Month: July 2013

Herbalife delivered its 18th straight earnings beat and raised its full-year guidance. Shares were up sharply in after-hours trading.

SAC’s woes will add to the popularity of letting computers filter social media chatter, crunching massive data sets using third-party sources or writing code to sniff out tiny, fleeting anomalies in price patterns as the new way to gain ‘an edge.’

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said a planned increase in the sales tax rate would not hurt the economy. Kuroda said fiscal discipline was important because long-term yields could rise if investors thought the central bank’s purchases of government debt were aimed at financing spending.

By CountingPips.com

The US dollar declined last week against all the other major currencies as the American currency continued to show general weakness over the past three weeks. The euro, British pound sterling, Swiss franc, Canadian dollar and the New Zealand dollar have all gained ground against the US dollar for the past three weeks while the Australian dollar has risen for two straight weeks against the USD.

Over that time frame, we have also seen many important support & resistance levels reject the US dollar’s advance from last month to trade in favor of the other major currencies. These important levels include the 1.3000 in the EUR/USD, the 100.00 in the USD/JPY, the 1.5000 in the GBP/USD, the 1.0500 in the USD/CAD and the 0.9500 in the USD/CHF.

Economic events to watch for

We will see if US dollar can regain its footing this week with a good number of major economic events taking place. The market-moving the Nonfarm Payrolls report for US employment is being released on Friday and likely to cap the headlines for the week. Earlier in the week, we will have an interest rate decision by the United States on Wednesday as well as both the Bank of England and the European Central Bank interest rate decisions on Thursday. There will also be GDP data out of Canada and the United States on Wednesday.

See more economic event highlights below.

Weekly Economic Highlights:

Monday, July 29

Japan — BOJ governor speech
United States — pending home sales
Japan — industrial production

Tuesday, July 30

Australia — building approvals
Euro zone — consumer price index Germany
United States — consumer confidence

Wednesday, July 31

United States — Federal Reserve meeting
euro zone — German unemployment
euro zone — consumer price index
Canada — GDP report
United States — ADP employment report
United States — GDP report
United States — Federal Reserve rate decision

Thursday, August 1

China — manufacturing PMI
United Kingdom — BOE interest rate decision
euro zone — interest rate decision
United States — ISM manufacturing data
United States — weekly jobless claims

Friday, August 2

United States — non-farm payroll report

See the economic calendar for full listing

By CountingPips.com

The weekly Commitments of Traders (COT) report, released on Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), showed that large futures traders and currency speculators cut back on their total bullish bets of the US dollar last week after increasing their positions over the previous three weeks.

Non-commercial large futures traders, including hedge funds and large International Monetary Market speculators, pared their overall US dollar long positions to a total of $28.69 billion as of Tuesday July 23rd. This was a decrease from the total long position of $29.61 billion that was registered on July 16th, according to position calculations by Reuters that derives this total by the amount of US dollar positions against the combined positions of euro, British pound, Japanese yen, Australian dollar, Canadian dollar and the Swiss franc.

COT explanation: The weekly cot report summarizes the total trader positions for open contracts in the futures trading markets. The CFTC categorizes trader positions according to commercial hedgers (traders who use futures contracts for hedging as part of the business), non-commercials (large traders who speculate to realize trading profits) and nonreportable traders (usually small traders/speculators).

Individual Currencies Large Speculators Positions in Futures:

The large currency speculator net positions for each of the individual major currencies directly against the US Dollar last week showed weekly increases for the euro, Australian dollar, New Zealand dollar, Canadian dollar and the Mexican peso while the British pound sterling, Japanese yen and the Swiss franc all had a declining number of large speculator positions for the week.

Notable changes: Euro net speculative contracts rose modestly for the second straight week while the British pound and Japanese yen net positions both fell for the fourth consecutive week and the Swiss franc net positions dropped for the fifth week.

Individual Currency Charts:

EuroFX:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: EuroFX

British Pound Sterling:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Pound Sterling

Japanese Yen:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Yen

Swiss Franc:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: Franc

Canadian Dollar:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: CAD

Australian Dollar:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: AUD

New Zealand Dollar:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: NZD

Mexican Peso:

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions: MXN

The Commitment of Traders report is published every Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and shows futures positions data that was reported as of the previous Tuesday (3 days behind).

Each currency contract is a quote for that currency directly against the U.S. dollar, a net short amount of contracts means that more speculators are betting that currency to fall against the dollar and a net long position expect that currency to rise versus the dollar.

(The graphs overlay the forex spot closing price of each Tuesday when COT trader positions are reported for each corresponding spot currency pair.)

See more information and explanation on the weekly COT report from the CFTC website.

Article by CountingPips.com

Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said that Congress needs to raise the debt limit and take away the “cloud of uncertainty” about the nation’s ability to pay its bills.

As a long-term investment, gold has offered small overall returns with high volatility. But there is still an argument for keeping a sliver of it in a portfolio.

In a week when he tried to focus attention on the struggles of the middle class, President Obama said in an interview that he was worried that years of widening income inequality and the lingering effects of the financial crisis had frayed the country?s social fabric and undermined Americans? belief in opportunity.

Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette said he would join Detroit’s federal bankruptcy case to defend retirees who risk losing public pensions, arguing that the state’s constitution protects their benefits.

By CountingPips.com

10 Year Treasuries: Large trader and speculator positions for 10-year treasury notes in the futures markets decreased last week to a bearish position after being bullish the previous week. 10-year treasury contracts declined to a total net position of -32,312 contracts in the data reported for July 23rd following the previous week’s total of +17,735 net contracts on July 16th. This is the third time out of the last four weeks that net large 10-year spec positions have been on the bearish side.

Last Six Weeks of Large Trader Positions

Article by CountingPips.com – Forex News & Market Analysis