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Forex trading analysis: what goes on with the markets?

The economic situation in the US might be giving off signals indicating a recovery from the financial crisis, but the US Dollar is not destined to fair very well.

While there are countless analysts who are forecasting a rise in the Dollar in the months to come, there is a an evolving group of traders who are expressing genuine concern over the Dollar’s long term prospects.

The bottom line of this concern is based on the reality that the large amount of money the US has used in order to dig from out of the financial avalanche will come back to haunt them in the form of Dollar weakness.

The Wall Street Journal reported only a few days ago this exact sentiment, and the notion that it presented has taken off and was widely discussed on business shows where onetime Dollar hawks have been pouncing on the notion that it can survive and thrive moving forward.

The truth is the US debt load is too heavy, it is unbearably large and it will affect the future of American business as it relates to other countries.

Import and export prices might skyrocket as a result of inflation, new taxes might be levied to help pay off the debt, basically we might see an economic recovery that will be highlighted by a weak and struggling Dollar – which will in turn bring on another crisis.

I am in no way suggesting that the Dollar will fall – for now the US is too strong for that, but I am saying that they are on the right path to having that happen.  Obama’s policies are beginning to cause issues for his popularity.

His Democratic congress is not secure in their jobs as more and more people express dissatisfaction with the spending.  His honeymoon is over.

Forex Trading bloggers have been more and more critical of his policies as the world emerges from the darkness of the recession and seeks “something else” to invest in. People who deal with online Forex traders have also been keen to this – as the news becomes better the Dollar becomes weaker. And this is a trend that I believe will continue. 

Analyzing the USD. More contradictory data came out on Wednesday, this time a disappointing Durable Goods Orders report. 

The bad news helped propel the Dollar to shake off all of this weeks losses as investors retreated from their riskier investments into the relative safety of the Greenback. 

The past few weeks has been difficult for investors, hearing things are getting better but not seeing the supporting data for those claims. 

Home sales rose 9.6% as well it was announced on Wednesday, however most of the rise was due to foreclosure sales and government auctions of foreclosed properties owned by defunct banks.

At 11:00 PM GMT, the Dollar was up .32% to the Euro to 1.4249, up .005% to the Yen to 94.2, up .7% versus the Yen to 1.6244, up 1% to the Canadian Dollar to 1.0971, up .9% to the Australian Dollar to .828, up .4% to the Kiwi and up .65% to the Swiss Franc to 1.0679.

The Chinese stock market has all but collapsed the past several weeks, falling off nearly 25% in a six week span overall capped by a 6.7% drop yesterday. The causes for concern in the Forex world relate specifically to the Dollar. 

As you might recall from several weeks ago, I spoke of the Chinese selling off some of their US treasuries and diverting that money to support their commodity purchases. 

This tactic is proving to be detrimental to the short term stability of the Chinese economy as with the information on the  stock exchange shows that industry is not moving which means the metals and durable goods  they are buying are sitting in warehouses instead of feeding the economic machine.

For the Dollar this is a signal that could spell out a difficult Fall/Winter once again, as China commits more money to helping their own corporations and diverts more and more funds away from Treasuries. 

Already, the US has held three Bond issue auctions in which the Chinese bought nothing – a fact that is not getting as much attention at this stage than it should.  I would bet, since my blogs have been a few weeks ahead of the mainstream news, that this will become a bigger deal in the coming months as more auctions go by and China continues sitting on the sidelines.

Aside from this we have the British Economy which is sputtering along as it seems the politicians are doing nothing. Political sensitivity aside, the Sterling has been suffering because the establishment in Parliament is still trying to get over a spending scandal which dominated the headlines for two months. 

They are timid and afraid to do anything significant for fear of more backlash, so they are also sitting and watching.  What Forex investors need is a clear sign from government that they are doing something, being proactive and working to turn the economy around instead of hoping that it will all by itself.

This week will be a slow one, many in the US are off for the week and Europeans are spending the last week catching the remnants of the summer sun. The ECB meets this week – don’t look for anything shocking there – they too are catching rays.

