Yes, for those “old rockers” from the 70’s like me… That’s Uriah Heep, at their best!

OK… So, welcome to July! The last day of June was quite the volatile one to say the least! There we were waiting for the S&P/CaseShiller Home Price Index to print, and show that home prices were still down by quite a bit, when it did, it did, it printed at -18.12%… But! The media was all over that like a cheap suit, clamoring that the spiral down in Home Prices had come to and end! Which, may be true… But wouldn’t you want to wait to see if next month’s report confirms it? And… By the way… Since when does -18.12% fall in home prices beckon a rally? Yesterday, would be that answer!

So… The currency rally that was going on for a 4th day, was quickly wiped out, Ventures style… What? Don’t know who the Ventures are? Boy, you really missed a lot of great instrumentals! Any way, the euro sunk like the Titanic from a level of 1.4130 to 1.40… The iceberg that caused this mess was simply the fact that traders, etc. believe the U.S. is on its way out of this mess… Of course, they must not be Pfennig readers, because… They would have read yesterday how I detailed the monthly numbers and showed how even with the spiral down in Home Prices ending, it would take until 2011 before the Home Prices got back to zero!

But NOOOOOOO!!!! They couldn’t read it until late yesterday afternoon, because… Houston, we had a problem, with the Pfennig’s delivery yesterday… See, how I’ve mellowed? I’m not even going to rant about this… Instead, I’ll just remind everyone that whenever the Pfennig doesn’t show up in your email box, you can most likely find it to read on the Pfennig’s website, where you can view that “glamour shot” of me, and archives of the Pfennig! You can find it here: www.dailypfennig.com —- Hope that helps!

OK… Well… After the thrill is gone, and the dust settled on all that yesterday, the euro is leading the other currencies higher once again… Here are a few things that have caused a sell-off of the dollar overnight once again…

Not that I’m a fan of his… In fact, I don’t really care at all… But George Soros, normally has some interesting things to say, that end up being bang on… So here are a few one liners from a speech by George Soros yesterday… I believe this sounds very much like the things I tell you, have told you, and will continue to tell you…

SOROS SAYS SEES A “STOP-GO” ECONOMY GOING FORWARD
SOROS SAYS SELF-CORRECTING MARKETS IS A MISCONCEPTION
SOROS SAYS INFLATION FEARS WILL DRIVE UP RATES AS MARKETS REVIVE, CHOKING OFF GROWTH
SOROS SAYS CURRENT SUPER BUBBLE MADE POSSIBLE BY PAST INTERVENTION, EFFORT TO RESOLVE PREVIOUS BUBBLES
SOROS SAYS FORMER FED CHAIRMAN GREENSPAN REFUSED TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR STOPPING BUBBLES

And then there was Alice Rivlin, she of former Budget Director, and former Fed Reserve member, fame, had a few things to say to the House Budget Committee… Good stuff, but you have to wonder if anyone was paying attention! Here’s Alice!

“The long term budget outlook: impending
catastrophe”

“No one needs to remind this Committee that the outlook for the federal budget is worrisome indeed, scary. Long before the financial crisis and the current deep recession, this Committee was anxiously pointing out that current federal spending and revenue policies are on a risky, unsustainable course. Promises made under the major entitlement programs (especially Medicare and Medicaid) will increase federal spending rapidly over the next couple of decades, as the population ages and medical spending continues to rise faster than other spending. Federal expenditures are projected to grow substantially faster than revenues, opening widening deficit gaps that cannot not be financed.”

Hmmm… Sounds like me too! Is this “sound like Chuck day?” HA!

OK… Enough of all that, I don’t want anyone to get hurt, and I should have told everyone to put away the sharp objects before reading!

In other data yesterday, Consumer Confidence took a step backward, and fell in June to 49.3 from May’s figure of 54.8… Maybe those that were surveyed has just read Alive Rivlin’s talk to the House Budget Committee! Seriously though, this was a surprise, given the fat that the DOW gained 838 points in the 2nd QTR! At least, that’s what the Wall Street Journal said!

