Trade Balance

This week's main event will be the FOMC announcement on Wednesday at 2:00 pm and the subsequent press conference, the conclusion of the March 2-day Fed meeting, in which it is widely expected that Yellen will announce the end of the Fed's "Patience" with an economy in which resurgent waiters and bartenders continue to skew the job market even if it means consistently declining wages for 80% of the US labor force. Here is a summary of what else to expect this week.

The global currency wars are getting ever more violent, following yesterday's unexpected entry of Thailand and South Korea, whose central banks were #23 and #24 to ease monetary conditions in 2015, confirming the threat of a global USD margin call is clear and present (see "The Global Dollar Funding Shortage Is Back With A Vengeance And "This Time It's Different"). But the one currency everyone continues to watch is the Euro, which the closer it gets to parity with the USD, the more volatile it becomes, and moments after touching a 1.04-handle coupled with the DXY rising above 100 for the first time in 12 years, the EURUSD saw a huge short squeeze which sent it nearly 150 pips higher to 1.0643, before the selling resumed.

It was not all smiles and jokes as Mario Draghi's European QE officially launched in Europe, with Greece leaving the proverbial turd in the monetary punch bowl.

• 5 Things to Watch in February’s Jobs Report (WSJ)
• Draghi Declares Victory for Bond-Buying Before It Starts (BBG)
• Apple Pay Sign-Ups Get Tougher as Banks Respond to Fraud (WSJ)
• As World’s Hottest Economy Unravels, Nigerians Feel the Squeeze (BBG)
• EU discontent over French budget deal's 'political bazaar' (Reuters)
• Foreign Takeovers See U.S. Losing Tax Revenue (WSJ)
• Goldman Shareholders’ Hope for Bigger Payout Dashed by Fed (BBG)
• Europe Stocks Headed for 31% Surge This Year Amid QE, Citi Says (BBG)
• Dollar revs up for jobs data, euro bonds rally on ECB (Reuters)

The question stands: how much longer will the Fed allow the ECB to export its recession to the US on the back of the soaring dollar, and how much longer will the market be deluded that "decoupling" is still possible despite a dramatic bout of weakness in recent US data. Look for the answer in today's BLS report, which - if the Fed is getting secound thoughts about its rate hike strategy in just 3 months - has to print well below 200,000 to send a very important message to the market about just how much weaker the US economy is than generally perceived. For now, however, the ECB is getting its way, and the question of just how much European QE is priced in, remains open, with peripheral bond yields dropping to new all time lows for yet another day, while the EURUSD has plunged to fresh 11 year lows, sliding below 1.094, and making every US corporation with European operations scream in terror.  Looking at markets, US equities are just barely in the red, coiled to move either way when the seasonally-adjusted jobs data hits.

and more news moving the markets

Last week, when with much amusement we observed that the first of many Q1 GDP cuts due to snow... in the winter... had taken place, we warned that next up on the GDP-trimming agenda would be "the West Coast port strike to take place in 2-4 weeks." We were wrong: it wasn't 2-4 weeks. It was 4 days, because overnight first Goldman (and soon all the other penguins) released a report titled "The Fallout from West Coast Port Disruptions" and sure enough, Goldman's conclusion is that "On balance, we think the net impact on Q1 GDP is probably a modest drag, although the estimated effect is highly uncertain at this point in the quarter."

With seasonal adjustments wreaking havoc on the data, Japanese imports (collapsed 9% YoY) and exports (soared 17% YoY), leaving Japan with a trillion-yen deficit. This is the 31st month in a row... the longest stretch since 1954...

The chances of Greece being forced out of the euro zone have risen but a compromise agreement between Athens and its European partners is still possible, Greek media and investment banks said on Tuesday.

We are in record territory and demand for gold and silver keeps rising...

Six years on from the financial crisis and central banks are still hacking away at interest rates. Australia and Romania's did this week and while Poland and India held off, both are expected to prune rates later in 2015.

Simple near-term outlook.

Non-bombastic, non-insulting simply straight-forward look at next week's key events and data.  If you are so inclined...

“No stock-market crash announced bad times. The depression rather made its presence felt with the serial crashes of dozens of commodity markets. To the affected producers and consumers, the declines were immediate and newsworthy, but they failed to seize the national attention. Certainly, they made no deep impression at the Federal Reserve.” - 1921 or 2015?