Forex Investment and Currency Trading

The RBA remains on message: an outperforming Asian region; local economy performing better than expected; in due course “less expansionary” policy required. 
However, there is still caution and balance throughout the minutes where “some uncertainty remained about the outlook both abroad and at home”. 
Critically, there was again no mention of the cash rate being at “emergency levels”, and that the emergency no longer exists.  Was the Governor’s strong semi-annual testimony language a red herring?
The soft tightening bias was a repeat of last month where “if the economy evolved as anticipated in the forecasts, the Bank would in due course need to [...]

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Summary: July data show a mixed performance of major activity indicators (China is now releasing most monthly data in one tranche each month). The highlight is further signs of rebound in private spending, supporting the view of a sustained growth recovery. The slightly weaker-than-expected July data, with slower FAI growth offset by strong retail sales growth, suggest balanced risks to market’s 8.3% growth projection for 2009.
Analysts continue to believe that quantitative measures (open market operations, moral suasion and possibly a reserve requirement hike) will be the main tools used by the PBoC to tighten liquidity and limit asset-price inflation risks. The pace of [...]

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The next instalment of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) interest rate decision will be delivered on August 12. However, as has been the case in the past, with the Fed explicitly committing itself to keeping interest rates “exceptionally low” for an extended period of time, the actual interest rate announcement is unlikely to attract much attention. Instead, the focus will undoubtedly be on the tone and content of the statement. In terms of the economic and inflation outlook, analysts expect the economic assessment to perhaps offer some acknowledgement of the improvement in the economic outlook, and maybe note that the [...]

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This is an important week for Australian markets, coming in the wake of the Reserve Bank of Australia’s (RBA’s) comments last week, which appeared to signal a change to a neutral from an easing policy stance. Today, we have monthly home loans, investment lending, and value-of-loans data for June. Home loan growth bounced sharply from a low of -3.1% in September 2008 to 6.5% in December 2008, but since then has moderated to 1.8% in April and 2.2% in May. Business and consumer confidence indicators are released on Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by the Q2 wage cost index on Wednesday [...]

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