Today, we get a truckload of data starting with Challenger Job Cuts, and the ADP Employment Change. Those are followed by the ISM Manufacturing Index, Construction Spending, Pending Home Sales and Vehicle Sales… Not a lot of “major” data prints, but still stuff to check the pulse of the economy.

I was talking to my good friend, and an economics professor at a prestigious University, yesterday, and she mentioned that “this piece of data is questionable as to the inputs”… I said to her… “What piece of data isn’t questionable these days?”

OK… The “demand for high yield” was put on hold yesterday… But it will return, or at least I should say I think it will return… I don’t know for sure to say “it will”, so had better make the legal beagles happy… That’s funny! To say that they would be “happy” with me… They cringe, and get very uncomfortable every day when they read the Pfennig! HA!

But you know me… I’m just trying to provide Market Commentary, and other things that I think are important, well, important to me that is!

Like… A long time reader sent me a note yesterday, and said, “hey Chuck, did you see the story in the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) on Foreign Demand for Treasuries?” Well, I hadn’t and went immediately to the WSJ, and there it was… Tucked away in a corner so that no one would see it, if they weren’t looking for it… A story, by Min Zeng, titled, “Is Foreign Demand As Solid As It Looks?

These are the things that really TICK ME OFF folks, so stay with me on this… Basically, as we all know the U.S. Treasury Auctions have been getting “covered” easily recently… And foreign demand was listed as the reason… Which would have been the exact opposite of what I was saying about foreigners shying away from Treasuries…

Here’s the skinny… But I’ll let Min Zeng tell it, since he did the research and brought this to the public, even though it was tucked away so no one would notice!

“But in a little-noticed switch on June 1, the Treasury changed the way it accounts for indirect bids, putting more buyers under that umbrella and boosting the portion of recent Treasury sales that the market perceived were being bought by foreigners.

The new definitions are deep in the arcane world of Treasury auctions. The change involves buyers who place orders through primary dealers. Those had been counted as direct buyers, but as of June 1 they were classified as indirect buyers, making that group larger than before. Because investors view that group as being dominated by foreign buyers, they assumed foreign demand was higher.”

>>>> OK, back to me… Ahhh, so that’s what’s going on… The Treasury “moved the goal posts on us”… As Sylvester would say… That’s despicable! Why isn’t someone in Washington D.C. shouting from the roof tops about this? Oh, that’s right, they’re all in cahoots!

This is HUGE folks… So… When the markets were thinking that foreign demand was increasing, it was actually, as I had said, shying away from Treasuries! Which, if the market participants are thinking that as long as foreigners are “buying into our deficit spending” then the dollar will be on terra firma, but instead are getting “duped” by the U.S. Treasury, you would think that someone would have some xplainin to do… Right Lucy?

And here’s another thing that just ticked me off when I read it this morning… Recall, last week I told you about how someone in China was dissing the talk that China’s stimulus was working, and that China would not be recovering, which sent the Aussie dollar to the woodshed until this news had passed? Well… Talk about egg on their face! Here’s the skinny…

China’s manufacturing expanded for a fourth month in June… The official Purchasing Managers’ Index rose to a seasonally adjusted 53.2 in June from 53.1 in May… And just like here in the U.S. any reading above 50 is thought to show manufacturing is expanding… The manufacturing index in the U.S. is around 44, so… We DO have the tale of two economies…

In one corner, we have the Chinese who have spent about $585 Billion worth of renminbi in stimulus, and are seeing the results… Whereas in the other corner we have the U.S. who have spent… More money than you can shake a stick at, and are not seeing green shoots like they “think they are”, instead they see dandelions, and weeds!

