Forex Fundamental Analysis

Politicians from around the world seem to have absorbed the subliminal message that the general public is none too happy to bail out “fat-cat” bankers from the public purse, in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis.

In simpler times, a bank was somewhere you could go to deposit your savings and make interest; turn to for an overdraft, loan or mortgage; or trust to manage your portfolio of stock and bond investments.

The inability of Republican and Democrat politicians in the House of Representatives and the Senate led to the partial shutdown of the Federal government for 16 days in October and served as the curtain-raiser for a bout of brinkmanship over the US debt ceiling which, if unresolved, could have forced the world’s largest economy into a sovereign default.

Employment is a lagging indicator of the economic cycle and usually picks up once recovery is underway and businesses need more staff to meet increased demands for the goods or services.

Last week’s trading was another mixed affair for the world’s major markets with markets essentially flat or closing lowe

The European Central Bank and the Bank of England have both left rates unchanged, at record low levels. In the case of the Bank of England, the key interest rate has sat at 0.5% since March 2009 which underlines just how entrenched the hangover from the Global Financial Crisis has been.

Many nations would be glad to be posting quarterly growth figures of 0.6%, or 2.3% on an annualised basis, but Australia had been expected to return 0.7% (2.6% full year) growth in the third quarter, so analysts have been disappointed.

The Eurozone saw factory orders rise for a fifth consecutive month, as a whole.

It might come as a shock to anybody who lived through the Thatcher years, but the UK continues to have a manufacturing base, although the dominant term in the UK economy has long since been the service sector.

In the first week of December, investors will be focused on the economic data scheduled to be released in the Eurozone and the US.

Friday marked the final trading session for the month of November. With the exception of London’s FTSE, the major markets closed higher.

One of the major planks of Shinzo Abe’s election campaign was that his government would do whatever was needed to end deflation in the Japanese economy; a problem that has dogged the world’s third largest economy for the best part of twenty years.

In almost any country, the major user of domestic output (goods and services) is clearly the public. In the UK, for instance, it is believed that nearly two-thirds of all output is consumed domestically.

The origins of the financial crisis in Portugal were different to those in Ireland (property bubble), Spain (property bubble), Greece (deficit misreporting) and Cyprus (contagion from Greek crisis), but there are some common elements.

After months of off-and-on again deliberations, President Obama agreed late Saturday night to ease sanctions against Iran in exchange for a curtailment of some of its nuclear activities.