Australian Dollar

By Chris Becker  Before the European session yesterday, a wave of fear gripped markets as the IMF forecasts and then later, US economic data pointed to a bigger contraction than expected due to the coronavirus.

DXY reversed upwards last night: The Australian dollar reversed downwards: Gold retraced: Oil is at new lows: Dirt faded: Miners were hit: EM stocks gapped: Even junk fell!

A mixed day here in Asia as stock markets stumble instead of surging following the bigly increase on Wall Street overnight.

By Chris Becker  Another big surge on Wall Street as hope and delusion continued to be mixed up by traders watching case counts of COVID-19, instead of the underlying macro problems mounting.

With all risk markets back on deck, it was a co-ordinated buy-in with Japanese markets pushing the hardest despite a stronger Yen.

By Chris Becker  A big weekend with a lot of big news to absorb as most markets fully return on the open today here in Asia.

DXY was soft over Easter: The wildly volatile Australian dollar is still…running wild: Brent and WTI have massively diverged: Dirt is mildly interested: Gold has broken out: Miners tacked on gains: EM stocks didn’t: US gapped massively higher as EM sank: Bonds were mixed: Stocks were mostly soft: It was quite an Easter.

By Chris Becker  US stock markets remain detached from reality and continued to bid higher as oil prices also keep the delusion going as DOE oil inventories reached record highs overnight.

DXY was firm again last night: The Australian dollar is a v-shaped rocket ship: Gold couldn’t keep it going: Oil is still dreaming: Dirt is hinting at recovery: Miners too: EM stocks are lagging: Junk jumped: Bonds were hosed: As stocks looked across the gigantic abyss: It’s all fixed, apparently.

Risk markets are mixed across the region with local shares taking a wild ride throughout the session as a succession of banking related and bond related news hit the newswires.

By Chris Becker  The risk complex is in short termism mode as nobody was ready to keep surging equity prices higher overnight, with Wall Street eventually slipping into the red and setting up for some confused options on the open here in Asia today.

Stocks are up across the region, except locally where traders forgot to fill their buy orders later in the afternoon as the RBA held back on its last rate cut, giving no forecasts for what’s coming down the “V” for vacuous recovery.

From the RBA just now: At its meeting today, the Board reaffirmed the targets for the cash rate and the yield on 3-year Australian government bonds of 25 basis points, as well as the other elements of the package announced on 19 March 2020.

By Chris Becker  The inability of markets to understand mathematics – i.e the exponential function – continued overnight with a gorging of buying in stocks, culminating in 7% plus sessions on Wall Street even as the number of dead Americans pile up across the continent.

Everything is awesome as markets rally in ecstasy in response to the record breaking US unemployment figures from Friday, and the slowdown in the rate of growth of COVID-19 cases outside the US.

By Chris Becker  Friday night saw the release of the latest US unemployment figures following two weeks of epically bad initial jobless claims, with over 700,000 jobs officially lost although its expected to be much higher given the exponential rate of decline in the “land of the free”.

DXY is up and away all over again: The Australian  dollar fell back into the 50s and was universally weak: Gold added pips: Oil went beserk again the global OPEC dream unfolds.

Another down day for Asian stock markets as local markets erase the one-off blip on Wall Street overnight as oil prices come back slightly and USD strengthens against Yen and gold.

By Chris Becker  Last night saw the return of risk despite another record blowout in unemployment claims in the US, where daily deaths from COVID-19 are now well over 1000.

Another down day for Asian stock markets as local markets finally catch-up to the runoff in risk around the region, as USD strengthens a little across the majors, including gold which slipped further.

By Chris Becker  As the TrumpVirus becomes exponential, stocks were again the hardest hit overnight as risk shifted away from commodity currencies as well, with already record low bond yields dropped further in the wake of the crisis.

DXY is back!