
Yen emerges as world’s cheapest funding currency, fueling a $435B carry‑trade
The Bank of Japan’s ultra‑loose stance has turned the yen into the cheapest source of funding globally, underpinning a massive carry‑trade that amassed roughly $435 billion between 2022 and 2024. A modest rate hike in March 2024 barely dented the trade, but markets remain wary of a sudden, aggressive tightening that could compress spreads and force borrowers to unwind yen‑denominated debt.
Multi‑currency collateral agreements create optionality that requires discounting with a cheapest‑to‑deliver (CTD) curve. While Monte‑Carlo simulation can price this exactly, it is computationally heavy. Researchers propose an analytic approximation that combines the Clark algorithm and Gauss‑Hermite quadrature, delivering near‑Monte‑Carlo accuracy with far lower runtime. The method scales to any number of currencies and has been validated across realistic market scenarios.
🚨 5 Reasons I’m NOT Trading This Friday 🚨 1️⃣ Weekly Target = HIT ✅ My goal is +100 pips per week We banked +132 pips in just 2 days Discipline > Greed Once the target is hit, I go into protection mode 2️⃣ U.S. Supreme...
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) lowered its overnight repurchase rate by 25 basis points to 4.25%, marking the ninth cut since August 2024. Inflation remains modest at 2%, comfortably within the 2‑4% target band, while the peso rallied to...
CME Group announced that its regulated cryptocurrency futures and options will trade continuously, 24 hours a day, seven days a week starting May 29, 2026. The move follows a record $3 trillion in notional volume for CME’s crypto products in 2025. Average daily...

Rwanda’s central bank raised its key lending rate by 50 basis points to 7.25% on Thursday, reacting to a jump in consumer price inflation to 8.9% year‑on‑year in January. The move aims to bring inflation back within the bank’s 2‑8%...

The U.S. dollar rallied after initial jobless claims fell to 206,000, well below expectations, reinforcing a labor‑market narrative of resilience. Hawkish Fed minutes further raised the prospect of delayed rate cuts, pushing the greenback higher against major currencies. EUR/USD slipped...
The post examines how the 10‑year US‑German bond yield spread correlates with the USD/EUR exchange rate, showing that higher US yields usually coincide with dollar appreciation. A notable exception occurred after April 2 2025, when a sharp US yield rise was followed...
Spotware Systems released cTrader Admin 9.9, the latest broker‑focused upgrade to its cTrader operational suite. The version adds email tracking in session reports, a new Workspace Settings app that consolidates export, chat and notification preferences, and a collapsible main menu that...
Robinhood Markets announced that Dr. Naomi Boyd, dean of the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business, will serve as its Chief Economic Advisor. Boyd will spearhead research on derivatives market structure, capital markets, and investment dynamics to inform product...
Cyprus Securities and Exchange Commission (CySEC) announced the withdrawal of the Cyprus Investment Firm (CIF) licence for OBR Investments Ltd. The decision was taken at a CySEC meeting on 9 February 2026 and is grounded in Section 8(1)(a) of the 2017...
FT: “The IMF estimated that China spends about 4 per cent of its GDP subsidising companies in critical sectors, and said it should reduce that by 2 percentage points in the medium term.” This is a start, of course, but just...
Hello Traders 📉 Stock futures🔻Iran war risk grows, Russia complains about Cuba oil blockade 🇺🇸 USD 🔄 mixed ahead of jobless claims, Philly Fed & trade 🇪🇺 EUR 🔻 despite stronger current account 🇨🇦 CAD ⬆️ supported by higher oil prices 🇬🇧 GBP 🔻 slides...

