3:20 pm on 13 February 2008 | No responses

US Retail Sales for January were released the morning and the number was a surprise to the upside. Currency traders know that this will benefit the US dollar in the short term. In addition, risk appetite has seen a steady improvement recently, with bond yields rising, equity markets strengthening and firming commodity prices; some prices of commodities are sharply higher over recent weeks such as copper while the CRB index has risen over recent days.? Risk appetite was given a further boost yesterday with the news that Warren Buffett is offering to take on $800 billion in municipal bonds insured at present by Ambac, MBIA and FGIC.
The news gave equity markets a further boost and helped put risk trades back on the table.? Reassuring comments by Fed officials such as Yellen and Poole over recent days have also helped to boost risk appetite, with both officials stating that the US will avoid recession.? Similarly, the Fed's announcement that it is extending its Term Auction Facility through February as well as the announcement of "Project Lifeline", a 30-day workout period for homeowners who are late on their payments, will have also come as good news for markets.? For currencies, this implies that the USD will be strengthening over the short term , while the Japanese Yen and Swiss Franc will weaken.
Therefore I have closed out my long Yen position and will remain flat for awhile until both the technical and fundamental picture become more clear.
Good luck and good trading.
P.S. If you like what you read here please sign up for my FREE Forex? Newsletter. The price is right. Also please download my Free Report on trading currencies with my compliments. If there is something you would like me to write about please let me know. It is my aim to provide you with quality content and I welcome your comments. Thank you.
P.P.S. If you would rather trade a system that is easy to follow PLUS you don’t have to learn any fundamental or technical analysis, get Forex Trading Machine. To see my review of the product click here?and pay close attention to my special offer at the end of the review.

Share and Enjoy:
These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.

标签： commodity trading