From the category archives:

Falling Money

Holy cow! That didn’t last long. Look at this intraday chart of the Dollar Index. If that’s all the bang Bernanke can get for his … er … buck, the dollar is sicker than even I thought (and that’s saying something)!

The text from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s speech in New York was just released. For a change, he actually mentioned the dollar and suggested that its movements could factor into policy decisions. That has led to a bounce in the Dollar Index from its daily low. The operative text is below:
“The foreign exchange value of [...]

There’s a lot of chatter on the dollar front today. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner told a group of Japanese reporters that he “believe[s] deeply that it’s very important for the U.S. and the economic health of the U.S. that we maintain a strong dollar.”
The Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum is also up in arms about the [...]

The Federal Open Market Committee just released its latest interest rate decision and statement. Rates were left unchanged, as expected, at a range of 0% to 0.25%. The Fed also held onto its language pledging to keep rates low for an “extended period.” One minor surprise: The Fed said it would reduce the size of [...]

The Bernanke-nator

by Mike Larson on October 19, 2009

in Banking, Currency Analysis, Economy, Falling Money

Just a thought, but maybe we should call our Federal Reserve Chairman the “Bernanke-nator.” As Kyle Reese said in the original Terminator movie … “Listen, and understand. That terminator is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not [...]

Okay, so that’s not the headline you’re going to read on the wires. But really, his speech at the Conference on Asia and the Global Financial Crisis in Santa Barbara, California is very academic. It’s focused on longer-term trade and growth issues, and frankly, I don’t see any explicit or implicit comments directed at the [...]

You have to love it: The just released Fed minutes from the September 22-23 meeting are looking unbelievably dovish. Some Fed members were reportedly even open to INCREASING the size of MBS purchases. This from a Fed whose quantitative easing policies are driving the dollar into the crapper. Seriously? Meanwhile, the Fed minutes note that [...]

What a morning for the U.S. dollar … a bad one, that is. It’s getting hammered against all the major currencies, with the Australian dollar leading the way, thanks to a semi-surprise rate hike by the Reserve Bank of Australia. Unlike our “all easy money, all the time” Federal Reserve, the RBA is joining minor [...]

There are some good stories at the Washington Post today about how the Fed is fueling fresh carry trades/bubbles by keeping interest rates pegged around zero. I covered this exact same topic a few days ago. The Fed seems to have no other solution for burst bubbles than easy money … which then fuels new [...]

Dollar getting vaporized again

by Mike Larson on September 16, 2009

in Currency Analysis, Falling Money

The motto these days seems to be: “Is the market open? Then sell dollars!” I say that because the dollar was weak again in the overnight session. The Dollar Index is currently down 12 bps to 76.40, its lowest level going all the way back to last September. The Japanese yen keeps banging away at [...]