Over the past few months, the Swiss franc has attracted considerable interest from traders and long term investors alike as concerns continue to mount over other major currencies such as the dollar and the euro. Thanks to this, the value of the franc has surged against the euro, up to all-time high levels. While many nations might welcome an increase in the value of their currencies, tiny Switzerland, which is surrounded on all sides by euro zone members, becomes increasingly uncompetitive when this happens, putting the fragile recovery taking place in the nation in jeopardy. As a result, the country’s central bank, the Swiss National Bank, has stepped up the rhetoric for interventions threatening to implement a peg of the currency against the euro for the foreseeable future. While many thought that this was just the bank blowing some hot air attempting to talk down the exchange rate, recent moves suggest that the SNB is extremely serious about capping the rise of the franc against the currencies of the nation’s major trading partners. [click to continue…]
To call the last few weeks volatile would be an understatement. Markets have some of their most violent trading days in recent memory, as the beginning of August brought multiple days with swings higher than 5% in major equities indices. Amid a botched debt negotiation and a downgrade of U.S. debts by Standard and Poor’s, [...]
This year started off with strong markets as the U.S. slowly worked through its recovery from “The Great Recession”. But as 2011 progressed, things quickly turned south. A number of factors all over the world have led to markets exhibiting high volatility, and prompted many analysts and investors to question if we can pull out [...]
Although Hurricane Irene wasn’t nearly as devastating as some had feared, the storm did knock out power to millions and ground thousands of flights across the Northeast. Yet, the worst of the storm now appears to be over as flights are returning to the skies in major airports in New York, Washington D.C., and Boston, suggesting that [...]
The Japanese economy has endured two rough decades after a period of high growth made it seem as though they would quickly surpass the U.S. with ease. Lately, however, the economy has had trouble finding its footing, as the country has tried various techniques to try and jump-start its sputtering economy. Yet this has been easier said [...]
Though most investors will be focused on comments from Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke and our U.S. GDP results, there will be another name to remember as we head into the weekend; Irene. Now that we are midway through hurricane season, which lasts from the beginning of June through the end of November, the U.S. has [...]
The summer of 2011 is shaping up a lot like that of 2010. Yet again, fears in the euro-zone have sparked massive sell-offs in global equities, as more countries become at risk of defaulting this year. Worries over the U.S. economy are also a major factor in the market slump, as many analysts have slashed [...]
The past few weeks have seen violent behavior in equity indexes as a slew of negative news and data led to some of the most volatile trading days since the 2008 crash. The problems largely began with the debt debate that took longer than expected, while the solution reached seemed to do little to convince [...]
After a week that has seen some of the steepest sell-offs in recent memory, there are plenty of portfolios drenched in red. Before Thursday’s reprieve, a string of negative developments hammered markets around the globe, sending many equities down by double digits in a matter of a few short days. The recent bout of instability [...]
American equity markets had a day to remember during Monday’s trading session as major benchmarks plunged across the board thanks to Standard & Poor’s downgrade of U.S. sovereign debt. The ratings agency dethroned the world’s largest economy from its AAA rating one notch to AA+, causing a ripple effect throughout the market as investors reassessed [...]
Most investors probably never expected that it would never come to this. With only days remaining until the day the government coffers supposedly go dry, a deal to avoid a default remains elusive (one would suspect the August 2 date is at least 72 hours or so in advance of a hard deadline). The back [...]
