Friday, March 12,  2010
Chinese consumer confidence rose in February (the things we watch these days!), however Chinese stocks were lower overnight on worries that the government may move more firmly to contain inflation.  A research report from Citibank said that the Chinese may need to bail out banks that made loans to local Chinese governments.  [...]

Thursday, March 11, 2010
May sugar closed down 63 points at 19.69 cents yesterday. Prices closed near mid-range yesterday and hit another fresh 7.5-month low. Serious chart damage has occurred in sugar recently, including more yesterday. Prices are in a steep six-week-old downtrend on the daily bar chart. There are no early technical clues to suggest [...]

Thursday, March 11, 2010
Overnight there was a lot of data showing that the Chinese economy is running hot – high inflation and retail sales.  PBOC Governor Zhou and a representative from the Ministry of Commerce both said that inflation will not be a problem this yes.  What do they know that we don’t?  It was [...]

Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Yesterday’s lackluster session in the US carried through to muted trading in Asia overnight. Chinese stocks saw small gains on some decent earnings reports, but Chinese traders are waiting for a number of economic releases due Thursday. European stocks were lower on concerns over the banking system. Fitch made [...]

Monday, March 8, 2010
There wasn’t much news overnight, and the beginning of the week will be light on economic releases.  There were lots of Chinese officials speaking last night, but not necessarily much to trade off today.  PBOC Gov. Zhou Xiaochuan said that the Yuan / Dollar peg is a temporary measure in response to [...]

Friday, March 5, 2010
February NFP was a bit better than expected at -36K.  At the beginning of the week the estimate was for -20K, but it kept dropping during the week; I saw an average estimate of -70K yesterday.  There was a slight downward revision to the Jan NFP.  This was a friendly number for [...]

Thursday, March 4, 2010
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May sugar closed down 63 points at 22.01 cents yesterday. Prices closed near the session low yesterday. The key “outside markets” were in a bullish posture for sugar yesterday, as the U.S. dollar index was lower, while crude oil, gold and stock index futures prices were higher. Yet, sugar [...]

Wednesday, March 3, 2010
The ADP employment report showed a drop of 20K in payrolls; a bit better than the -50K forecast.  There was some good employment news from Japan, a good GDP report from Australia, and bullish economic comments from a PBOC official.  At the same time, S&P warned that Asian policy makers risk more [...]

Tuesday, March 2, 2010
Month end arrived with little fanfare and no major shocks. Cotton is its own bull market that seems able to shrug its shoulders at negative events taking place in outside markets. The remainder of the soft markets however will likely continue to receive influence from outside markets so expect that action to [...]

Tuesday, March 2, 2010
There was talk about a new Greek austerity plan to be announced next week.  In addition, PMs Merkel and Papandreou will meet on March 5th; there are hopes that a bailout will come out of all this.  These hopes brought back the Euro and put pressure on the USD.  All the other [...]

Monday, March 1, 2010
Stocks are a bit higher on a story that the EU is piecing together a bailout plan for Greece.  This would take some of the strain off the EU economy in the short run.  China’s PMI fell in January, while it rose in the EZ.  The Pound has tanked this morning on [...]