July 23, 2021 Not “risk-on” or “risk-off”, rather What’s the risk? FX, Investment Strategies, Macro Olivier Desbarres In the past fortnight US Treasury yields across the maturity spectrum have oscillated in reasonably wide ranges, with the highs coinciding with the release on 13th July of US CPI-inflation data. The shape of the yield curve today is... Read More...
July 19, 2021 Sterling’s coming home…albeit slowly FX, G7, UK GBP Olivier Desbarres Despite buoyant domestic expectations (or at least hope) football will not be coming home after the England football team lost on penalties to Italy in Sunday’s final of the Euro Championship but Sterling is arguably coming home, albeit slowly. The... Read More...
June 29, 2021 Sterling leads Euro 1-0 at half-time in dull encounter but could extend advantage FX, G7 EURUSD Olivier Desbarres With England due to play Germany in the last-16 round of the Euro Championships in a few hours time, now is a good time to revisit the Sterling-Euro exchange rate. Football fans will be hoping for a pulsating sporting encounter... Read More...
May 28, 2021 Tantrum “lite” won’t help US Dollar Economics, FX, US USD US financial markets have had to contend with three “hawkish surprises” so far this month and on each occasion price action has been broadly the same. Initially the Dollar rallied, the S&P 500 sold off and US Treasury yields... Read More...
June 22, 2021 Fed: Same game, different rules Economics, FX, US Fed The Federal Reserve at its policy meeting on 16th June, whether inadvertently or by design, reset financial markets’ clocks. The dust has since settled somewhat, with US short-end and long-end yields, the US Dollar and S&P 500 trading sideways for... Read More...
June 9, 2021 Have hawks finally lost altitude? Economics, FX, US USD Time and time again in the past five weeks US Treasuries and the S&P 500 have sold off and the Dollar rallied in the wake of hawkish US surprises only for markets to quickly unwind these moves. Volatility in US... Read More...
Speevr Intelligence May 26, 2021 Crypto: Fed Governor Brainard on Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) cryptocurrencies, Technology editorial “Speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.”– Theodore Roosevelt Until this week, the Federal Reserve’s experimentation with Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) was conducted through a joint study by the Boston Fed... Read More...
Asia June 3, 2021 CHINA: Central bank seeks to manage RMB expectations without intervention Economics, China, FX Gabriel Wildau The renminbi has strengthened by 2.3% against the US dollar this year, raising the question of how much appreciation the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) will tolerate. The PBoC probably cares more about the trade-weighted exchange rate than the bilateral... Read More...
Asia May 26, 2021 CHINA: Crypto crackdown – is this time different? cryptocurrencies, Economics, China, Politics Gabriel Wildau Three government-backed industry associations ordered financial institutions not to facilitate virtual currency transactions or provide any related services. But the impact is likely to be modest, as the latest crackdown does not go substantially beyond a previous ban in 2017... Read More...
May 17, 2021 Will CB Digital Currencies threaten Bitcoin? Banking, cryptocurrencies, Macro Fractional reserve banking, CBDC, Bitcoin Alessio Farhadi Money often costs too much– Ralph Waldo Emerson We believe the short answer is ‘No’. When you follow the money trail, it becomes apparent the debate about decentralized versus Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDC) is more about the Fractional Reserve... Read More...
