Submitted by Irina Slav via OilPrice.com,
A report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has revealed that most of the world’s nations hiked their military budgets last year, marking the first increase in spending since the 2008 crisis.
It seems that the only ones not taking part in this military spending hike are some of the world’s biggest oil producers.
In recent days, we have observed a distinct trading pattern: a ramp early in the US morning, usually triggered by some aggressive momentum ignition, such as today's unexplained pump then dump in the EURUSD...
... with stocks rising after the European open, rising throughout the US open, then peaking around the time the US closed at which point it is all downhill for the illiquid market.
it has been a rather quiet session, which saw Japan modestly lower dragged again by a lower USDJPY which hit fresh 17 month lows around 170.6 before staging another modest rebound and halting a six-day run of gains; China bounced after a slightly disappointing CPI print gave hope there is more space for the PBOC to ease; European equities rose, led by Italian banks which surged ahead of a meeting to discuss the rescue of various insolvent Italian banks, while mining stocks jumped buoyed by rising metal prices with signs of a pick-up in Chinese industrial demand.
Submitted by Alasdair Macleod via GoldMoney.com,
It is commonly assumed that the gold price and interest rates move in opposite directions.
In other words, a tendency towards higher interest rates is accompanied by a lower gold price. Like all assumptions about prices, sometimes it is true and sometimes not.
Only in the new normal of manic algos and goal-seeked short-squeezes could actual news that Iran is undercutting OPEC by slashing prices to maintain market share be out-followed by hopefulness driven by upbeat comment from Janet Yellen (because she has nailed everyting so far) and more chatter about a production freeze (which makes no sense whatsoever given the Iran news). For now, WTI is trading above $39.50 ahead of today's rig count data, back at 2-week highs.