And the currencies of Australia and New Zealand have responded positively to this news from China…

And since I’m talking about China, might as well check on the other members of the BRIC’s (Brazil, Russia, India and China) Brazil’s real just posted its best quarterly performance on record, and India was Asia’s 3rd best performing currency, and if you throw out the two currencies above India that are illiquid, South Korea, and Indonesia, India was the best performing currency in Asia in the second QTR…

And the people over at the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) believe that the rupee won’t stop here… RBS issued a research report calling for a record 11% gain by the rupee in the 3rd QTR… I bet this news is music to the ears of my colleague on the “other” newsletter that I write… The Currency Capitalist… (to find out more: https://www.web-purchases.com/CUC/WCUCJ900/landing) My colleague, Ashish Advani, at the Sovereign Society, has been saying the rupee would be a strong performer for months now!

Here’s something you might want to be aware of, regarding the New Zealand dollar / kiwi… About $4.5 Billion in kiwi Uridashi and euro kiwi bonds denominated in kiwi will expire next month… I’m told that this is more than 4 times the size of a usual monthly expiration of bonds. This could very well be the hoola hoop the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) is looking for, given their wish that kiwi would weaken…

Royal Bank of Canada’s Currency guru, Sue Trinh, says that kiwi weakness could be beneficial to Aussie dollars, as the Japanese are leaning toward Aussie over kiwi these days…

Sounds about right to me!

And then there was this… OK, you all saw that Bernie Madoff was given 150 years in prison… Did you see that his wife, Ruth, reached an agreement with the authorities to return all of her wealth except $2.5 million that she got to keep? The thing that I still don’t get is how there aren’t more people going down with the ship on this one… I’ve been in the back office of brokerage firms, ran a margin dept, etc. and know this wasn’t just Bernie and his accountant… There was a lot of wool pulled over many eyes… And this will be the next step in the investigation by the U.S. officials… To see, who else knew what… If a whole stable full of people aren’t found to have known, then I’ll be surprised…

Currencies today 7/1/09: A$ .8045, kiwi .6410, C$ .8640, euro 1.4050, sterling 1.6430, Swiss .9220, rand 7.7675, krone 6.39, SEK 7.6337, forint 192.50, zloty 3.1390, koruna 18.3315, yen 96.90, sing 1.4475, HKD 7.75, INR 47.90, China 6.8330, pesos 13.18, BRL 1.9515, dollar index 80.11, Oil $71.27, 10-year 3.54%, Silver $13.67, and Gold… $931.20

That’s it for today… So sorry about the tardiness of the Pfennig yesterday, but I can’t do anything about it when we have technical difficulties… You know that I get up before the milkman, and the paper man, to get here to write it… It wasn’t like I was dilly-dallying around and didn’t get it done until 5 in the evening! HA! I see that my little buddy, Alex, got a 2nd and 3rd in backstroke and freestyle respectively at his latest swim meet. Really long time readers might recall when Alex’s older brother, Andrew was a highly decorated swimmer, and I would write about his swimming records… And their sister Dawn, also was a medal winner as a young girl! So… It’s now up to granddaughter, Delaney Grace to carry on the swimming tradition! HA! Cards lose again… UGH! OK… Time to try to get this out the door, hopefully it will go without a hitch… But whether it does or doesn’t it won’t stop me from having a Wonderful Wednesday… How about you?

Source: The U.S. Treasury Moves The Goal Posts

I heard yesterday someone say “well, we sure turned around today in the currencies”… And I thought, Shoot Rudy, why not name it Turn Around Tuesday? Then I went back to the history page on my trusty Bloomberg, and saw that on 4 of the last 5 Tuesdays, the currencies did in fact “turn around” their performances from the day before! Not that this is something we can hand our hats on, and make trades accordingly on Monday nights / Tuesday mornings… But, it’s an interesting fact nonetheless!

So… The currencies, led by the euro, came back strong VS the dollar yesterday… There were quite a few things on the list of reasons for this rally… I could do this David Letterman style… But I don’t have 10 reasons… So.. I’ll start with Chuck’s Top 5 Reasons the currencies rallied yesterday… (imagine me throwing the card away after reading each reason!)

