Tag Archives: currency

Renminbi (RMB) has taken center stage on global currency markets

The move in March by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to double the RMB’s daily trading band from 1 percent to 2 percent has coincided with a new era of exchange rate volatility. This year, the long running trend of RMB appreciation has reversed course with it losing 3.4 percent against the dollar since its January high.

At the same time, interest in the RMB has exploded due to its widening use in global markets and a proliferation of offshore currency derivative products. Added into the melting pot is the degree to which the RMB has become a highly popular carry-trade, at a time that markets are still digesting the implications of Fed tapering.

Last year, the RMB entered the list of top 10 most traded currencies for the first time, according to the latest triennial foreign exchange (FX) market survey by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS).  This made the RMB the ninth most actively traded currency with a share of 2.2 percent in global FX volumes after volumes trebled from $34 billion (U.S.) per day in April 2010 to $120 billion (U.S.).

Other signs suggest RMB trading momentum is continuing. In February this year, Thompson Reuters reported that the CNH has become the second largest traded FX currency on its relationship trading platform.

http://openmarkets.cmegroup.com

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  • 76
    The Global Financial Crisis has increased the importance of the renminbi as an international currency. This column describes how the status of the remnibi has changed relative to that of the dollar and the euro. It also discusses what their future as future currencies would be. The author suggests that…
    Tags: rmb, currency, china, global, trading
  • 72
    Efforts by China to damp speculation in its currency risks driving away investors just as it’s attempting to open up its capital markets in a once-in-a-generation economic overhaul. After allowing the yuan to steadily rise in each of the past four years, China’s central bank let it tumble about 1…
    Tags: china, currency, bank, percent, billion, $, markets
  • 71
    China’s central bank weakened the renminbi by its most in two decades on Tuesday. The unexpected move fuelled talk of “currency wars”, although some interpreted it as a welcome gesture towards market reform and financial liberalisation. What happened? The People’s Bank of China devalued its currency by setting the daily…
    Tags: currency, china
  • 66
    Currency traders are having their worst start to a year since 2010 as a dearth of trends in major foreign-exchange markets crushes their investment strategies. Deutsche Bank AG’s Currency Returns Index has dropped 0.3 percent since Dec. 31, dragged down by momentum trading, where investors looks for consistent moves in…
    Tags: currency, trading, year, markets, percent, bank

Pound Rises Most in Two Months on Recovery Signs, #IMF Forecasts #GBP

The pound rose the most in two months versus the dollar this week as manufacturing and production data signaled the U.K. recovery is on track, boosting bets the Bank of England will raise interest rate and is going to nudge higher throughout the course of this month

The pound gained 1 percent this week, Industrial production increased 0.9 percent in February from the previous month and manufacturing output climbed 1 percent.

Growth Estimates

The IMF raised its forecasts for U.K. growth, predicting the economy will grow 2.9 percent in 2014.

Sterling gained 4.4 percent in the past six months, The euro climbed 1.9 percent, while the dollar slid 1 percent.Policy makers kept the benchmark interest rate unchanged at a record-low 0.5 percent at a meeting this week.

Annualized inflation slowed to 1.6 percent in March, from 1.7 percent the month before. The unemployment rate is estimated to 7.1 percent in the three months through February. This may prompt policy makers to consider to raise the interest rate.

Officials said in February there would be scope to maintain record-low rates even after the threshold is reached.