Bank Indonesia left its policy rate unchanged at 4.75% as the rupiah continued to weaken amid fiscal‑sustainability concerns and volatile investor sentiment. Moody’s downgraded Indonesia’s credit outlook to negative, reflecting uncertainty over policy direction and transparency. Real‑rate differentials with the...
RBNZ Governor Anna Breman stressed that New Zealand’s monetary policy must be anchored in forward‑looking inflation forecasts rather than current price data, given the lag between rate changes and economic impact. She reaffirmed confidence that inflation will return to the 2 percent...
The International Monetary Fund’s latest World Economic Outlook finds the Chinese yuan about 16 % below its equilibrium level. The IMF’s valuation combines a trade‑weighted basket of currencies with purchasing‑power‑parity calculations, reflecting China’s sizable trade surplus and capital‑control regime. It warns...

Bitcoin Won Over Wall Street and Now It’s Paying the Price Wall Street may invest in BTC but that doesn't mean they are "hodlers" with the same religious zeal shown by many who profess to "never sell." -Bitcoin's price has...
The authors analyze the Bank of England’s 2012 Funding for Lending Scheme (FLS) and find that central‑bank liquidity acts as a backstop that improves private wholesale funding conditions rather than merely substituting for them. By lowering banks’ wholesale funding costs,...

The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas trimmed its policy rate by 25 basis points to 4.25%, matching market expectations. However, the central bank softened its forward guidance, dropping language that it was nearing the end of easing and emphasizing lingering confidence...

I have mentioned this chart a few times in the past, but it does really go to show just how extreme things got the last few years. The chart is SPX/(UNRATE^2)*USIRYY*USINTR Unravelling things after extreme euphoria is never an easy process. As things...
The Federal Reserve’s balance sheet has undergone dramatic swings since its 1914 inception, expanding modestly for decades before exploding after the 2008 financial crisis. Between 2008 and 2022 the sheet grew from roughly $0.9 trillion to over $9 trillion, driven by large‑scale...

One more note on the Fed minutes: Sometimes it's interesting what they don't say. Last year at every meeting until December, the staff forecast called for inflation to return to 2% by 2027. In December, the forecast pushed this back to...

The Dollar is in a broader technical congestion pattern without a clear and persistent fundamental drive. As such, I tend to pay more attention to technicals. Looking at the $DXY daily, there is some notable resistance (50 SMA and '50%...
The Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that January 2026 saw a modest net increase of 18,000 jobs, with full‑time employment rising by 50,500 and part‑time employment falling by 32,700. Total employment reached 14,703,800 and monthly hours worked climbed to 2,013 million, while...

Euro Short-term Outlook: EUR/USD Slides into Yearly Open Support – Decision Time https://t.co/SHnGwyQMrX $EURUSD Daily & 240min Charts https://t.co/2Uu9a1yink
Stephen Miran, long viewed as the Fed’s arch dove, tells The Peg that firm labour data and a pickup in goods inflation could justify revising his 2026 dot higher. https://t.co/qevsjpOlwA
National Australia Bank CEO Andrew Irvine warned that Australia has hit "peak Australia," signalling that without a productivity boost the economy will stagnate. Real wages fell for the first time in two years, underscoring the pressure on living standards. Irvine...

Only actions matter, not words. The actions: Germans who stand for separation of monetary and fiscal policies (Jens Weidmann, Axel Weber, Jürgen Starck) left the ECB due to its drift into fiscal support for high-debt countries. The ECB is losing...
Four months ago we released "Empire by Code" which laid out a thesis for the rise of USD Stablecoins. We have now released “Stablecoin Wars" which deals with the various factions vying for control of this new system. Both can be found...

In this episode, Raj Parekh, Head of Stablecoins and Payments at Monad Foundation, discusses how enterprises can integrate stablecoins into their operations, weighing the prospects of building private corporate blockchains versus using existing networks. He explores whether the market will...

On this week's Hanke's #CurrencyWatchlist, the Sudanese pound ranks as the WORLD'S 6TH WORST currency. The Sudanese pound has depreciated by over 27% against the USD in the past year. IT’S TIME TO DUMP THE SUDANESE POUND & REPLACE IT WITH THE US...

The Dollar is up sharply in recent days. But this rise is only happening versus the G10 (blue). The Dollar remains near its recent lows versus EM (black) and that's what you want to watch for future Dollar direction. We're...
Isabel Schnabel highlighted the euro area’s mounting fiscal pressures, noting that low debt levels often coincide with weak public investment. She examined Germany’s new defence and infrastructure package, showing it can lift GDP but also raise debt ratios under different...