JPY. The Japanese Yen rallied on Monday as a 6.7 percent fall in the Shanghai Composite Index in China sent investors to the relative safety of the Yen for safety and was a big factor on the higher-yielding currencies most of the day. 

The Yen also rose in part on a post-election rally that saw the opposition party take over for the first time ever. The winning party called the Democratic Party of Japan is widely seen as to favor broader spending in government run social programs and economic stimulus programs. 

At 11:15PM GMT, the Yen was up .6% to the US Dollar, up .3% to the Euro to 133.43, up .35% to the British Pound to 151.71, up .43% to the Swiss Franc to 87.95 and up .2% to the Australian Dollar to 78.68. 

More Forex trading news. Trading was extremely quiet all around as the British markets were closed for a public holiday and many American’s on vacation in advance of the Labor Day holiday which marks the unofficial end to summer. The primary focus this week will be on the European Central Bank policy meeting on Thursday and the US non-farm payrolls figures which are due to be released on Friday. 

The Sterling fell 2.6% in August against the US Dollar, the largest fall of the year for the British currency.  The UK outlook is uncertain in traders eyes, despite official efforts to portray the situation as improving. Disappointing data, growing unemployment and rising consumer prices are cited as sources of the uncertainty.

The Chinese Shanghai Composite Index was down nearly 25% in the past 40 days which has raised concerns with American economists about the interest China will hold in future US treasury auctions. Their answer might come sooner than expected as they will have their first opportunity next week to see what, if any affect the drop has had.

This week has been a strange and yet interesting week on the Forex.  The volume has been incredibly light due to end of summer festivities in the US and Canada and Western Europe, however the flow of data and information has not ceased. 

We have seen officials declaring the recession over, and yet only a few hours later a piece of Data comes out that contradicts that idea. And we have seen the Dollar getting bounced around.

September in the stock market is normally the worst month, about an average of 3% loss are recorded each year since 1929. While October is the “crash month” (last year alone the market fell 13% in October) the downfalls are few and far between – so September is the hard month. 

A reason for this is that people come back from vacation and pull back their investments to gage the market and see what has happened – a portfolio reshuffle is how brokers define it. 

In the forex trading though it is different: A down market typically means a stronger currency and although this works out most of the time, this year, 2009, we are not seeing this trend.

The worries that investors have now are no longer just about which company will do better next year, or which company is poised for a breakout, the concern is based on governmental activities and it is affecting the Forex’s relationship to stocks. 

As currency is a true indicator of how strong a country is economically, traders have begun translating this into their stock holdings as well. 

Which company will be most affected by government legislation or which organization will fall under a new law or which bank will need money? 

The Dollar has been falling this month – in tandem with the US stock markets.  The question remains for Forex traders, will this trend continue and if so, how low can it go?  

The Dollar fell broadly on Wednesday, in the online forex market, after an informal data release showed a higher than expected rate of unemployment. 

US employers in the private sector shed 298,000 jobs in August according to the ADP payroll report. The Dollar initially rose on risk aversion sentiment, however continued fears over the mounting governmental debt load along with a very light volume combined to bring the Dollar down in late session trading. 

The ADP jobs report is an early indicator of how the official government “non-farm payroll” (NFP) report will look. 

The NFP report is set to come out on Friday and includes both public and private industries.  The consensus on the street is that 225,000 jobs will be reported as lost, although with private industry alone shedding close to 300,000, the NFP is likely to disappoint.

At 11:00 PM GMT, the Dollar was down .42% to the Euro to 1.4282, down .9% to the Japanese Yen to 92.15, down .85% to the British Pound to 1.6286, down .05% to the Canadian Dollar to 1.1041, down 1.2% to the Australian Dollar to .8357 up .2% to the Kiwi to .6736 and down .55% to the Swiss Franc to 1.0594.

The USD/CAD currency pair is up challenging that 1.1100/20 area again on weakness in the commodity currencies and a new sell-off in oil. A close above that level looks significant for further progression towards perhaps 1.1400 or more. 