#5 There were rumors that a Big Swinger Fund Manager was interested in some large chunks of Euros, Aussie and Gold…
#4 The supply thing again… $35 Billion in Treasury Notes had to be auctioned off…
#3 The Risk Traders were out in force, with the news that 10 Financial Institutions were going to be allowed to pay back their TARP funds.
#2 Goldman Sachs issued a “buy euro” recommendation to their clients…
And the number 1 reason the currencies rallied yesterday…

#1 The markets are celebrating the 345,000 job loss as reported by the BLS, last Friday, as proof the recession is coming to an end, and therefore there’s no further reason to own the safe haven dollar!

To that… I have to say HOGWASH! Not that I’m going to say the markets are wrong, because that’s something I learned many moons ago, that the markets are never wrong… Stupid… But never wrong! What I’m saying is that #1 I’ve proved that the BLS number was a farce, printed to make us feel good, and what a job it’s doing, eh? And #2 Even if we accepted that the number was -345,000, why would that be a good thing?

On my list of economists that I often read, is Paul Kasriel of Northern Trust… Let’s hear what he had to say about this… “The last thing Fed Chairman and Great Depression scholar Ben Bernanke wants to do is “abort the recovery by premature tightening,” which is what his predecessors did in 1936 and 1937, says Paul Kasriel, chief economist at the Northern Trust Corp. in Chicago. “At what other time has a 345,000 job loss been a reason to celebrate?”

OK… Let’s not look a gift horse in the mouth, eh? The euro rallied all the way to 1.41 and change… Right now, as I type it’s 1.4090… As I left you yesterday morning, the euro was trading, according to the currency round-up, at 1.3890… I had my head down doing some reading before trading, and looked up to see the euro had skipped right through the 1.39 handle… I never saw it trade with a 1.39 handle! It was that quick!

You know, the number 2 reason for the currencies to rally yesterday was quite interesting… Goldman Sachs Group Inc. advised buying the euro versus the dollar as risk aversion eases, prices of commodities rebound and talk of alternative reserve currencies undermine confidence in the greenback.

And the number 3 reason for the currencies to rally yesterday has more “air time” today, as the U.S. will have to auction $19 Billion of 10-year Treasuries… Yesterday’s 3-year auction was well bid… But think about this for a minute… The Chinese have shortened up their Treasury holdings to average 3-years… So, a 3-year note probably wasn’t going to have that much trouble getting sold… But 10-years? Ahhhh grasshopper, this could be the cheese that binds… We’ll have to see if this auction is as “well bid”…

The Commodity Currencies are watching the price of Oil rise to over $71 a barrel, and loving every minute of it… I’m not of course, as it will affect the price of the gas I put in my vehicle. But… This is the fuel the Commodity Currencies needed to get moving (get it? The fuel, oil? HAHAHAHA) Aussie, kiwi, loonies, real, and rands really got moving yesterday and overnight… Regarding the loonie… I’ve told you over and over again that the price of Oil could be the harbinger for a better loonie price… And voila!

I was talking to a very good / old friend, one that I’ve known since we were in the 2nd grade, the other day, and he asked me what was going on with the price of Oil, as he reasoned that with the recession going on, gas consumption was down, and thus the demand would be reduced… I agreed with him, but added… The difference here, I believe, is the fact that investors are looking ahead and believe they already see inflation, and are buying Oil contracts as a hedge VS that inflation they see in our future…

Loonie holders don’t care where the move comes from, they are just rejoicing a move to 91-cents!

The “winner” for the day in performance VS the dollar, was… Drum roll please… The New Zealand dollar/ kiwi… I found this strange given the fact that the Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) meets tonight to discuss rates… I take it that traders don’t believe the RBNZ will cut rates. In the Pfennig on Monday I said that “I was on the fence with this one… I’m leaning toward leaving rates unchanged, but jawboning for further rate cuts… Which is about the same as actually cutting them! So… Just cut the darn things! Quit beating around the bush!”

So… Kiwi was the winner for the day! Now we need to wait-n-see what the RBNZ does tonight!

