U S Dollar Remaining Firm

The strength in the US Dollar had recently been coming mainly at the expense of the Japanese Yen. That is abating somewhat as the Yen is seeing some short covering and fresh buying as traders pare back expectations for AGGRESSIVE Bank of Japan action in the immediate future. It is clear that the Japanese monetary authorities want a lower yen but apparently the recent pressure from the rest of the G20 has caused them to ease back a bit on browbeating their own currency.

What is helping the Dollar more so recently is the weakness in the Euro which has not been able to recover from the blow it received as a result of the Cyprus debacle. That precedent setting raiding of bank deposits has left its mark, a mark which I believe will not ever completely heal.

Throw in the fact that we have a US equity market which has been goosed into the stratosphere, compliments of Ben Bernanke and the rest of the doves over at the FOMC, and you have the ingredients for further strength in the Dollar as by comparison to the rest of the world, the US economy looks decent.

I find it ironic that in this nation we have reached a point where we now define deviancy downward. The same holds true for our financial and economic standards. This abysmal "growth" we are witnessing in the US economy (again, thanks to QE and nothing else) is now heralded as good. There was a time when growth of this nature would have been mocked.

With a Federal debt expected to reach somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 trillion by 2016, with a massive and increasing unfunded entitlement crisis growing ever larger with the passing of each and every month, and with no real plan by the current administration to even remotely deal with these matters, the Dollar's honeymoon on the Foreign exchange markets will come to an abrupt end at some point. When that point occurs is anyone's guess right now but unless we have to rewrite the economic history books, the Dollar is going to eventually go the way of the British Pound.

If you notice on the chart, the Dollar enjoyed an uptrend that began in July 2011 and lasted through July 2012 at which point it transitioned to more of a broad sideways trend below 84. Dips to the 79 level have attracted consistent buying while sellers appeared at the 83 and higher level. That level closely coincides with the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement level noted.

If the Dollar can clear this level convincingly on a weekly basis, there is some light overhead resistance near 85 - $85.50 but beyond that, there does not look like much in its path for a run toward the 89 level.

I should also note here that this consistent strength in the US Dollar is continuing to set the hedge fund algorithms into selling commodities as a general trading strategy.

This is the reason for the continued weakness in silver, and in gold, I might add, although as I have stated in some private emails, I do not understand the strength in the crude oil market. With building stocks here in the US and with no sign of robust demand that I can see, I am honestly baffled as to why hedge funds want to own crude oil, given the fact that the commodity complex continues to reflect a global economy growing at quite a reduced rate.

See the chart below of the CCI to understand why Silver is getting clocked and making fresh seven month lows. Were it not for strength in crude oil, the CCI would have broken that support line shown on the chart near the 540 level and begun retreating down towards the lower part of the downtrending price channel.