Philip Chua Business Blog

Posts Tagged ‘week’

The stock market eked out a gain as investors took glum economic news in stride. The small gains still left stocks with a loss for the week but the Dow and S&P 500 logged their best month since November.









Gross domestic product – Business – Economy – Government – Investing

New orders for long-lasting manufactured goods excluding transportation unexpectedly fell, while the number of workers filing for jobless benefits rose last week.







Jobless claims – Unemployment benefits – Insurance – United States – Business

While the Greenback was the strong performer of last week, the Japanese yen took that title for this week. Although we did see a general gain in the USD, it was no match for the JPY which was boosted from this week’s risk aversion.

Chairman Bernanke’s testimony this week stated the increasingly obvious reality of this recovery “Notwithstanding these positive signs, the job market remains quite weak, with the unemployment rate near 10 percent and job openings scarce.” Meanwhile, the Obama administration projected 9.8 percent unemployment at the end of this year. On the…

The global recovery trade (aka the reflation trade) took a serious stumble this past week as a spate of disappointing US data suggested the US recovery is in greater jeopardy than previously thought. As the largest national economy, the US setbacks undermine the global outlook, which was already under pressure…

The week in currency trading opened with markets poised for fresh risk appetite. With China back from vacation, the PBoC reiterated its pledge to maintain moderately loose monetary policy and proactive fiscal policy to support growth in an attempt to shape expectations following the reserve ratio increase just before the…

The dollar remains on a firm footing. In spite of attempts by US central bank chairman Ben Bernanke and his colleagues to dampen rate hike expectations triggered by last week’s increase in the discount rate by repeatedly stating that interest rates would remain “at exceptionally low levels for an extended…

The latest rally has stalled again against ‘channel’ resistance which happens to lie at the 200-day moving average at 92.25. Though well below the weekly Ichimoku ‘cloud’, slightly worrying is that the 9 and 26-week moving averages have crossed to a buy while all other elements of this chart suggest…

Unbelievably slow work, with relatively small daily ranges suggesting a lot of uncertainty at current prices. The Yen is consolidating in the middle of a decent-sized flat-bottomed daily Ichimoku ‘cloud’. Fibonacci retracement support at the 61% level will probably limit the downside this week (and maybe the following one too)…

Following on from a dovish Quarterly Inflation Report (QIR), attention in the UK will shift this week to the details of the February MPC minutes (Wednesday). Although the tone of the minutes are likely to echo key the messages emanating from the report – chiefly, that should the evolution of…