Trading Journal

The view of the members of the Fed in face of external economic and financial environment is now seen as less optimistic.

US markets were also affected by the Attacks in Brussels, and the stock market indices reflected all the concerns surrounding this issue of geopolitical nature. Thus, initially the market was penalized by these events, with a clear preference for defensive sectors as opposed to riskier assets. However, and as in Europe, gradually this feeling was being absorbed, with the indexes recovering ground. The stock indices were pressured by financial stocks and cyclical consumer companies. Yesterday, the fears regarding the effects of negative interest rates in Europe and low interest rates in the US in bank balance sheets influenced, once again, the behavior of the titles of major financial institutions. Moreover, to aggravate the pessimism of investors was the decline in Crude prices after the recent trend of a strong correlation between this raw material and oil prices. The price of oil declined from the maximum achieved after the data for this industry have revealed that US crude inventories rose more than expected. Still, the price of this raw material have managed to maintain some support before the return of some risk appetite. Today will be published by the Energy Information Administration’s the inventories of oil and gasoline. At the macroeconomic level, the PMI index for the manufacturing sector improved slightly, from 51.3 in February (the minimum of the last 28 months) to 51.4 in March. The dollar, which was initially pressed by the reaction to the terrorist attacks in Brussels recovered subsequently, boosted by rising yields on sovereign bonds, after the President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Charles Evans, has said he expects two more increases in interest rates this year, based on the current economic outlook.

Today at the end of the session is not excluded that European investors reduce their exposure to equity markets to the fact that the European markets only reopen on Tuesday and so are exposed to hypothetical adverse events during the four days they are closed.

I Just dropped in to wish Everyone a Happy Easter..

EURUSD is in a very tight consolidation!
To much for my taste.

LCrude still moving down!
How far can it go?

At the moment, we only see some warning signs. But if the S & P breaks the area of ​​2020 and the DAX the 9750 this will power up a correction, at least in the short term.

Tomorrow begins a period that is seasonally negative for US equities. Until April 15th, the Americans will have to pay their IRS and many resort to the sale of shares and redemption of investment funds to finance this charge. Over the past 20 years, from the beginning of the month until that day, US markets were only able to achieve a positive return in only 30% of the time. This is only an empirical data, so it does not mean that US indexes will repeat this pattern this year. The important thing to remember is that in the next two weeks we shall able to attend to some selling pressure.

If wages continue to increase, its growth will lead many Americans to increase consumption and thus trigger a general increase in prices of goods. T

Perhaps the most important fact of this employment report was the strong increase in wages, which in March grew 0.30% compared to February.

The currency pair Euro/Dollar gains greater relevance when framed in the fact that the orders to German industry have experienced a bending of 1.20% in February compared to the increase expected of 0.30%. The German export sector has been penalized by the weakness of many overseas markets, especially the Chinese.

According to PMI, produced by HSBC, the manufacturing activity improved in March from 51.2 to 52.2. Many of the stimulus measures adopted by the Chinese authorities last year may be now starting to bear fruit.

The weakness of the dollar has led to an appreciation of Asian currencies, which removes some competitiveness to Asian companies, especially the Japanese. The Yen has been one of the currencies that most have appreciated against the dollar and Japanese exports are one of the most exposed to the US economy.

Today will start in Cernobbio (Italy), the Ambrosetti Forum, an annual event that brings together diverse personalities of the financial and business world, as the ECB Yves Mersch member, the Italian Minister of Finance Carlo Padoan, the CEO of Unicredit, among others. This type of event is always a chance to probe the feelings and perspectives of some of the main global economic actors.

Oil recorded significant gains explained by data indicating that production in the US is falling at an increasing rate and that in April the Russian production could be temporarily reduced. To this adds the cuts in Nigeria because of explosion that hit a pipeline in March and the approaching meeting of oil producers (17) in order to freeze the production.

I looks like April is the Feast of Trumpets month for the pair Eur/Usd. :-)

Retail sales and the Fed’s Beige Book will help investors and economists to reply to two interconnected issues. The first is the timing of the new rise in interest rates. The second is to know what was the pace of US economic growth during the 1st quarter. Despite the good data for March, many economists have reduced their estimates for this period.

During the last session, the euro tried to overcome the barrier of 1.14 but after a few unsuccessful attempts yesterday suffered a sharp correction. The decline of the euro was due more to technical reasons, to the extent that many operators had bought Euros and sold Dollars in recent weeks and faced with the inability of this currency pair overcoming 1.14 decided for some profit taking.

It starts today in Washington the joint meeting of the IMF and the World Bank, which will continue until Sunday. The main themes will be the state of the global economy and the situation of financial markets.