The FOMC's biggest worry is not lift off and its market and economic implications, but what happens if the economic recovery dies of old age without the Fed having done anything to tighten, right now the rates market builds in very gradual policy rate normalization, with increasing uncertainty about the date of lift off.

Steven Englander

Categorized in : Business

The dollar is coming off because there is a big focus on the earnings number and in the short-term it takes some pressure off rates, we have seen 10-year rates go down by 2 basis points. The market looks at this and says this is not a particularly dollar friendly number in the very short-term, but for the economy it is a great number.

Steven Englander

business

The G20 communique basically says 1) the world is not as bad a place as markets think; and 2) if it gets worse we will use fiscal, monetary and structural policy aggressively to fix it, in baseball parlance, they were aiming for a single in terms of restoring confidence and they probably achieved it.

Steven Englander

business

The key driver is this immense pessimism in asset markets, unwillingness to hold anything but the safest assets.

Steven Englander

company-news

The FOMC will be afraid that dropping patience without making some reference to the USD or international asset market conditions will lead to an even faster USD pickup, paradoxically, if they are serious about hiking mid-year, a USD breakout may limit their options.

Steven Englander

business

These minutes seem to suggest that the Fed was in no hurry whatso... by Steven Englander

These minutes seem to suggest that the Fed was in no hurry whatsoever to begin hiking.

Steven Englander

company-news

There's a strong presumption now that Greece and the Eurogroup will find some language which essentially extends the program.

Steven Englander

company-news

But in the end, you want to ask yourself, does bitcoin hold promise of making certain transactions efficient? The answer is yes, does it cater to any market niche that is not already being taken care of? I am more skeptical.

Steven Englander

technology

Both were relatively optimistic on the U.S. economy and went out of their way to stress upside benefits to the U.S. economy of weaker oil prices, all of this is extremely positive for USD.

Steven Englander

most-read-articles

Both were relatively optimistic on the U.S. economy and went out of their way to stress upside benefits to U.S. economy of weaker oil prices, all of this is extremely positive for USD, given that fed funds has priced in an extremely flat policy hike path and the USD looks extremely sensitive to interest rate differentials in the current environment.

Steven Englander

business