Ezra Klein’s commentary of the George Soros speech from WashingtonPost.com – Soros speech examines the history of the Eurozone currency union, its problems and why Germany “is likely to do what is necessary to preserve the euro – but nothing more
More Forex Open Orders statistics, this time from SaxoBank – FX open orders module launched on TradingFloor.com
In trading on Monday, biotechnology shares were relative leaders, up on the day by about 3.7%. Leading the group were shares of Biosante Pharmaceuticals (BPAX), up about 479.2% and shares of Medtox Scientific (MTOX) up about 35.5% on the day.
The Daily Ticker’s Aaron Task and Henry Blodget talk to Ben White about the political implications of the number for President Obama.
By CountingPips.com
The latest Commitments of Traders (COT) report, released on Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), showed that large futures speculators boosted their overall US dollar long positions last week for a fourth consecutive week as the outlook for the global economy deteriorates and traders seek a safe haven in the US dollar.
Non-commercial futures traders, including hedge funds and large speculators, increased their bets in favor of the US dollar against the euro, Australian dollar, New Zealand dollar, British pound sterling and the Canadian dollar. Speculator positions in the Japanese yen, Swiss franc and Mexican peso, although still in bearish territory, improved last week against the American currency.
Individual Currencies:
EuroFX: Currency speculator sentiment dropped for the euro currency once again last week as euro net short positions or bets against the currency rose to a new record high. Euro short positions increased to 203,415 contracts on May 29th from the previous week’s total of 195,361 net short contracts on May 22nd. This is the third straight week Euro short positions have reached a new record level.
The COT report is published every Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) and shows futures positions as of the previous Tuesday. It can be a useful tool for traders to gauge investor sentiment and to look for potential changes in the direction of a currency or commodity. Each currency contract is a quote for that currency directly against the U.S. dollar, where as a net short amount of contracts means that more speculators are betting that currency to fall against the dollar and net long position expect that currency to rise versus the dollar. The graphs overlay the forex spot closing price of each Tuesday when COT trader positions are reported for each corresponding spot currency pair.
GBP: British pound sterling positions decreased last week for a third week after peaking at the highest level in over a year on May 8th. British pound positions saw a total of 1,475 net long contracts on May 29th following a total of 11,340 net long contracts registered on May 22nd.
JPY: Japanese yen speculative contracts improved last week for a seventh consecutive week. Yen positions totaled 11,330 net short contracts reported on May 29th following a total of 18,015 net short contracts on May 22nd. Japanese positions have benefited from the heavy risk aversion in the markets and the JPY has pared losses against the US Dollar in the spot price forex market.
CHF: Swiss franc speculator positions improved after decreasing sharply for the previous two weeks. Speculator positions for the Swiss currency futures registered a total of 30,596 net short contracts on May 29th following a total of 34,851 net short contracts as of May 22nd.
CAD: Canadian dollar positions declined last week for a fourth straight week after reaching the highest level of the year on May 1st. Canadian dollar positions declined to a total of 34,085 net long contracts as of May 29th following a total of 38,555 long contracts that were reported for May 22nd.
AUD: The Australian dollar positions dropped sharply for a fourth consecutive week and brought Aussie positions further negative after crossing over to the short side for the first time in years on May 22nd. Aussie positions declined to a total net amount of 35,527 short contracts on May 29th after falling to 16,898 net short contracts as of May 22nd. AUD speculative positions are now at the lowest level since at least 2009 and two weeks ago fell below the previous low level of the last 12 months that was a total of 5,167 contracts on September 26th of 2011.
NZD: New Zealand dollar futures speculator positions declined for a sixth straight week as positions for the Kiwi turned further negative. NZD contracts decreased to a total of 5,208 net short contracts as of May 29th following a total of 1,509 net short contracts on May 22nd. This is the lowest level for New Zealand Kiwi contracts since at least 2009.
MXN: Mexican peso speculative contracts improved slightly after declining for three consecutive weeks. Peso positions improved to a total of 12,995 net short speculative positions as of May 29th following a total of 16,116 long contracts that were reported for May 22nd. The May 22nd level was the lowest standing for Mexican peso contracts since January 17, 2012 when contracts were a total of 17,328 short positions.
