THE TIPSTER October 4, 2011 THE EU must be stoking the ire of the Bank of Japan at this stage. Euro-yen at 11-year lows is begging for intervention from the BOJ. Look to buy on dips to ¥100.60-70. Forex.com is currently quoting ¥101.19-¥101.23. Dollar-yen refuses to break out from between ¥78.00 and ¥76.00 finding the ¥76.00 level a firm support [...]
FOREX ANALYST PICKS October 4, 2011 FOREX STRATEGIST JOHN KICKLIGHTER My pick: Short euro-dollar and short Kiwi dollar-dollar Expertise: Fundamental analysis with risk management Average time frame of trades: 1 day to 1 week Though it took a little time, euro-dollar finally slipped below that substantial $1.3400 floor that represented the 2010-2011 mid-point. A forgiving stop at $1.3650 is warranted and [...]
Michael Lewis dissects Europe’s woes October 4, 2011 “THE Greeks not only have massive debts but are still running big deficits. Trapped by an artificially strong currency, they cannot turn these deficits into surpluses, even if they do everything outsiders want them to do. Their exports, priced in euros, remain expensive. The German government wants the Greeks to slash the size of their [...]
Salomon bond salesman to acclaimed author October 4, 2011 MICHAEL Lewis was born in New Orleans and educated at Princeton University and the London School of Economics. When he was twenty-four he started working at Salomon Brothers. Finding the experience preposterous he stumbled out three years later in 1988. His bestseller, Liar’s Poker is widely considered the book that defined Wall Street in the [...]
Boomerang: The Meltdown Tour October 4, 2011 IN HIS latest tour de force, Michael Lewis looks at “why Icelanders wanted to stop fishing and become investment bankers”, the reasons “Greeks wanted to turn their country into a piñata stuffed with cash and allow as many citizens as possible to take a whack,” and “why the Irish wanted to stop being Irish” and [...]
Banks and mining stock fall on fear over Greece and Asia October 3, 2011 BRITAIN’S top share index began the final quarter of 2011 on a downbeat note as investors trimmed positions in banks and miners on familiar concerns over Greece’s debt problems and worries about growth in Asia. A 2012 draft budget approved by Greece’s cabinet on Sunday predicted a deficit of 8.5 per cent of gross domestic [...]
Wall Street slumps to a 13-month low October 3, 2011 US stocks slumped in heavy volume to a 13-month low yesterday as investors dumped bank shares on fears that Greece’s worsening financial crisis could cause a large European lender to fail. Investors pegged losses to the sharp fall in Franco-Belgian financial group Dexia, which fell 10 per cent after a Moody’s warning about its liquidity [...]
Readying for another round with the King October 3, 2011 AS the markets look to Thursday’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting and the possibility of Mervyn King giving the orders to fire up the printing presses once again, George Osborne voiced his support of monetary manipulation in a speech to the Conservative party conference. Saying that both he and David Cameron were “fiscal conservatives and [...]
IT’S NOT EASY TO BE BULLISH THIS QUARTER October 3, 2011 THE third quarter proved to be pretty grim for stock investors. Over the past three months the Dow lost 14 per cent, the NASDAQ fell 10 per cent, while the S&P 500 ended 16 per cent lower. It wasn’t just the US indices that took a hit. The UK’s FTSE 100 dropped 16 per cent, [...]
The devil’s in the detail of positive data October 3, 2011 GIVEN the rarity of positive data gracing the markets these days, yesterday’s Markit/CIPS manufacturing PMI headline activity statistics for September came as a welcome surprise – the forecast was for 48.6, which would have indicated further contraction, but the results pointed to an expansionary 51.1. However, champagne corks should remain firmly in bottles, as this [...]