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    It certainly could be, but the odds do not favor it. Statistically speaking, it is far more likely that a run-of-the-mill correction is now underway and working its way through each sector of the market, to varying degrees of severity. Counter-trend rallies are sharp and short (think Wednesday), which is…
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  • 73
    The August 2013 gross domestic product report by the US Bureau of Economic Analysis drew little attention, but it contained a fairly remarkable piece of data: Inflation-adjusted GDP per capita in the United States hit a new all-time high in the second quarter of 2013, the first time a new…
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  • 71
    För 10 år sedan verkade den globala ekonomin att vara på bättringsvägen.  Räntorna gick ner till 1 %, Storbritannien var i sitt 12:e år av oavbruten tillväxt, Kina var en del av WTO och alla trodde på att marknaderna själva kunde korrigera sig. Den monetära systemkrasch som kom var oförutsedd…
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  • 62
    10 years ago, the global economy seemed to be on the mend. Interests rates down to 1%, UK was in its 12th year of uninterrupted growth, China was a part of WTO and everyone firmly believed in self correcting markets. The monetary system crash was unforeseen and a surprise. IMF…
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  • 62
    If trade and financial sanctions were imposed on Russia, the cost to the UK might well exceed the cost to Russia. That is presumably why the Foreign Office wrote - in a document carelessly (or deliberately?) displayed yesterday for the lenses of photographers - that "the UK should not support…
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A history of #Bitcoin hacks, #ponzi ?

The alternative currency has been plagued by hacks, ponzi schemes and increasingly professional thefts since 2011, explains Alex Hern

Sometimes it seems like not a week goes by without news of some bitcoin service getting hacked and losing everything.

Thankfully, such attacks are rarer than that. But given the size of the bitcoin economy, they are still far, far more common than they have any right to be. A look at the history of bitcoin hacks is a look at the history of bitcoin itself, from its beginnings all the way to the genesis of the professionalised second generation of firms we’re seeing now.

In the interests of fairness, we haven’t covered the black market. While the disappearance of sites like Sheep and Silk Road took a lot of bitcoins with them, that says more about what happens if you dabble in drug dealing than cryptocurrencies overall.

http://www.theguardian.com/

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  • 82
    With the price of bitcoin seemingly on the up and up, there’s no shortage of conversation on the topic of where the price goes from here. There’s seemingly no shortage of optimism, either, with the value of bitcoin up a whopping 18 percent in the past week. Hedge fund Laureate BVI is…
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  • 81
    The website of Mt. Gox appears to be taken down, shortly after six major Bitcoin exchanges released a joint statement distancing themselves from the troubled Tokyo-based bitcoin exchange. Mt. Gox's homepage was not loading, although no error message appeared. Mt. Gox was not immediately available for comment. "This tragic violation…
    Tags: bitcoin, currency
  • 80
    Who cares about Satoshi Nakamoto? Someone else has made Bitcoin what it is and has the most power over its destiny. In March, a bewildered retired man faced journalists yelling questions about virtual currency outside his suburban home in Temple City, California. Dorian Nakamoto, 64, had been identified by Newsweek as the…
    Tags: bitcoin, currency
  • 80
    The price of the digital currency bitcoin slid to its lowest level in nearly two months on Monday after bitcoin digital marketplace Mt. Gox said a halt on withdrawals it announced on Friday would continue indefinitely after it detected "unusual activity." http://www.reuters.com
    Tags: bitcoin, currency
  • 78
    Mark Karpeles, chief executive of Mt. Gox, the embattled Toyko-based bitcoin exchange, resigned on Sunday from the board of the Bitcoin Foundation, in the latest blow to the digital currency. Jinyoung Lee Englund, a spokesperson for the Bitcoin Foundation - a trade group promoting the adoption of the digital currency,…
    Tags: bitcoin, currency, news

#FX market manipulation – new software unveiled

Software AG  today unveiled the latest addition to its Apama market surveillance solution with alerts to identify FX (foreign exchange) market manipulation and benchmark fixing. Developed in partnership with tier one banks, these new alerts provide compliance and market monitoring personnel with in-depth monitoring of FX trading, to identify benchmark fixing, cross-liquidity venue manipulation and other suspicious behaviour. In addition, it enables trading institutions to customise real-time detection scenarios to meet business specific needs and to evolve surveillance in response to the latest regulatory demands.

