Canadian Dollar

After a lukewarm start by the Chinese "market", which had dropped for the past 6 out of 7 days despite ever escalating measures by Beijing to manipulate stocks higher, finally the Shanghai Composite reacted favorably to Chinese micromanagement of stock prices and closed 3.7% higher as Chinese regulators stepped up their latest measures by adjusting rules on short-selling in order to reduce trading frequency and price volatility, resulting in several large brokerages suspending short sell operations. At this pace only buy orders will soon be legal which just may send the farce of what was once a "market" limit up.

A non-bombastic analysis of the events and data in the week ahead, with insulting anyone or resorting to conspiracy theories.

Regardless of where one thinks the dollar is going in the long-term, here is a discussion of where it will likely go in the short-term.  

The dollar's pause may be short-lived.  Divergence still the key driver.  

Since yesterday there has been another of wave of negative, misleading and almost triumphalist commentary on gold most of which studiously ignores the clear evidence of manipulation of the price on Sunday night.

The dollar made new multi-year highs against the dollar-bloc and is bid against most major and em currncies.  Why?  

And so the 2015 season of the Greek drama is coming to a close following last night's vote in Greek parliament to vote the country into even more austerity than was the case before Syriza was voted into power with promises of removing all austerity, even with Europe - which formally admits Greece is unsustainable in its current debt configuration - now terminally split on how to proceed, with Germany's finmin still calling for a "temporary Grexit", the IMF demanding massive debt haircuts, while the rest of Europe (and not so happy if one is Finnish or Dutch) just happy to kick the can for the third time.

In what seems to have surprised FX trader, Bank of Canada has taken an ax to growth forecasts and rates...

*BOC CUTS CANADA 2015 GDP FORECAST TO 1.1% FROM 1.9%
*BANK OF CANADA CUTS 2Q GDP ESTIMATE TO -0.5% FROM 1.8%
*BANK OF CANADA CUTS BENCHMARK INTEREST RATE TO 0.5%

Furthermore, it warns that "consumer debt vulnerabilities are edging higher" and export weakness is "puzzling."

It is only fitting that almost exactly 24 hours after the Greek "pre-deal", which may and will end up crashing and burning in very short notice, another long expected "deal", one which has been about a decade in the making, was reached, when Iran reached a landmark nuclear agreement with the U.S. and five other world powers, a long-sought foreign policy goal of the Obama administration. However, just like with the Greek deal celebrations, these too will likely be short lived as the outcome sets the White House on course for months of political strife with dissenters in Congress and in allied Middle Eastern nations.

Next week's key events and data, if we can look beyond Greece and China.

Non-bombastic look at the price action and speculative positioning, with the hope of anticipating next week's developments.

Initial conditions matter when contemplating impact of Greek referendum

A look at the psycholgoy of traders as reflected in the price action ahead the new week which promises to be eventful.

Trying to make sense of the global capital markets.

No follow through dollar buying against euro, yen and sterling after data showing US economyis recovering from weak Q1.  What is happening?  What is the outlook?