Kiwi’s kissin’ cousin across the Tasman, Australia, saw June Consumer Confidence rise sharply by over 12%, the biggest one-month rise since 1974… Ahhh, 1974… Grand Funk’s The Loco-Motion was the number 1 song of the year… The Top Ten also included Sweet Home Alabama, Come and Get Your Love, and The Joker… 1974 wasn’t a great year for Billboard hits… But the underground FM radio stations were hitting it big then, and the music was awesome! Oh boy, did I digress or what here? Geez Louise, somebody pinch me, I’ve gone completely off course!

OK… I’m back from 1974 now…

Gold and Silver also enjoyed the day on Tuesday, and overnight, with Gold moving to $960… Recall, yesterday, when Gold had dropped the previous 2 days that… “With Gold hovering around $950 and Silver around $15, it certainly provides an opportunity to buy at cheaper levels than last week’s lofty figures, eh? I would use these dips to my advantage… But then that’s just me… It doesn’t mean that it’s the right thing to do!”

As I’ve been talking about all week, the Trade Deficit and Budget Deficit both print today… The Trade Deficit is expected to grow to $29 Billion from $27.6 Billion because of the steady rise in the price of oil… The Budget Statement which couldn’t even post a positive balance in the month April, will probably add $180 Billion to the deficit column… UGH!

This afternoon, the Fed’s Beige Book will print, which gives us a glimpse of what the Fed Districts see going on… There’s rarely something here to move the markets, so… These are not the droids you’re looking for… Move along there’s nothing here to see!

And finally… I wonder what’s going to happen with this one… I’m talking about the House of Representatives issuing a subpoena to the Fed for the documents related to the Bank of America (BOA) purchase of Merrill Lynch… You may recall that BOA Chairman, Ken Lewis, told the lawmakers that the Fed and U.S. Treasury made him take on Merrill Lynch, and not disclose the losses on Merrill’s books… There’s more laws broken in that statement than you can shake a stick at… So… This will be interesting, to see if the lawmakers find anything there… I doubt they will, because they are all in cahoots with each other in this financial mess… But, to me… There’s smoke here… And I always tell you that where there’s smoke there’s fire! And I believe that the fire is raging here… I’ll tell you what we need here… We don’t need no stinkin’ lawmakers going through the records… We need old ironsides… Barnaby Jones… Or Mannix! Now, those guys would get to the bottom of this!

I did a 15-minute radio interview on True News yesterday… I got to speak my mind on some things, and the interviewer never interrupted me, told me “he was losing me”, or made fun of anything I was talking about… Now… That was a good interview! I got to talk about things on my mind, our products here at Everbank, the website, the phone number and the Pfennig… And the listeners got 15 minutes of “Chuck speak”… I want to thank the people at True News…

I also had a production meeting for my “other” newsletter, which is always interesting… The editors sit around and ask me… “So, Chuck, what do you want to write about this month?” Hmmm… I always say, because… Since I write something every day, you can only imagine how difficult it is come up with something new for a monthly newsletter! But I always do, somehow! If you’re interested in this letter, it does cost… But it’s a value at any cost! You can click here… https://www.web-purchases.com/CUC/WCUCJ900/landing

Currencies today 6/10/09: A$ .8110, kiwi .6335, C$ .9080, euro 1.41, sterling 1.6390, Swiss .9290, rand 8.03, krone 6.2810, SEK 7.6425, forint 198.28, zloty 3.1750, koruna 18.99, yen 98, sing 1.4480, HKD 7.7510, INR 47.33, China 6.8332, pesos 13.53, BRL 1.9440, dollar index 79.74, Oil $71.31, 10-year 3.87%, Silver $15.42, and Gold… $961.35

That’s it for today… Did you hear about the fisherman who reeled in a missile from an F-15 fighter jet? That’s a pretty interesting story, eh? Not much else to talk about this morning, as my beloved Cardinals are in a major June Swoon… UGH! When do the Rams report to training camp? Nah… I can’t be that thin skinned with the redbirds, they’ll break out of this… Hopefully! So… With nothing more to say, I’ll get this out of here, but not before telling you to hopefully have a Wonderful Wednesday!

