Data Diary

With the European liquidity/solvency crisis in full swing, and major disappointment from the markets on the Fed’s announcement, it looks increasingly likely that the USD will continue to catch a bid. A likely casualty of a higher dollar is gold: Note that prior periods of USD strength have taken the wind out of gold’s uptrend. [...]

Since the new world order was heralded in by the market naves in March 2009, the commodities complex has been broadly trumpeting the same tune. Whether it’s been due to the destruction of fiat money or the creation of lots of real demand, the trend across most commodity classes has been firmly up. But the [...]

Apparently it only takes 10% of the population to be true believers for the rest of us lemmings to follow suit. (From the Rensellear Institute via History Squared – please note that the research was funded by the Armed Services). This really does explain a lot. For example, ever wondered how bell-bottoms took over the world?  (Though [...]

The Financial Crisis Observatory (here) publishes research that gravitates around a model proposed by Didier Sornette that suggests that bubbles follow a predictable pattern – and that their collapse can be forecast with reasonable accuracy. The key insight of Didier and his comrades is that financial market prices tend to follow a power law as they [...]

We knew that the times were extraordinary – but looking at the rapid ascent of the Aussie dollar this week is enough to get one questioning whether something else is going on. Quickfire movements such as we have seen are uncommon enough events, though the most recent decade seems to have had its fair share. [...]

We all suffer from bias – it’s what makes interpreting the subtext fun. So how to read the RBA’s latest commodity price release (here)? Preliminary estimates for March indicate that the index rose by 0.6 per cent (on a monthly average basis) in SDR terms, after rising by 1.4 per cent in February (revised). The largest [...]

A week is a long time in pico-second land – so it has been nigh on an eternity since we last spoke to some of our high frequency friends. The resilience of markets to the steady stream of seemingly bad news has been surprising though perhaps not entirely unexpected given that governments globally remain committed [...]

Global industrial production is set to climb again – as it waddles after those cardigan wearing purchasing managers: The US has been leading the way – from the JP Morgan Global PMI Report report (here) The US PMI rose to an eighty-month high in January, while its counterpart in the Eurozone hit a nine-month peak. [...]

Latest Commitments of Traders reports (here) confirm that deeper pocketed speculators continue to exit their gold positions: Managed money longs have declined through the July 2009 lows and are threatening to revisit levels last seen in March 2009.  (Note the boxed area in the charts reflects the period since gold bottomed in October 2008.) And [...]

I’m a conspiracy theorist at heart, partly because it adds a little spice to my otherwise safari-suit wearing ways, and partly in the hope that our leaders are smarter than their actions sometimes suggest. With the near universal condemnation of Ben Bernanke and his FOMC chums, it’s left to us conspiracy theorists then to once again [...]