Harold Fretheim

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  Harold Fretheim and Jack Kulisiewicz are now friends   1 year, 5 months ago

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  Harold Fretheim and MarcusW are now friends   1 year, 7 months ago

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: The Volatile FOREX market   2 years, 7 months ago
  

  The theme of Sunday night’s trading room was increased FOREX market volatility: A volatility caused by the steady increase in the crosswinds of market fundamentals.

  It was actually kind of cool to open up the Wall Street Journal and find – on the front page of the “Money and Investing” section – a [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: Triangle formation on the EUR/USD hourly chart   2 years, 7 months ago
  

  I was so involved in trying to report the upcoming events for this week that I forgot to mention that there is now a near perfect Symmetrical Triangle on the EUR/USD hourly chart. 

  This triangle has formed since the EUR/USD hit a high of 1.4157 on 10/15/2010.  It has a technical target of [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: The Coming Week   2 years, 7 months ago
  

  This week the world will have its eyes focused on the United States. Major announcements, the FOMC meeting and, above all, the midterm elections.

  But it would be foolish to ignore what is going on elsewhere: The Bank of Japan, The Reserve Bank of Australia, the European Central Bank and the Bank of [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: BOJ Shows a Little Bit of Flexibility   2 years, 8 months ago
  

  Update – Maybe my initial assessment of the rate decision by the Bank of Japan was a trifle harsh.

  While it is true that most of the 5 Trillion yen in additional quantitative easing will simply go to purchase Japanese Government Bonds (3.5 trillion yen) what is different is the decision to put [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: The Value of Fundamentals   2 years, 8 months ago
  

  Last night showed us the value of fundamentals in trading. That value does not consist in providing a crystal ball – which no trader has- but rather in providing and understanding of what is happening and why a technical set up is no longer valid. 

  AUD and the JPY

  Yesterday there was [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: Thoughts on Europe, Japan, US and Canada   2 years, 8 months ago
  

  The Euro went up even though Moody’s downgraded Spain. 

  Why?

  Three factors: 

  First, there has been a lot of press about new rules being negotiated that would enforce budget discipline in the Euro area.

  Second, there continue to be world wide signs of a slowed but continuing [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: Japan and the Banks of Europe – An Update   2 years, 9 months ago
  

  Since to you I realized that I mis-spoke about the time frame for the 500 pip rise of the Euro vs the Yen – it actually took 36 hours, rather than 24. But that is still a very strong and fast move. 

  Of course, since then the Euro has [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: Japan and the Banks of Europe   2 years, 9 months ago
  

  So Mr. Kan hung on to the Prime Ministership of Japan- but just barely.

  In politics – in any country – survival under such conditions requires the ability to make a deal and stick to it. What was the price paid by Mr. Kan?

  We got our answer within hours as [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: Europe, Japan and Australia – and US Taxes   2 years, 9 months ago
  

  This is still the Year of the Euro – it is important to remember that much of the turmoil in the world economy – including the apparent U.S. ‘growth recession’ (a slow recovery with little or no job growth, resulting in an increase in the unemployment rate) is directly the result of the European sovereign [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: The Bank of Japan Does as Little as Possible   2 years, 9 months ago
  

  And so, as the world watched breathlessly, Governor Masaaki Shirakawa, that bold and valiant leader of the Bank of Japan rushed home from Wyoming an entire day early in order to hold an emergency meeting of the board of the BOJ.  I will let the folk’s at MarketWatch give you a description of what happened [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: Fundamental Forex Outlook: The US and Europe   2 years, 9 months ago
  

  This is the Year of the Euro but in the last few weeks most of the news has been dominated by sideshows in Australia, Japan and the United States.

  Downward GDP Figures

  This morning the trend continued as 2nd quarter GDP figures were revised downward – as expected- BUT only to a [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: Fundamental Forex Commentary: Japan and the US   2 years, 9 months ago
  

  Deflation and a Yen which continues to strengthen have provoked a political crisis in Japan. Ichiro Ozawa – the man who turned the Democratic Party of Japan into a political force before being forced to relinquish his leadership over corruption charges – is now challenging Naoto Kan’s leadership.

  The Better Man?

  Mr. [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: Australia and the Yen   2 years, 9 months ago
  

  The USD/JPY briefly fell to 83.60.  This was followed by a spate of stories all of which indicated that the government of Japan is extremely displeased- and critics of the Prime Minister are publicly upbraiding him for not already having acted. The Prime Minister protests that on the contrary – the Yen is his top [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: The Yen- When does the BOJ intervene?   2 years, 10 months ago
  

  More than 30 years ago the US dollar strengthened to 301.2 Japanese Yen.  I remember that there were huge complaints about Japanese ‘dumping’ : Japanese goods were flooding the US and US manufacturers could not compete against artificially cheapened Japanese imports.  In those days the Japanese had in fact been pursuing a program of export [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: The Bank of Japan, The FOMC and China   2 years, 10 months ago
  

  So, I took a day to think about what is happening.  Last Friday we saw bad news from Non-farm payrolls for the US – and surprise bad news from Canadian Non-farm payrolls. We see consumer confidence dropping- while the Germans at least are experiencing significant manufacturing growth.

  The Stubborn [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: Thoughts on the Non-farm Payroll Report – And Europe   2 years, 10 months ago
  

  So the US lost more jobs than expected- because State and Local governments laid off a bunch of workers. Nothing could better have illustrated the length and depth of this recession than the layoff of government workers.

  The Canadian Dollar
  Private company hiring picked [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: Non-Farm Payroll and the Federal Reserve   2 years, 10 months ago
  

   

  Tomorrow I plan to rise early and watch how the market reacts to the US Nonfarm payrolls.  Because of the major shift in world economic sentiment- from defensive crouch to timorous, nervous optimism- tomorrows report could be exciting.  What makes this nonfarm payrolls so interesting is that tomorrow’s report will be the first half of a [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: The Chinese Announce Stress Tests   2 years, 10 months ago
  

  So, 2 days ago I described what appeared to be a failling wedge on the USD/JPY hourly candle chart that seemed to confirm market nervousness with how far this pair had fallen. Imagine my surprise when I looked at my charts and realized that the pair had accelerated its fall and then fell out of the pattern [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: Fundamentals Shifting Again   2 years, 10 months ago
  

  It seems like the currency market suddenly shifted its gaze from Europe and China to recoil from the US dollar.  And the Bank of Japan has surpised me in particular with its willingness to let the Yen strengthen against the US dollar- which is now less than 600 pips away from a 30 year low [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: Forex Fundamental Observations   2 years, 10 months ago
  

  This morning I sent some extremely cryptic comments about what is happening in the fundamentals that form the landscape of the currency markets.  I realize that these were not of much use.  So I thought that I would follow up with some expanded observations:

  First, according to an article which appeared in [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote a new blog post: The Drag of the Euro   2 years, 11 months ago
  

  The long Great Recession continues: Europe is a drag on the whole world. Remember that When it is the financial system that is the problem it takes longer to recover.  It also means that those with money look for safety.

  It is not illogical for them to send the money where the first major shoe dropped- [...]

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  Harold Fretheim wrote on their own wire:   3 years, 3 months ago
  

  Of course, there are still a couple of months to go before the elections so thigs could turn around- and the GBP/USD with it.

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  Harold Fretheim and JPFX are now friends   3 years, 4 months ago