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  • SNB Cut Rates 100 BPS!

    * Trading Theme returns... * Automakers' bailout vote today... * Not using all your arrows... * Housing Starts go back to 1959! ** SNB Cut Rates 100 BPS! Good day... And a Tub Thumpin' Thursday to you! It's a short week for me, so this IS a Tub Thumpin' Thursday! I head to Florida tomorrow, and I'm ready! After last week, and the cold that's set in here, I'm ready! Too bad I'll be working about 1/2 the time! But, I'm not complainin'! OK... Whew! What an awful day yesterday for the currencies... In the morning, they ere in rally mode with the euro gaining ground to well within the 1.27 handle. But then the Trading Theme set in, and those gains were wiped out. The Trading Theme was set off by the awful Housing data, which reminded everyone of the deep, dark , dangerous days ahead... I bought some euros, and watched them rise, and went off to do something else... When I returned, they had fallen... UGH! The Japanese yen, however, rallied, as is the case with the Trading Theme... Risk trades get unwound, which benefits dollars, and yen. I've explained all this before, so I won't get into it again, but there's someone that has gone into the problems (credit markets and the Fed and Treasury's response to the crisis), and does a great job of telling it like it is... So, instead of hearing from me, ranting and cursing the "leaders" I'll let someone else explain it to you... This is a fellow named Ted Cook, that Ty Keough sent my way......
  • Here we go again...

    * Here we go again... * US numbers show further slowdown... * Norway cuts rates... * Switzerland moves to shore up UBS... ** Here we go again... Good day...The dollar rallied and the equity markets plunged yesterday as investors again pulled their money away from the markets. As we have seen over the past several weeks, when investors get worried about the state of the global economy, they rush back into cash, and in the world of cash the US$ is still king. Chuck has been talking about this trading pattern during his FX University presentations, and I'll start this morning's Pfennig off with his thoughts from Philadelphia, where he is hosting another day of FXU: Here we go again! The recession trap door gets sprung under the stock market, and things begin to look really bad in the U.S. again, and guess what? The dollar rallies... This just plays the trading theme over and over again... And Yen? It's back below 100! Risk gets taken out, and whatever carry trades that were brave enough to go back on after Monday, have been wiped out! Wiped out like the rally in Aussie dollars, which had rallied to +70-cents after Monday... And lost 5-cents today......