The dollar, while rising against the yen and Swiss franc, fell versus other key counterparts after better-thanexpected US employment data eased concern of a double-dip recession. For the week, all the major crosses except sterling rose against the greenback. Private-sector payrolls grew more than expected in August and job losses
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For a generation of Americans brought up on action heroes who face impossible challenges and then win the day, the results of fiscal and monetary stimulus are disappointing. Yet, the level of pessimism and talk of a double-dip strike us as too much of a bad thing. This week we
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We had some fairly positive data this week, starting with expansions in both personal income and consumption for the month of July. Then the Conference Board's consumer confidence index surprised market expectations on the upside and the ISM manufacturing index also fared better than expected underpinned by a surprisingly strong
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The past week began with disappointment stemming from Japan's lack of direct currency intervention and risk aversion looked probable to continue into the week. This was not the case as better than expected Australian 2Q GDP started a ripple effect culminating into a global wave of positive data surprises. Upbeat
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The strong rally in risk into today's close in the US today can't be about this week's economic data particularly as the ISM non-manufacturing index for August showed a steep deceleration. So why the rally? The combination of an equity rally and a lousy ISM resulted in the predictable
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The case for metals remains not that of outright inflation but that of central banks prolonged liquidity drives. Currencies will gain/fall versus one another, but fresh asset purchases will maintain gold and silver ahead. Rising metals remained the consistent play over the past 2 months, supporting my near-term gold outlook
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A relentless squeeze in JPY and Swiss Franc has driven both currencies to overbought levels last seen at the end of 2009. With key BoJ and SNB meetings scheduled over the next two weeks, this begs the question if profit taking and a trend reversal in JPY and Franc vs
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Following a wall of discouraging data recently things turned more upbeat this week, as we received positive surprises from both the US and China coupled with a continued flow of solid eurozone data. There is little doubt that the US remains in a slowdown phase. However, the data published so
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The US Non-farm employment data posted better than expected results and revisions to the markets delight. As a result, we saw improved risk appetite. Expectations were for an overall loss of over 100,000 jobs and an increase in the private sector by 42,000 jobs. The street was pleased to see
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The US ISM non-manufacturing report should be considered the premiere survey of US business conditions as it covers the US services industries, which represent some 70% of the US economy. Today's report for August was very negative, at a barely expansive 51.5 vs. 53.2 expected and 54.3 in July. Particularly
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