http://www.fx-mm.com/

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  • 82
    Deutsche Bank has fired three currency traders in New York as regulators worldwide ramp up their investigations into potential manipulation of the $5-trillion-a-day foreign exchange market, according to a person briefed on the matter. The three employees include the head of Deutsche Bank’s emerging markets foreign exchange trading desk in…
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  • 80
    Currency traders are having their worst start to a year since 2010 as a dearth of trends in major foreign-exchange markets crushes their investment strategies. Deutsche Bank AG’s Currency Returns Index has dropped 0.3 percent since Dec. 31, dragged down by momentum trading, where investors looks for consistent moves in…
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  • 72
    In less than three weeks, the most important election of the year will take place in Switzerland, and you haven’t heard of it. While the U.S. focuses on the recent Republican victory, the financial markets are facing an earth-shaking event on November 30th. This Swiss election seeks to challenge the…
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  • 71
      With the Federal Reserve printing trillions upon trillions of dollars to keep the economic system afloat, many investors and financial pundits have surmised that the fundamental economic problems facing the United States during the crash of 2008 have been resolved. Stocks are, after all, at historic highs. But the…
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Business Banking The foreign exchange trader: ‘the closer you get to 4pm, the less the risk’

Caspar Marney, a veteran of forex desks, now teaches others how the impenetrable markets work

“Banks don’t have to beat the market to make money. They just have to beat their customers.”

So says Caspar Marney, a foreign exchange trader of about 20 years’ experience, including spells at major City banks such as UBS and HSBC.

The former paratrooper has been playing those markets using his own statistical methods on behalf of private clients since 1999, and gives lectures to others keen to learn how this impenetrable scene really works – which seems to be in a very different way to how most of us imagined.

On Tuesday, Bank of England governor Mark Carney admitted that allegations of exploitation in foreign exchange markets could prove to be a bigger scandal than the manipulation of Libor, following last year’s revelations that the £3tn-a-day global trade in currencies might have been rigged.

“A bank’s spot [currency trading] desk doesn’t generally beat the market,” Marney adds. “They extract profit from their orders. Orders are information. Every bit of information stacks the deck. And the closer you get to 4pm, the less the risk [of the price moving against you].”

http://www.theguardian.com/

 

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  • 59
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  • 58
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  • 47
    The dollar is stronger today following the slightly hawkish stance of the FOMC Minutes, which hinted at the potential for an earlier-than-expected hike in interest rates. Nothing is likely to happen any time soon though, and equities liked that idea in continuing their positive trend, with the S+P regaining its…
    Tags: markets, global, uk, trading, bank

Yuan Drops as PBOC Cuts Reference Rate by Most Since July 2012

China’s yuan fell after the central bank cut the currency’s fixing by the most since July 2012 and the nation’s exports unexpectedly declined last month.

The People’s Bank of China lowered the daily reference rate by 0.18 percent to 6.1312 per dollar today, the weakest level since Dec. 3. Overseas shipments fell 18.1 percent in February from a year earlier, the biggest drop since 2009, customs data showed March 8. That compares with the median forecast for a 7.5 percent increase in a Bloomberg News survey. The figures may have been distorted by the Lunar New Year holiday and over-invoicing a year earlier, Tim Condon, Singapore-based head of Asia research at ING Groep NV, wrote in a note today.

http://www.bloomberg.com/

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    The move in March by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to double the RMB’s daily trading band from 1 percent to 2 percent has coincided with a new era of exchange rate volatility. This year, the long running trend of RMB appreciation has reversed course with it losing 3.4 percent against…
    Tags: percent, currency, year, bank, china
  • 69
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  • 66
    China’s central bank weakened the renminbi by its most in two decades on Tuesday. The unexpected move fuelled talk of “currency wars”, although some interpreted it as a welcome gesture towards market reform and financial liberalisation. What happened? The People’s Bank of China devalued its currency by setting the daily…
    Tags: currency, china
  • 61
    The yuan has recently been something of a safe haven among emerging-market currencies, yet market participants have learned from a bloody lesson over the past week that it is no longer an easy, one-way bet. A sharp fall of both the onshore and offshore yuan against the greenback made the…
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  • 60
    When stock markets are free-falling 10+% in a matter of days, it’s natural to seek some answers to the question “why now?” Some are saying it was all the result of high-frequency trading (HFT), while others point to China’s modest devaluation of its currency the renminbi (a.k.a. yuan) as the…
    Tags: china, central, bank