COT Currency Data Summary as of May 29, 2012
Large Speculators Net Positions vs. the US Dollar
EUR -203415
GBP +1475
JPY -11330
CHF -30596
CAD +34085
AUD -35527
NZD -5208
MXN -12995
Despite being up in premarket trading, shares of Vera Bradley (NYSE:VRA) are trading lower after the firm reported its fiscal Q1 earnings beat estimates and it reaffirmed its guidance of FY 2012. The company reported first quarter EPS of $0.31, beating estimates of $0.29 per share. Revenue for the quarter rose 15.6% to $117.2 million, again above estimates of $116.86 million.Vera Bradley said it was able to offset higher cotton prices and labor costs during the period by boosting sales 34% year-over-year at its own locations and 26% at its online segment.The company’s shares are falling in early trading, down almost 7% to $20.29.
Bad news in terms of job growth in May. The Labor Department reported employers only created 69,000 jobs last month. Economists had been expecting payrolls in the range of 150,000. This is the smallest job growth number since May of last year. This, compounded with a rise in the unemployment rate from 8.1 to 8.2 percent. This was mostly caused by more people flooding into the labor market, including new graduates and other unemployed who started looking for work again.There could be many factors contributing to this slow down in job growth. Europe’s financial crisis and the slowing Chinese economy all could be factors. The one staggering statistic though shows that there still needs to be a lot of growth to bring the country back to pre-recession levels. American employment is still 5 million jobs short of where it was back in December 2007.
The most popular online medical diagnosis website is getting new leadership. Cavan Redmond, a former executive at Pfizer, was named WebMD’s (NASDAQ:WBMD) Chief Executive Officer on Friday. Anthony Vuolo had been serving at interim CEO since January while the company found a new leader. He will be returning to his original job as chief financial officer. The search for a new CEO came in January because of a decision to put WebMD up for sale. Former CEO Wayne Gattinella was ousted because of that decision. Since then, the company has been looking for his replacement.WebMD has been down since calling off the sale of the company and is still slightly down on this news, lower by four tenths of a percent to $22.93.
Disappointing job data drove everything today. 8.2% unemployment rate and only 69k new jobs added in the month of May, this is not what America expected heading into the first day of June. Next step for the Fed is unclear, but the correction in the market brings QE3 back on the table. Fed needs a big drop like today’s to reconsider it. However, in my humble opinion, I don’t think QE3 will help much. The effect of quantitative easing is less and less; you already saw QE2 was a lot less effective than QE1 and I expect QE3 to follow the trend. With all due respect to the Fed, I think we could put out all these temporary feel good measures, but eventually we will have to pay for everything, the dollar will have to pay for everything. We can print more money, and we’ll have to live with the consequence.
Treasury at Record Low, Did You Think of Refi? Terrible job report is what we have to live with but what we can do is look for something relatively safe. So the flight to safety trade continues. 10yr Treasury yield dropped to as low as 1.43 today and now sits at 1.46. That is unbelievable; think about it, several years ago, if any manager told you that one day the 10yr yield would break 1.5, you probably would have him or her dismissed. Same thing on the 30yr Treasury yield, record low at 2.52%, which brings me to the key question: is now the best time to refinance your mortgage? The short answer is yet because rates have never been this low. But do handle the process carefully. Do expect your refinance to take 60 days or longer to close, compare to 30 days before the housing crisis. Also banks might experience a logjam given the expected spike in applications, so do make sure to lock in the low rate even if the process takes longer.
Market is in panic mode after the very disappointing job numbers out of Washington this morning, combined with the overnight weakness in Europe and slowing growth in China. Dow Jones erased all its YTD gain and is trading on the negative side. 12,217 is where we finished 2011 at, and today we closed at 12118 after dropping 2.2%. This sends us into correction territory, which is defined as a 10% decline from the recent peak. Gold surged above the 1600 mark after sinking below it for the most of May and crude oil edged lower to $83/barrel. This is certainly not the way we want to start off June, but here we have it. For more news and updates, keep it right here at the Financial News Network. I’m Julia Sun, bringing you up-to-date news from New York City.
