Dollar Comments

I am going to keep these comments short mainly because I am utterly exhausted after the roller coaster ride from this week's markets.

The one thing that stands out, now that the dust has settled, is the action in the US Dollar.

One look at the chart and you can easily see the desired currency of choice among global investors. For all its problems, and there are many, the US Dollar remains the "Go-To" currency. The reason I say this is very simple - The Dollar put in the highest WEEKLY CLOSE in 51 months! It is also less than a full point away from taking out the peak made in June 2010. If it does, it is headed to 90.

Now, there are two things that were at work today which created the "Madhouse" that the commodity futures markets became.

The first was the expected inflationary outcome from a Chinese rate cut/ECB monetary stimulus measure. The latter was a deflationary outcome from the soaring Dollar and bond markets.

Interest rates are going down, not up. Many look at this as spurring more borrowing, more lending, more consuming and thus more economic growth. That group bought everything in sight today. The speed at which they did so was terrifying. I chose that word to describe it to see what a tsunami of hot money flows can do to markets when it invades them.

The flip side was another set of traders looking at the strength in the Dollar and drawing the connection between it and a general deflationary wave engulfing the commodity complex. They were big sellers.

The first group won out when the dust settled but you could see some impact from the latter during the session in the grains, and in gold. Gold had regained the "12" handle and then when the latter group came in and start selling, it promptly flopped and lost it. By the time trading ended in the pit, it managed a good close but failed to close above $1200.

Corn did something similar. It went flying higher with shorts being obliterated by the wave of hot money coming into it but in the final minute of trade, it surrendered all of the gains and closed lower.

Soybeans managed to close higher, which is even more bizarre as they had started off with a bang much like corn but during the middle of the session lost every single bit of their gains, went negative and then completely reversed and surged higher again to go out near their highs.

The thinking behind the bean move was that increased credit availability in China will mean more bean purchases from the US's largest foreign bean buyer. Frankly I don't see that connection but the people with the most money decided that was the reason to buy them and there was no one large enough by the time of the end of the session to take them on.

I can see what is taking place in the bonds and frankly, I think the group worried about inflation is greatly overlooking something but based on the bizarre and huge price swings that are being produced by all these infernal Central Bank actions, as well as Chinese actions, I honestly have no idea where all this is headed. Guess what - based on the type of trading we are seeing, no one else does either.

Here is the bond chart in closing. Note the general direction that they have been heading - UP...

 

 

Here is the yield on the Ten Year Treasury - same thing, except in reverse (yields move inversely to price) - it is moving lower reflecting the lower growth.

 

 

 

Lastly, here is a glimpse of the platinum chart - a metal that much like copper, tends to reflect sentiment towards global growth. It had a big up day today as the China news had industrial metal buyers giddy for some reason. It looks as if it might try to make a run towards $1280. If the inflation guys are correct, it will easily better that. If not, back down it will go.

What a week - there are times when I love these markets and then there was this past week, when Charlton Heston's classic line from the original "Planet of the Apes" is exactly how I feel.