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* Dollar rallies Big! * Commodities in a free fall... * Yen remains untouched... * Data risk this week... ** An Attitude Change... Good day... And a Terrific Tuesday to you! Welcome to September! I hope you had a Wonderful Holiday Weekend. I sure did! It was the end of 4 weeks of treatments. We have beautiful weather. I enjoyed a day of football on Saturday, with my little buddy Alex, playing Saturday morning, and my beloved Missouri Tigers playing Saturday night. Sunday was fantabulous, as I hung around the backyard, and neighbors and friends all stopped by to spend the day... Just great! I had to rest up my leg yesterday, as it was swelling a bit from all the walking and standing, but back to normal today, so, it's all good! Not so for the euro and other currencies this morning. Front and Center this morning, the euro has fallen further, all the way through the 1.45 handle! Seems that Hurricane Gustav didn't disrupt the Oil production as many had feared, and the price of Oil has fallen $115, after trading as high as $119 on Friday, ahead of the storm. Gold too has taken on gallons of dollar water, and has diluted the price of the shiny metal to $805, after traded near $845 last Thursday. And Commodities? That's not a pretty sight, the free fall of commodities... And thus the Commodity Currencies of Aussie and Kiwi, and even the Canadian dollar have all seen the trap door opened up underneath them by this dollar move....

* Dollar rally is stopped! * FOMC meeting minutes... * Housing data you won't see on TV! * Sweden to sell Gold... ** Currencies Rally On Bad U.S. Data... Good day... And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! I'm back. I just couldn't answer the bell yesterday morning, as the night before was simply rough on your old Pfennig writer. I'm in my last week of treatment and it has been a tough row to hoe, and I feel bad that I was not able to stiffen the back and make it through the day. But, no biggie, I've got great people here to take care of things when I'm gone... When I finally dragged myself out of bed yesterday, I saw that the dollar was taking liberties with the euro and other currencies once again. It was another game of "your economy is worse than mine", as German Business Confidence took a ride on the slippery slope down. You should have seen the "bandwagon jumpers" falling all over themselves to write about how cool it was to own the dollar. I chuckled, no big laugh as that might upset my stomach! But, their claim to be cool, was quickly squashed like a bug, when the housing numbers printed, and then later in the day, with the latest FOMC meeting minutes... More on this in a minute.......

* Strange trading days... * U.K. Retail Sales surprise.... * Norway's GDP prints strong! * A CDO lesson... ** Fannie and Freddie Back In The News... Good day... And a Tub Thumpin' Thursday to you! Don't know why... I just felt like it should be a Tub Thumpin' Thursday! I hit the wall yesterday, as I went home, and fell asleep at 3 o'clock, and didn't wake up till night time! Watched a few innings of my beloved Cardinals, wanted desperately to stay up and watch the May-Walsh beach volleyball game, but went right back to bed! So... I should be rested, eh? One would think so, but with the treatments I take, they just simply wipe me out! But... Hey! I always said that sleep was the greatest thing... I just get to enjoy more of it, right? OK... Another day of strange trading... As I signed off yesterday, the euro had given up it's previous day's gains, but found some terra firma at 1.47 and then rallied in the afternoon... If you guess right, as I have not done so this week, you can catch a great price to sell, and buy, all in the same day!...

* Gold is oversold... * Dollar index is overbought... * RBA to cut rates... * More tears to shed in housing... ** German Investor Confidence Rises! Good day... And a Terrific Tuesday to you! Whew! A long day yesterday for me and the kids on the trading desk. I suspect today will be cut from the same cloth. We have quite a few currency investors panicking and bailing on their plan to diversify. It's not a One-Way street folks... No one ever said it would be! But those that held on to their positions during the dollar rally of 2005, were rewarded, as I believe they will this time too... But then, I could be wrong......

