We had a number of surprises in U.S. economic data this morning including the Philly Fed index and leading indicators, but the biggest surprise was definitely the decline in continuing claims. Since the beginning of the year, continuing claims, which measures the number of people continuing to claim unemployment benefits rose week after week, [...]

Posted in 2009 eurusd forecasts, continuing claims recession, dollar recession, euro, forex blog, jobs 6 Comments »

Job losses are increasing, but that hasn’t stopped Americans from spending and unfortunately that pretty much sums up American culture. Retail sales increased 1 percent in the month of January despite a sharp increased in jobless claims (Instant Insight on Retail Sales). Consumers took advantage of sharp January discounts and the bankruptcy [...]

Posted in 2009 eurusd forecasts, consumer spending, eur/usd, forex blog, jobs, retail sales No Comments »

The US dollar is tanking as jobless claims rise by the largest amount since November 1982, 26 years ago. As I have suspected, it is the 1980s all over again.
This confirms that the 533k drop in non-farm payrolls last month will not be the bottom in the labor market. When claims first [...]

Posted in EURJPY, Fed Rate Cut, Fed Rate Cut Expectations, Federal Reserve, Forex News, Japanese Yen, US Dollar, US Economy, US Treasuries, beige book dollar, dollar recession, eur/usd, euro, forex blog, jobs, non-farm payrolls, oil dollar, recession, usd/jpy, zero interest rates 1 Comment »

On the eve before Thanksgiving, the price action in the currency market has been very erratic. Equities rallied for the fourth straight trading session while the US dollar weakened against the Australian and New Zealand dollars but strengthened against the Euro, British Pound and Japanese Yen.
Currencies appear to be decoupling from equities [...]

Posted in Bernanke, Currency forecasts, Fed Rate Cut, Fed Rate Cut Expectations, Federal Reserve, Forex, Forex News, Forex Technicals, US Dollar, consumer confidence, consumer spending, eur/usd, euro, forex blog, jobs No Comments »

Every single day we have more reason to believe that the US unemployment rate will break 8 percent next year. Jobless claims rose to a 16 year high last week of 542k, driving the US dollar lower against the Japanese Yen. Continuing claims rose to 4.012 million, the highest level in close to [...]

Posted in Bernanke, FOMC, Fed Rate Cut, Fed Rate Cut Expectations, Federal Reserve, Forex News, consumer spending, forex blog, jobs, non-farm payrolls No Comments »