The 55-day moving average is up just above 1.1100 as well, but the USD/CAD doesn’t seem to have much of a habit of paying attention to that number.

If oil continues below 67 dollars a barrel and equities remain in a sour mood, it’s hard to see the pair not continuing its ascent. Structurally, the failed attempt to maintain new lows below 1.0800 recently has neutralized the old bearish trend, but we’ve no bullish confirmation just yet. 1.1120+ would be a first step.

The vacation is over and we are about to enter a critical point in the life of this economic downturn. While all the players involved, from Central Bank figures to generic politicians spin the recovery story, alarming data keeps coming out that seeks to undermine this thought. 

The notion that all the data is bad is wrong, there are some signs of life though, particularly in Australia and parts of the EU, however it leaves us not with a sense of an imminent recovery, rather a feeling of a protracted one.  It seems from the news reports of this past weekend’s G20 meeting that the Central Bankers themselves have toned down their enthusiasm. Jean-Claude Trichet, the ECB President gave cautious words last week, highlighting the fact that in the towers of the powerful, uncertainty is prevalent.

The US itself is having a severe credibility issue. While their in-house economic analysts predict recovering unemployment and sales figures, the actual data is far off from their estimates.  Last week we saw what was expected to be a decline in unemployment result in an increase that has brought the US to near 10% levels – 9.6% to be exact – a 26 year high.  So we need to ask now what is really going on.  And I fear, as my skeptical self has for months, that the answer is elusive, no one really knows.

 By all accounts, the Australian Dollar is by far the best performer of recent weeks in the Forex trading market– and this comes at the expense of the US Dollar which hit a year low against the Aussie yesterday.  Unemployment is looking to taper down a bit as a browse through the classified ads of major Australian news outlets shows a marked increase in job postings – we will find out the real deal on Thursday. 

The Bank Of England is the one to watch later this week too, as they meet and will undoubtedly find reason to spoil any party that Sterling buyers were planning – my bet is that they will not wind down their quantitive easing policies and could, in fact, increase them.

The issue at hand that Forex traders need to look at moving forward is the commercial real estate business.  While the housing issue seems to have bottomed out and is slowly inching higher, the commercial market is more depressed now than at any point in recent recorded history.  Many of the loans used by developers and agents to build and buy property to rent them out will be coming due in the coming months, and just a walk down SOHO in London or SOHO in New York City for that matter will tell you just how that will turn out.  With many malls hosting empty stores and many retail giants paring down their operations in many locations, the prospects for the health of the commercial real estate market are grim.

We are about to enter the holiday season, traditionally a buy-fest for consumers – yet confidence around the globe is low and with double digit unemployment, many people will choose to pay their rent or electricity or grocery bills before buying the latest Barbie Doll for Christmas.  We are a long way from recovery – even if the leaders of the world choose their words carefully to give the impression otherwise.  Don’t be fooled and read for yourselves.  The Forex market will not be kind to those that tow the party line – if you want to succeed in this online Forex space, trading the majors needs to be done with caution.

As gold edged near the $1,000 per ounce mark, the Australian Dollar quietly gained across the board on Monday, touching a one year high against the US Dollar.  The strength of the Aussie was helped by the announcement of a .6% rise in the Down Under economy, the largest gain in the developed world.  Also, the job situation was given a boost as advertisements for jobs in newspapers and interent postings rose for the first time in 16 months. 

The official unemployment data is expected this Thursday and analysts are now revising their estimates downward.  It is the official government position that the unemployment rate, now sitting at 5.8% will rise to as much as 8.5% by next year however there are now calls for the government to restate that number as it appears the market is improving ahead of estimates. 

The US and Canadian markets were closed for Labor day holiday observances so trading was very light on Monday.  

The Bank of England will meet on Thursday and it is expected that they will keep interest rates at .5%.  However it is of interest to traders whether or not the BOE will expand or contract its credit easing measures.

The Reserve Bank of New Zealand and the Bank of Canada meet on Thursday too and are also expected are expected to keep rates unchanged.