Forex Forum Archive for 05/17/2020

Sydney ACC 23:54 GMT May 17, 2020
Australian Unemployment

By the way if you want to watch the presentation it is embedded in last night's news program.
Its about 8.30 minutes into the program.

The link is posted below.

Mtl JP 23:54 GMT May 17, 2020
Monday Amazing Trader 18 May 2020

one hint from powell:
aping President Trump's enthusiasm about low cost of money, powell suggested it is good time for govt to load up on debt.

time to be on high alert for DJT announcing some massive infrastructure (?) spending, now that powell has approved more moRE loading of debt.

US 10-yr: 0.645%
as of May 17, 2020 7:52 p.m. EDT

Sydney ACC 23:53 GMT May 17, 2020
Australian Unemployment
Reply   
Alan Kohler on ABC News Sydney last night highlighted the impact of Job Seeker and Job Keeper when factored into the unemployment figures.

Job Seeker is a Government handout to people who are out of a job. Job Keeper is a payment to a worker's employer.

Kohler indicated there are six million Australians on Job Seeker and 1.6 million on Job Keeper.

If the two numbers are factored in to the official ABS unemployment figure the Australian national figure is 58%.

ABS doesn't include those not actively seeking employment in the unemployment figure.

Another figure he highlighted was that when the unemployment figure exceeded 8% during the last recession in 1990 it took eight years to drop below that figure.

Mtl JP 23:43 GMT May 17, 2020
Monday Amazing Trader 18 May 2020

post-powell's feeding mushrooms (times are tuff, may get tuffer, has confidence things will - over medium to long term - get better) futures are suggesting an uP opening.

Mtl JP 21:31 GMT May 17, 2020
'Believe it or Not'

Total factors supplying reserve funds 6,829,207 (in billions)

H.4.1
Factors Affecting Reserve Balances of Depository Institutions and Condition Statement of Federal Reserve Banks
May 14, 2020

PAR 21:26 GMT May 17, 2020
'Believe it or Not'

Go back to the Italian Lira and Italy becomes Zimbabwe.

Good luck!

Mtl JP 21:13 GMT May 17, 2020
'Believe it or Not'

amazing politicians
one day they are "expert" on viral infections, next day on the economy...
-
NEW YORK CITY2 hours ago
De Blasio: NYC needs billions in federal aid or city economy 'won't come back'
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has claimed that his city requires $7.5 billion in federal aid to get back on track ... blablabla

AT Trader john 20:38 GMT May 17, 2020
Monday Amazing Trader 18 May 2020

FRIDAY
DJ: +60
SP: +11.2

2-yr 0.151% 0.0
Spread 10s-2s +46.4 bps (+46.6bps)

10-yr
US: 0.615% +0.2
UK: 0.232% +0.2
DE: -0.532% -0.5

EURUSD MACRO TREND: LOWER
Spots (Pivot Point prev day)
EURUSD 1.0810 (1.0816)
GBPUSD 1.2119 (1.2157)
EURGBP 0.8918 (0.8894)
USDJPY 107.30 (107.20)

This Week 1.0895-1.0775 (120 pips)
fri: 1.8050-1.0789 (61)
thu: 1.0826-1.0775 (51)
wed: 1.0895-1.0813 (82)
tue: 1.0885-1.0785 (100)
mon: 1.0851-1.0803 (48)


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---

swiss frank 17:01 GMT May 17, 2020
'Believe it or Not'

Speaking of Italians.... 42% are now in favor of leaving the EU, up from 18% 2 years ago....

Italians losing faith...

AT Trader john 15:53 GMT May 17, 2020
Monday Amazing Trader 18 May 2020

GVI Trading. Potential Price Risk Scale
AA: Major, A: High, B: Medium

Mon 18 May 2020
AA CA- Holiday --
B 14:00 US- NAHB
Tue 19 May 2020
AA 06:00 UK- Employment
A 09:00 DE- ZEW Survey
Wed 20 May 2019
AA 06:00 UK- CPI
A 09:00 EZ- Final HICP
A 12:30 CA- CPI
A 14:00 US- Powell/Mnuchin Testimony
A 14:30 US- EIA Crude
A 18:00 US- Fed Minutes
Thu 21 May 2019
Flash PMIs all day
AA CH/EZ- Holiday --
A 12:30 US- Philly Fed
A 14:00 US- Lead indicators
A 14:00 US- Existing Homes Sales
Fri 21 Jan 2019
Flash PMIs all day
AA 06:00 UK- Retail Sales
A 09:30 EZ- ECB Minutes
AA 12:30 CA- Retail Sales

dc CB 15:03 GMT May 17, 2020
'Believe it or Not'

As the FDA shuts down a Bill Gates-funded COVID-testing program, an Italian politician has demanded the arrest of Bill Gates in the Italian parliament.

Sara Cunial, the Member of Parliament for Rome denounced Bill Gates as a �vaccine criminal� and urged the Italian President to hand him over to the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity.

