geopolitical turmoil that erupted in January. Although the regime change that took place in Tunisia and Egypt has been relatively painless so far, the [...]
