U.S. corporations are beginning to complain about the damage that the strong dollar is having on corporate earnings. This morning, United Technologies announced plans to lay off 11,600 workers as a rising dollar and deteriorating economic conditions forces the company to reduce costs. Yesterday, McDonald’s warned that the strength of the dollar and [...]

Posted in dollar earnings, dollar rally, forex blog 5 Comments »

The Federal Reserve has officially run out of room to cut interest rates. For the first time since August 2007, they left interest rates unchanged at a target range of 0 to 0.25 percent.
The dollar rallied because the Fed did the minimum of what was needed to pacify the market, which was [...]

Posted in FOMC, Fed Rate Cut, Federal Reserve, Forex, dollar rally, forex blog, obama dollar No Comments »

For the first time since cutting interest rates to 0.25 percent, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke outlined his plan of action. In a speech at the London School of Economics, Bernanke talked about the additional tools available to the Fed, an orderly exit strategy, concerns about inflation and suggestions about how the Obama Administration [...]

Posted in Bernanke, Federal Reserve, credit easing, dollar rally, forex blog, quantitative easing 1 Comment »

2008 Price Action: It has been an exceptionally active year in the foreign exchange market as currency volatilities hit record highs. In the first half of the year, everyone was worried about how much further the dollar would fall but in the second half of the year the concern became how much further [...]

Posted in Bernanke, FOMC, Federal Reserve, Forex, Forex News, Forex Technicals, consumer confidence, consumer spending, dollar forecast, dollar rally, forex blog 5 Comments »

US retail sales and producer prices were basically in line with expectations but that does not undermine the fact that the data was very weak and confirms that the Federal Reserve will be cutting interest rates by 75bp next week. USD/JPY hit a 13 year low last night after news that the automaker [...]

Posted in Bernanke, Black Friday, Crude Oil Prices, Fed Rate Cut, Fed Rate Cut Expectations, Federal Reserve, Forex News, US Dollar, US Economy, Yen Intervention, consumer spending, dollar rally, dollar record low, eur/gbp, eur/gbp record high, forex blog, retail sales, usd/jpy, usd/jpy intervention, zero interest rates 7 Comments »