She also exposed Bill Gates� agenda in India and Africa, along with the plans to chip the human race through the digital identification program ID2020.

***We all know it, now. Bill Gates, already in 2018, predicted a pandemic, simulated in October 2019 at the �Event 201�, together with Davos (Switzerland). For decades, Gates has been working on Depopulation policy and dictatorial control plans on global politics, aiming to obtain the primacy on agriculture, technology and energy.

Gates said, I quote exactly from his speech:

�If we do a good job on vaccines, health and reproduction, we can reduce the world population by 10-15%. Only a genocide can save the world�.
****************************
(video linked)

Italian Politician Demands Bill Gates Arrest For Crimes Against Humanity

Mtl JP 14:56 GMT May 17, 2020
Monday Amazing Trader 18 May 2020

Political headlines often wild-card to traders
-
Chinese communists STILL do not get it, still arrogant:

BEIJING/HONG KONG (Reuters MAY 16, 2020) - China�s foreign ministry said on Saturday the United States needed to stop the �unreasonable suppression� of Chinese companies like Huawei, and a Chinese newspaper said the government was ready to retaliate against Washington. .../..

China asks United States to stop 'unreasonable suppression' of Huawei

Mtl JP 13:12 GMT May 17, 2020
Fed warns of 'significant' financial vulnerabilities from pandemic

On Negative Rates
-
Bank of England�s Andy Haldane: �We can�t go back to jobs nightmare of the Eighties�
The Telegraph / by RUSSELL LYNCH MAY 16, 2020

Growing up in the early Eighties, the Bank of England�s chief economist Andy Haldane remembers a thing or two about mass unemployment from his school days at a Leeds comprehensive.

By his own admission, Haldane �lucked out� in the jobs market, joining the Bank in less turbulent economic times in 1989 and staying there ever since. But his early experience made a lasting impression, and in the cataclysmic economic impact of Covid-19, he senses a return to those dark days.

He recalls: �When I was a teenager at school I could see the impact that joblessness was having on my friends� families. As many households are facing that now as there were back in the Eighties and that is why this scourge of unemployment � and it was a scourge back then � we need to get rid of that as quickly as possible.�

Haldane is speaking in the aftermath of the Bank�s latest scenario which sees unemployment shooting up to around 9pc, the highest since 1994. But the economist thinks the impact of the outbreak could be even worse due to �dread-risk�: a self reinforcing negative feedback loop as fearful households and businesses bunker down and the economy declines.

He adds: �The very reason I got into economics and the reason I got into public policy was because of the scarring experience of the early Eighties unemployment which peaked at three and a bit million � and we�re going back to that basically.

�Those fears are going to be cast over a much wider cohort of the workforce, maybe as much as half of them. We need to find a way of reabsorbing all of that labour as quickly as possible in good jobs.�

To illustrate his point, he gallops through some terrifying maths. Add the estimated two million newly unemployed to the 1.3 million out of work before coronavirus struck. Then add the seven million people furloughed under the Government�s job retention scheme � some of whom won�t make it back to the workforce. Then throw in up to eight million people working shorter hours.

�Add all that and you�ve got anywhere between a third and a half of the workforce either unemployed, under employed or working shorter hours, and at least some of them might have a fearfulness about future incomes and about their jobs.�

Furlough figures embed
This dread risk can last for decades: some academics put the higher returns demanded by investors from shares over bonds to sentiment scarred by 1929�s Great Crash.

But how do we snap ourselves out of the feedback loop? The 52-year-old points to the hundreds of billions thrown at the crisis by the Government through its myriad support schemes, as well as the vast monetary policy response.

Haldane and his policymaking colleagues � through a series of unprecedented virtual meetings � have embarked on �200bn in quantitative easing and slashed rates to virtually zero, on top of cutting bank buffers to free up lending capacity and a scheme to support small business lending. �In the past we have had nothing like the scale of monetary and fiscal response.�

The enormous and rapid scale of the Bank�s bond buying as the Government ratchets up spending to tackle Covid-19 has raised eyebrows but the economist calls it �loose talk� and stresses the �temporary� nature of QE, which has now lasted more than a decade at a cost of �645bn so far. That said, he ducks the question of what might happen to the gilt market without the Bank in there as a buyer.

Andrew Bailey, the Governor, has pledged to do �whatever is necessary�, fuelling expectations of more QE in June. But market signals suggest rates might fall even lower than the current 0.1pc. Is Haldane prepared to slaughter a long-standing sacred cow and cut rates into negative territory?

His answer is cautious but revealing � refusing to rule out the drastic move, as well as following the example of other major central banks in buying much riskier assets than gilts. He says: �The economy is weaker than a year ago and we are now at the effective lower bound, so in that sense it�s something we�ll need to look at � are looking at � with somewhat greater immediacy. How could we not be?