Source: A Turn Around Tuesday

Hey! What a day for the currencies yesterday! Geez Louise, it’s seems like it’s been a month of Sundays since I could say that! And there’s been follow up overnight, although, I do believe I’m seeing some profit taking right now… I went to radiation yesterday with the euro trading around 1.2965… I came back 2 hours later, and it was 1.31! And it didn’t stop there, trading up to 1.3175, but running into a wall of resistance there… But that was temporary, as the overnight market pushed the single unit higher to 1.3250… It did trade all the way up to 1.33 and change on news that the German Business Confidence, as measured by the think tank IFO, unexpectedly rose for the first time in 8 months. This improvement was a result of the European Central Bank (ECB) cutting interest rates…

Of course, you know me… And I always say that one swallow doesn’t make a summer… And that can be used here, as this IFO report is just one sliver of hope for the German economy… There needs to be more, or this will report will be put in the rear view mirror soon. So, I’m not pinning my colors to the mast of a German economic recovery, just yet! But, the data did “goose” the euro higher, and for taking part in that, I give the IFO kudos!

The Big Winner of the day though, was pound sterling… In a case of an asset “falling too far, too fast”… The pound sterling has done a Super Ball Bounce from Friday’s price, and has rebounded to 1.4190… Of course, that’s a rally from Friday’s figure of 1.3570… It certainly STILL shows the rot on the vine in the U.K. from last summer’s 2.00 for pound sterling. I would be very careful here, as the U.K. is in the same boat, smaller in size, but the same boat as the U.S….

I had a great lunch yesterday with the Big Boss, Frank Trotter, and we were discussing what we would talk about next week at the Orlando Money Show. I told Frank that I really believe in the prospects of a nice big rally in Norwegian krone… Let me tell you why… First and foremost, it remains a Surplus country… A positive balance of payments… And that surplus has allowed Norway to weather the storm that’s hit just about every other country in the world… See, why I believe the Surplus countries should always be considered when buying currencies? Anyway… The main reason it lost ground from last July’s levels is the drop in Oil prices… They like the other types of Commodity driven currencies like Aussie, Canada, Brazil, New Zealand, South Africa, just got hammered due to the selling in Commodities… But… You know my outlook for the inflation in this country, and that will be driving Commodity prices higher by year-end… But the leader in the forefront of all this move will, in my opinion, be Oil prices… And IF Oil prices rebound like I suspect they will, that will be a very nice underpin for Norwegian krone…

And Gold traded above $900 yesterday… It has seen some profit taking overnight, and fallen back to $896… But, again, these are stair steps to higher levels for the shiny metal… But then that’s just my opinion. You have to make your own investment decision…

OK, the data yesterday was not good, Yes, the Existing Home Sales moved higher, but only at the expense of a falling Home Price… The median home price was $175,400 in December, down 15.3% from $207,000 in December 2007, the National Association of Realtors said Monday. The median price in November this year was $180,300. Here’s the real indication that this rise in sales wasn’t at good levels… Of all sales in December, about 45% were distress sales at discounted prices. That’s foreclosures and auctions on foreclosed homes folks… I don’t think we want to get up on the fence and crow about this report…

And then, after all my harping about how the markets should pay closer attention to Leading Indicators data, the report for December showed an unexpected gain of .3%… Again, the one swallow doesn’t make a summer, applies here too… I’m from Missouri, and I’ll need to be shown more of this to believe it…

Today, we get the color of the S&P/CaseShiller Home Price Index, which will repeat what yesterday’s Realtors report showed… Expect more rot on the vine here though, with home prices showing an -18% drop…

And we’ll see Consumer Confidence, which I suspect will bump higher in December, although in reality I don’t know why… But it most likely will, based on the stock market’s head fake rally in December…

I see that “the cheater” a.k.a. Tim Geithner was confirmed as our U.S. Treasury Sec. I really didn’t think I would ever have another punching bag Treasury Sec. like I had with King Henry Paulson, but, then along came “the cheater”… I have to tell you that this is scary stuff folks… In his confirmation he said, not once, but twice, that “President Obama, backed by the conclusions of a broad range of economists, believes that China is manipulating its currency. President Obama has pledged as President to use aggressively all the diplomatic avenues open to him to seek change in China’s currency practices.”

