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EU Data: Two weeks of Lockdown and -3.8% of GDP Decline in 1Q GDP Recession in 2020 will go down in history as a deliberate economic sacrifice of governments in exchange of greatly reduced uncertainty. Incoming data shows that this step came at a great cost. Eurozone GDP fell by 3.8% YoY in the...

ECB Meeting preview: Wrong Words in a Wrong Time The April ECB meeting has all chances to become a factor of support for EURUSD. At the March meeting, Lagarde failed to show off ECB’s firepower at a critical time for the economy, forcing investors to demand extra returns for holding Euro (i.e...

Oil: Historical Price Inefficiency Thanks to USO ETF The fall in oil prices continued on Tuesday, the June WTI contract was offered a short-term support at around $10.60, front-month Brent contract is trading below $20 per barrel. With such scary nosediving moves the question arises about the...

Oil and US Durable Goods Data Paint Mixed Picture About Recovery Oil: An Unfinished Story Oil prices renewed decline this week, June WTI contract dropped by more than 15%, Brent fell by 7.5%. The market expects OPEC to start cutting production later this week. Given fragile state of the market...

Oil: Near-term Pressure may Remain in Place Because of Storage Issues It is not surprising that the outlook for front-month oil futures, especially for June, remains bleak as some market participants continue to price project shocking drop of May contract price to June contract. Recall that May...

IEA April Energy Outlook Pressures Oil Producing Nations to cut Bigger and Faster The People’s Bank of China cut its medium-term lending rate for financial institutions on Wednesday to the lowest level on record. This is far from “fine-tuning” of monetary policy, but rather a powerful stimulus...

US CPI: Downside Risks Prevail Broad and core US inflation printed lower than expected in March reflecting downward pressure from fuel prices, narrowing demand for apparel, transportation costs but only moderate upside pressure in other components. On the side of negative risks for CPI we can...

Is it Late to go Long in Gold? Real Interest Rate Path in the US Suggests “no” The first signs of consistency appear in the decrease of the number of confirmed cases of Covid-19. The whole near-term market optimism hinges on that trend so it’s worth to keep a watchful eye on it. Following the...

Investors Eye Unemployment Claims as the key Proxy of Stress of the US economy Oil Today we’ve seen relatively robust upward swing in oil as the market did not wait for negative news but were offered solid support thanks to a number of positive catalysts, including: Rumors that China has...

Narrowing Range in Oil Could Suggest Sweeping Move on the Cards Stock market euphoria, which is also expressed by a global dollar dump, does not resonate with crude oil: WTI trades in a narrowing range around the $23 mark, remaining unimpressed by the dollar weakness and rebound in risk assets...

Gold – Does History Repeat Itself? Gold price has extended buying momentum on Tuesday, developing the takeoff from $1,500 seen on Monday. I guess the explanation for the move lies primarily in the following chart: As you might expect, I’m talking about inflation expectations in the United...

Trump Wasn’t Lying When he said that “China needs the deal more than me” It seems that Trump wasn’t lying when he said that “China needs the deal more than me.” This time the distress signal came from the industrial sector in China, where profits declined at the fastest pace in eight months in...

BoJ Takes Pause in opening New Season of “Cheap Money”, Complicating Decision for the Fed Bank of Japan left the amount of monetary stimulus unchanged at the meeting on Tuesday, however, it signaled its readiness to cut rates and ramp up bond purchases significantly if the risks associated with...

Preview of the Fed Meeting: Hard Data vs. Soft Data Puzzle for the Fed In the last two or three FOMC meetings, it was increasingly harder for the officials to communicate their decisions properly to the markets. Teetering market expectations fed by conflicting economic and sentiment signals have...

High-tech shares drive growth on the Chinese stock market Major stock indices in China rose on Friday, posting weekly gains thanks to the high-tech firms’ rally, while investors welcomed the potential progress in US-China trade negotiations. Shares of most companies in the new technology...

ECB Increases Focus on the Side-effects of NIRP, Warranting new Depths in Negative Rates ECB’s statement and Draghi’s remarks at the press conference on Thursday set the stage for exploring new bottoms of NIRP, QE and other mitigation measures. But not surprisingly, they did not justify the...

Reserve Currency Status as a Factor for Medium-term Dollar Decline The status of reserve currency should be necessarily supported by an economic power of the issuing country as it makes possible for the currency to assume key functions of money – a means of payment and store of value (protection...

US and Vietnam: from “Best Friends” to Trade Rivals? Next possible leg of the trade war may affect countries that have emerged victorious at the expense of first victims. This assumption is explained by the fact that losing the accumulated trade and economic advantage is more expensive for any...

Saudi Arabia Under Pressure as the “Oil Market Goes Green” Oil prices renewed their decline, maintaining the bearish tone set on Monday. US producers are gradually resuming oil production in the Gulf of Mexico after Hurricane Barry, in what serves as the basis for downbeat expectations for API...

More than simply a trade truce The signs of softening stance of the White House in talks with China before the two leaders met at the G-20 summit (Trump’s phone call to Xi, reports about “extended ” meeting), to the general surprise, were not empty speculations, but a forerunner to extending the...