Asia is the world’s largest continent both in terms of land mass and population. Now, if you add Oceania in there to galvanize the entire Asia-Pacific trading zone, you will get what researchers of the e-commerce industry have termed as the world’s largest online retail market. In 2015, the Asia-Pacific e-commerce market oversaw more than $730 billion in annual sales and recent reports indicate that Asia alone is now overseeing more than $770 billion while Australia is tipped to cross the $35 billion mark this year despite having a population of less than 25 million people. If you throw in New Zealand and the rest of the Oceania countries...
Forecast for the EUR/USD currency pair Technical indicators of the currency pair: Prev Opening: 1.05404 Opening: 1.05757 Chg. % Last day: +0.34 Day range: 1.05721 – 1.06029 52-week range: 1.0366 – 1.1616 Yesterday, the ECB kept its monetary policy at the same level. The regulator raised the forecast for the growth of the EU economy and inflation for 2017 and 2018. Trading ended with the growth of the EUR/USD quotes by 0.34%. Today, the attention is focused on the report on the labor market in the US. Most experts expect positive statistics. At the moment, the key trading range on the EUR/USD is 1.05600-1.06150. The MACD histogram is in th...
With practically all but the IPO-allocated insiders still under-water, Snap shareholders will be anxiously awaiting today’s unleashing of options of the money-burning, user-shrinking ‘camera’ company. Not been a fun ride so far… But it’s about to get even more exciting, as Reuters reports, weekly and monthly options contracts on Snap’s shares are expected to start trading on Friday, CBOE said last week, once certain regulatory requirements for their listing are met. Snap’s options market debut will allow traders to place bets on where they expect the shares to trade in the future. “I think...
Swelling crude oil inventories certainly contribute to the majority of fears about economic slowing and of course the XOI’s influence on the market big caps. But it’s not that simple. First on Oil; it’s been rising supply rather than slackening demand, that contributes to that aspect. Even the Saudi’s in a clear-cut comment yesterday (that really accelerated the Oil decline) lambasted the Americans (how dare we, right) for increasing ‘Shale Oil’ exploration quickly, which hurts their plans to use any tactic they can, to hobble our Petroleum Industry as much as they’d like. Oilmen aren’t in a ...
WTI Crude Oil The oil markets continue to struggle during the Thursday session, as the short-term rally that opened the day turned around and we broke well below the $50 level. This is a psychological win for the sellers, and thus I believe we are going to continue going lower. Anybody who’s been listening to me knows that I’ve been waiting for the breakdown, and this is it. I believe the market will then reach towards the $45 level below, but we will get a bounce from time to time. Those bounces are selling opportunities, and I think that will be the case for some time. Currently, I have no interest in buying oil, and quite frankly I don...
Video length: 00:07:56 The key issue surrounding today’s February US Nonfarm Payrolls report is whether or not the US labor market will give further indication that it is strong enough to justify three rate hikes during the rest of 2017. With Fed funds futures contracts already pricing in a 100% chance of a rate hike when the FOMC meets on Wednesday, March 15, today’s data is more or less a ‘cherry on top’ of rate hike expectations. Instead, market participants will be paying attention to the wage component of the report in particular, which has been admittedly lacking gusto despite the unemployment rate holding n...
Want a reason to get long USD? You know, besides widening rate differentials? Well how about a better average hourly earnings print in Friday’s February jobs report? That would probably help buoy the greenback. Recall that the average hourly earnings number was the most talked about part of the January jobs report. Indeed, many a market observer pointed to weak AHE as “proof” that the Fed wouldn’t/couldn’t/shouldn’t hike in March. So much for that, right? Anyway, Bloomberg’s Chris Anstey thinks you should likewise pay attention to AHE this morning – especially if you’re trading FX. I’d also ask that you think back to wha...
Next week the Janet Yellen and her minions are expected, with 100% certainty, to lift the Fed funds rate by another 0.25% to 1.00%. This certainty has been building as of late given the rise in inflation pressures from higher commodity, particularly oil prices, and still rising health care costs as well as a strong market, dollar, and employment data. Speaking of employment data, ADP reported on Wednesday a 298,000 person increase in employment. What is interesting is this was the highest monthly employment rate seen since 2014, 2011, and 2006. In all three previous cases, it was the peak of employment before weakness begin to set in. Of c...
European and Asian shares rise along with a jump in S&P futures which are pointing to a solidly green open on US payrolls day. The dollar, trading somewhat weaker against the euro was stronger against the yen, and was on track for its firth week of gains, while the rout in global Treasuries continued following a Mario Draghi conference that was interpreted as more hawkish than expected. Today’s key event is the February nonfarm payrolls, where consensus expects a solid gain of 190,000 jobs after Wednesday’s blockbuster ADP report, and with whisper expectations around 220,000, the number can at most disappoint as previewed ear...
The 10-year Treasury yield ticked up to 2.60% on Thursday… again. The benchmark rate reached that level in December (the highest since 2014) following the reflationary wave that followed Donald Trump’s election victory. But yields pulled back in 2017… until yesterday. The 2.60% mark for the 10-year Note has been a talking point for investors in the weeks after bond manager Bill Gross marked it as a critical threshold. “If 2.60% is broken on the upside… a secular bear bond market has begun,” he wrote on January 10. “Watch the 2.6% level. Much more important than Dow 20,000. Much more important than $60-a-barrel oil. Much more i...