Russia invades Ukraine: beware of a risk off weekly opening

Russia invades Ukraine: beware of a risk off weekly opening

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    Tags: currency, trading
  • 84
    Software AG  today unveiled the latest addition to its Apama market surveillance solution with alerts to identify FX (foreign exchange) market manipulation and benchmark fixing. Developed in partnership with tier one banks, these new alerts provide compliance and market monitoring personnel with in-depth monitoring of FX trading, to identify benchmark…
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  • 81
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  • 77
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  • 77
    Citigroup's head of European spot foreign exchange trading, Rohan Ramchandani, has left the global bank, a spokesperson told Reuters on Friday. "He is no longer with Citi," bank spokeswoman Danielle Romero-Apsilos told Reuters. Asked if Ramchandani, who has been based in London, had been fired amid a global investigation into…
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China Shows Bulls With $500 Billion of Yuan Bets Who’s in Charge

Efforts by China to damp speculation in its currency risks driving away investors just as it’s attempting to open up its capital markets in a once-in-a-generation economic overhaul.

After allowing the yuan to steadily rise in each of the past four years, China’s central bank let it tumble about 1 percent over the past week, the most since at least 2007. Volatility in the currency has jumped the most this month among 31 major currencies tracked by Bloomberg.

http://www.bloomberg.com/

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  • 72
    The move in March by the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) to double the RMB’s daily trading band from 1 percent to 2 percent has coincided with a new era of exchange rate volatility. This year, the long running trend of RMB appreciation has reversed course with it losing 3.4 percent against…
    Tags: percent, currency, markets, billion, bank, $, china
  • 71
    China's banks disbursed the most loans in any month in four years in January, a surge that suggests the world's second-biggest economy may not be cooling as much as some fear. Chinese banks lent 1.32 trillion yuan ($217.6 billion) worth of new yuan loans in January, beating a 1.1 trillion…
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  • 69
    Shanghai's over-the-counter equity market was almost deserted on a weekday morning last week. Two cleaning ladies swept the floor of a trading hall devoid of brokers or computers, while a woman at an information desk ate breakfast and talked on her mobile phone. During four visits this year to the…
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  • 69
    The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) economy has shown signs of overheating despite a sharp slowdown in economic growth, suggesting that, constrained by the supply of labor, its potential growth rate might have fallen significantly from its past level. With the priorities of the PRC’s authorities shifting from raising economic growth…
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Currency Traders’ Strategies Foiled as Trends Go Missing

Currency traders are having their worst start to a year since 2010 as a dearth of trends in major foreign-exchange markets crushes their investment strategies.

Deutsche Bank AG’s Currency Returns Index has dropped 0.3 percent since Dec. 31, dragged down by momentum trading, where investors looks for consistent moves in one direction. The gauge, which is also based on techniques including carry and valuation, rose in 2013 by the most in four years.

http://www.bloomberg.com/

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  • 73
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  • 72
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Turkey Struggles to Protect Its Lira

The plunge of the lira has already exposed the Turkish economy’s dependence on short-term foreign investment. Most foreign capital is invested in Turkish stocks and bonds rather than longer-term projects.

All it takes is a phone call or a few clicks of a mouse for short-term investors to move their money elsewhere, and that is what foreign investors have been doing, not only in pulling money out of Turkey but from countries like Russia, Argentina and South Africa, whose currencies have also fallen as a result.

http://www.nytimes.com/

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