Just like buses – central banks announcements
Last week was notable for news affecting the value of major currencies. We waited all week for announcements from central banks and just like buses, three came along at once. The Bank of England’s announcement to print another £50 billion was anticipated. The markets knew that was going to happen. At the moment of the announcement, a small blip in the value of GBPUSD just confirmed the inevitable. The European Central Bank then duly obliged with a quarter point cut from 1%. This bit was expected by the market. The Euro went into free fall on the back of the ECB reducing the overnight...
Read MoreAfter the Euro summit
After the Euro Summit How quickly news drops out of the headlines. It was only a week ago that Eurozone leaders met for another in the series of Euro summits to save the Euro. Expectations were low, lower than a snakes belly in fact. Then something miraculous happened, an announcement of progress towards banking union. The markets immediately pushed the value of the Euro higher. Banking union is one of the pillars required to support a currency. One currency, one central bank standing behind it, with the central bank in turn monitoring and regulating the activities of the individual banks in...
Read MoreWhat is a Euro worth?
I spent yesterday with many other traders at a trading conference in London. An enjoyable day in good company listening to some very good presentations and panel discussions. Naturally, there were many questions about the Euro and Greece’s (future) participation in it. It is fair to say that pretty much everyone in the room (there were a couple of hundred or more) had a negative view of the value of the Euro. But why? What is a fair price? Hasn’t all of the downside risk already been priced in? Wouldn’t the Euro be stronger without Greece? Once you start asking these...
Read MoreNew 2012 lows for Euro
It must be some kind of justice that the Euro is currently trading near the lows for 2012 against the US dollar on the eve of another EU summit. As I write, the Euro has just set a new low for the year, heading below 1.2600 for the first time and setting the lowest rate for the currency since August last year. With continuing disagreement in the Euro about substantive measures to solve the problems in the Euro area, this level of trading can only be indicative of market expectations for the EU summit later today. The more that heads of government talk about keeping Greece inside the Euro...
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