�You mention negative rates, but there are other options beyond that or alongside that, that we�re looking at as well.� He adds: �With QE there is more we can do there on the gilt side and the corporate bond side in principle. As we�ve found from other central banks, you could purchase assets further down the risk spectrum. I don�t want to imply we�re poised on any of those but we have over a number of years been reviewing all of our options for more, if more is needed.�

Despite the authorities throwing the kitchen sink at Covid, Haldane expects the economy to change in response to the outbreak.

During the financial crisis we �relearned a lesson we should never have forgotten� about financial resilience: now the UK is learning one about resilience at an economy-wide level as even the strongest global supply chains break in the pandemic.

According to the economist, �the fact that we have struggled to manufacture not just ventilators but rubber gloves is quite interesting and quite revealing�. While the UK does not need to go as far as �grow your own� supply chains, �building some redundancy� into supply chains with a mix of international and domestic suppliers looks necessary even at the cost of efficiency.

�Might that come at a slightly greater cost? It might. Is that a price worth paying for greater resilience in our economy? I would say that it was based on the experience of the past few weeks.�

Haldane, whose �night job� is chairing the Government�s industrial strategy council, also argues the virus could act as an eventual �spur� to productivity if firms are more ready to invest in digital resilience and skills for their workforce. That is badly needed as pandemics typically hit hardest the lower skilled workers: Covid will also exacerbate regional inequalities as a bigger share of white-collar staff log on to work in the wealthier South.

Andrew Haldane CV
That makes the Government�s �levelling up� agenda �even more important� as an unemployment crisis looms: �That speaks to initiatives that support start-ups, that support scale ups, that support R&D investment. Not as an end in themselves but as a way of reabsorbing all of those workers.�

So time for Boris Johnson to double down then, rather than rein in spending as last week�s Treasury leaks urged? Haldane won�t comment on fiscal policy, but points to a couple of �historical points of context� which make plain where his sympathy lies.

He says: �Government debt to GDP [the debt to GDP ratio, currently 79.7pc] is probably going to hit three figures. How worried should we be about that? There were more years during the 19th and 20th century when debt to GDP was above 100pc than below 100pc, so this is not in the historical scheme of things unusual.

�The second point is, let�s not get too bewitched by the debt stock numbers because what matters every bit as much is what it costs to service that debt. Interest rates are at their lowest level in human history, the cost of servicing even that bigger debt is as low as it has been since the early part of the 20th century.�

Spending on assets � physical things like improved digital infrastructure or better roads, or human capital like skills � �those too have to be weighed on the balance sheet�. In his view, �levelling up� needs �to be returned to with even greater vigour than it was pre-Covid�. It�s a none-too-subtle hint that his political masters will have to weigh carefully in the months ahead.

Mtl JP 13:04 GMT May 17, 2020
Fed warns of 'significant' financial vulnerabilities from pandemic

Mushroom feeding on deck
-
Fed Chair Jerome Powell speaks to 60 Minutes

See the interview, Sunday at 7 p.m. ET/PT on CBS

Mtl JP 11:26 GMT May 17, 2020
this is good one...

this is good one...
-
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
23h
The Radical Left is in total command & control of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google. The Administration is working to remedy this illegal situation. Stay tuned, and send names & events. Thank you Michelle! https://twitter.com/af_clips/status/1261331113102004226

haifa ac 08:18 GMT May 17, 2020
Warren Buffett and Chief Joseph
Reply   
"Hear me, my Chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever."
Chief Joseph 1877.


Warren Buffett is saying, almost in so many words, that an S&P 500 index fund is a better investment now than Berkshire Hathaway�s stock. There simply aren�t many new tricks this 90-year-old can learn, especially when growth investing, indexing and trillions of dollars of Fed buying power have stolen much of Berkshire�s thunder.

Munger is 96 and Buffett turns 90 in August. The two, Buffett said, �are not going any place voluntarily, but we probably will go someplace involuntarily before that long.�

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/dud-stock-picks-bad-industry-bets-vast-underperformance-its-the-end-of-the-warren-buffett-era-2020-05-14

dc CB 00:33 GMT May 17, 2020
'Believe it or Not'
Reply   
At this point, most market participants outside California know LA County Public Health Director Dr. Barbara Ferrer as the public servant whose "miscommunication" Tuesday afternoon about a three-month extension to her county's stay at home order was blamed for reviving anxieties about the economic reopening in the US that helped hammer stocks lower last week.
...........
Her role for the county is essentially equivalent to that of Dr. Fauci at the White house. Except Dr. Ferrer isn't a doctor, she's a professional social justice warrior.......................

she received her Ph.D. in Social Welfare from Brandeis University, a Master of Arts in Public Health from Boston University, a Master of Arts in Education from the University of Massachusetts, and a Bachelor of Arts in Community Studies from UC Santa Cruz.

None of these disciplines are rooted in the sciences - rather, it appears the good doctor's "public health" background doesn't include any specialization in actual medical care, or epidemiology.

ZeroHedge

Meet Barbara Ferrer, The Social Justice Warrior With No Medical Background Leading LA's COVID Response