FX Market Awaits North American Leadership: The North American market took the dollar lower on Tuesday, and there was little follow through selling. Yesterday, the dollar as bid in North America and rather than resist, European more than Asia Pacific…...

China's auto exports went vertical in Dec. '25. All those cars go to EM (red), not the G10 (blue). That complicates EU efforts to protect its car makers. China's export surge is decimating EU export markets. There's not much EU...

Equity volatility in the US is easing, opening the door for a near‑term rally in 10‑year euro swap rates that sit about 20 basis points below their January peak. Market participants expect a bear‑steepening move as the front end of...

Minutes from the Fed's Jan. 27-28 meeting laid bare a lingering divide over where to set the bar for further rate cuts. In Fed speak, "some" is larger than "several" which means the group of "some" officials that includes those with...

We will touch half dollar as long as we don’t break down below this trendline. This trendline will act like a staircase as long as the price doesn’t fall below it, it will keep moving upward.

France’s inflation fell to 0.3% year‑on‑year in January, the lowest level since 2016 and well below the euro‑area average of 1.7%. The drop, driven by falling manufactured‑goods and energy prices, leaves core inflation at just 0.7% and fuels criticism that...

Gold is on the move🔥 As tensions in the Middle East rise and Iran escalates, markets are reacting and gold is back in focus When uncertainty rises, gold shines ✨ Big moves could be ahead. The question is… are you positioned? Trade Gold with...

De-Dollarization Threatens US Military Power The dollar’s role in global trade is shrinking. As it loses value, I see us losing influence and even military strength, because our military depends on financing powered by the dollar. The markets are already showing...
The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose about 300 points, or 0.65%, as investors returned to equities ahead of the Federal Reserve’s January minutes. Nvidia surged over 2% after Meta announced an expanded AI‑chip partnership worth tens of billions, reinforcing Nvidia’s...

The global macro docket for the next 24 hours of trade pics up. Japan has machinery orders, mfg activity survey, a 1-year and 20-year JGB auction, Jan CPI. Walmart and Alibaba report earnings. US and Canada trade balance. PBOC rate setting. Start...
Bc of the interest component & exponential function of a debt based monetary system, there is never enough money to pay off the debt. And bc debts are always paid (either by lender or borrower), if they didn’t debase the...

Investors are questioning US asset allocations as the dollar begins 2026 on a weaker footing. A new ING webinar will examine whether the current sell‑off is driven by cyclical market dynamics rather than a deeper structural de‑dollarisation trend. Speakers will...
Ray Dalio, founder of the world's LARGEST hedge fund, on the national debt: "When countries essentially go broke, what they do is... print money, devalue the currency, and create an artificially low interest rate...that is the way the [US] will do...
The ECB should be apolitical. But now President Lagarde says she’s leaving early. According to people “familiar with her thinking,” this is so Macron can pick her successor before the French Presidential election in April 2027. Not very apolitical at...

Canadian Dollar Forecast: USD/CAD Advances Toward Yearly Open – Breakout Risk Builds https://t.co/LswuuI4iVW $USDCAD Weekly Chart https://t.co/AfSOwTDtR3

Since the 2010s and BRI, Chinese FDI has matched or exceeded inward FDI, but now a really big gap is opening up. More at today's Chartbook Top Links: https://t.co/DcgBB3hzww

Bank of France Governor Francois Villeroy de Galhau says his successor must be independent and committed to Europe after his early resignation gave President Emmanuel Macron a surprise opportunity to pick the next central bank chief https://t.co/VVGP1D9Dj6 via @WHorobin https://t.co/rmqeTU4qJ7

US Dollar Short-term Outlook: USD Coils Between Key Levels – Breakout Looms https://t.co/CxUMkIN5mg $DXY Daily & 240min Charts https://t.co/ILpuVkkqnw