* ECB to change dollar's direction?... * BOE leaves rates unchanged... * The worst is not over in US housing... * Japan's government signals expansion is over.. ** ECB to change dollar's direction?... Good day...The dollar continued its assault on the world's currencies yesterday as the dollar index moved above the 74 handle. I pulled a chart off the Bloomberg on my way out the door last night, and it showed the only major currency which was up vs. the US$ yesterday was the Swedish krona, which managed a .07% increase. This dollar rally has legs, but I still question the fundamentals behind the dollars surge. Today may be the day we see the dollar finally make a turn, as the ECB will be announcing their rate decision. It is not that I expect Trichet to raise rates, but I do expect him to sound hawkish and refocus the markets attention on Eurozone inflation and away from worries about growth. Two reports out of Germany this morning will bolster Trichet's hawkish stance. German exports rose more than economists expected in June, defying a stronger euro and pushing the trade surplus to a record. Exports increased 4.2% from may, the most since September 2006. German industrial production also increased for the first time in four months with output rising 1.7% from a year earlier. The IMF last month rose its forecast for German economic growth this year and said the global slowdown linked to the US financial crisis was less severe than it expected....

* US$ saved by oil... * US Recession? (not according to Paulson)... * New Zealand worst performer in July... * Big Mac Index says buy Asia... ** US$ saved by oil... Good day...And welcome to August. The markets had a little more movement yesterday as the US GDP report came in lower than expected, and had a hidden surprise for dollar bears (more on that later). In addition to the poor GDP numbers, Personal consumption dropped and the GDP Price Index also showed a decrease. The employment cost index was flat, and the weekly jobless claims were slightly higher than expected at 448k. More Americans filed initial unemployment claims last week than at any time in more than five years. The only positive piece of data released in the US yesterday was the volatile (and somewhat unreliable) Chicago Purchasing Managers number which showed an increase back above 50. With all the bad data, the dollar sold off rather sharply and the Euro jumped a full cent to trade over 1.57 for a short while. But the dollar bears didn't celebrate for long, as the dollar sharply reversed course as crude oil prices rode to its rescue. As I explained earlier in the week, the price of crude oil and the US$ have had a very tight relationship lately, with a correlation of .9. Just after the dollar fell due to the GDP releases, crude oil began a sharp $3 drop and saved the US$ from further losses. The price of oil has continued to slide, and is now down over 11% in the past month. This has helped prop the dollar up in spite of a number of poor economic reports here in the US....

* Existing Home Sales fall... * Foreclosures spike! * Euro rebounds... * Aussie dollar sees some weakness... ** More Awful Housing Data! Good day... And a Happy Friday to one and all! Well... The touch of food poisoning I got ( I think) stayed with me most of the day yesterday. I did make it to my presentation with Addison Wiggin, but you should have seen me... I was a mess... But I got through it, stayed at the booth for an hour to talk to people and then headed back to the room to basically fall asleep until now... UGH! I have to say that I believe this conference to be the absolute best conference I have ever attended, and believe me, I've attended quite a few conferences in my time! We have talked to so many people that are genuinely interested, some that already completed their applications, and then there were the 100's of people that are already customers, wanting to know more! It has been a great conference!...

* The euro runs into a summer storm... * Plosser wants higher rates... Yeah, right! * Aussie dollar strength to return... * Canadian inflation pops higher than expected! ** A Perfect Storm... Good day... And a Wonderful Wednesday to you! A great day yesterday, as I was able to meet up with old friends, readers, and well wishers... So many people were just glad to see me here! I told them it was good to be seen! Looks like the oil rigs dodged a bullet with Dolly in the Gulf Coast, and that's a good thing! But Dolly will still hit South Padre Island today, please keep that in your thoughts today... Well... You know how I explained on a couple of occasions in the past couple of weeks, a Perfect Storm for the dollar? Well, those never materialized due to a number of reasons... Yesterday, we finally got that Perfect Storm, but it wasn't for the dollar... You know those Mid-Western summer storms, when in the middle of the day, it turns pitch-black, and the trees all begin bowing from the wind, and then the rain comes down hard? Well, that's much like what happened yesterday with the euro... Here's the skinny......