OK folks, this is where the problems begin… If in his confirmation, he’s making statements like that, you can expect that Obama will push for legislature to put tariffs on Chinese goods… Protectionism… This is ALL GOING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION!!!!!!! And believe me now and hear me later… “the cheater” didn’t just make up this response! This was given to him by Obama, and “the cheater” made certain that everyone hear him, by repeating the answer!

I’ve told you before, folks, that Protectionism is to a currency, like kryptonite is to Superman… So… Not only is the Gov’t on the path to spending even more than the previous administration spent, they look as though they will go down this protectionism path… Add to that, the recession and zero interest rates, and you’ve got the ingredients for a huge swat at the dollar…

I read a report by Stephen Jen of Morgan Stanley, where he writes that he believes the euro will trade back to 1.20 in the coming months… Well, that may be, and would play well with my Obama bounce thing… But with this all happening so fast in the past couple of days, I might have to rethink that Obama bounce thing… We may get an Obama bounce, but it may be for the euro and other currencies!

Oh… And one more thing on China, before I go on… The IMF’s Managing Director, Strauss-Kahn, was talking yesterday, and said, “I have said repeatedly that the renminbi is undervalued” He went on to add, “What we need is for the Chinese to change their policy and shift to more domestic-led growth than to focus on exports. Most Chinese officials are convinced that this is in their own interest.”

So… The IMF believes the renminbi is undervalued, and that the Chinese should do something about it, and so does the Obama administration… And you say, “Trade wars”? I bet you can! And not a good time for them either! Not when the whole globe is suffering… Dolts, all of them, they can’t see the Big Picture… Shame, Shame, Shame!

OK… I could really get going on all that… But… I’ll shift gears and talk about the bailouts… Have you seen the Neil Young, you know THE Neil Young, video on YouTube? He’s singing about the bailouts… Here are the lyrics…

There’s a bailout coming but it’s not for me
It’s for all those creeps watching tickers on TV
There’s a bailout coming but it’s not for me
There’s a bailout coming but it’s not for you
It’s for all those creeps hiding what they do
There’s a bailout coming but it’s not for you
Bailout coming but it’s not for you

So… When guys like Neil Young know that these bailouts aren’t working, and they aren’t good… It should be very apparent to the likes of Pelosi, and Obama…

Oh… And Home Depot announced 7,000 layoffs yesterday, Sprint announced 8,000 layoffs, while Caterpillar announced 20,000…

I’ll get to the Big Finish here in a minute… But first, and finally I wanted to talk briefly about New Zealand… The Reserve Bank of New Zealand (RBNZ) meets this week, and I truly expect them to continue their interest rate cutting. 325 BPS have already been cut from their once highest interest rate in the industrialized world… Finance Minister Bill English was speaking last night and said that the “economic outlook had deteriorated since the government’s Dec forecasts, and that the economy now looked to be closer to the Treasury’s “worst case scenario”.” In that scenario, he suggested that recession would continue through to 2010, the current account deficit would balloon beyond 10% of GDP, and unemployment would rise sharply rising. These aren’t “good times” for kiwis… So… Look for the weakness in the kiwi-dollar to remain in place here…

Currencies today 1/27/09: A$ .6625, kiwi .5280, C$ .8160, euro 1.3250, sterling 1.41, Swiss .8790, rand krone 6.7325, SEK 7.9660, forint 215.90, zloty 3.2950, koruna 21, yen 89, sing 1.4990, HKD 7.7690, INR 48.93, China 6.8615, pesos 14.05, BRL 2.3120, dollar index 84.36, Oil $46.27, Silver $12, and Gold… $897.40

Source: ‘The Cheater’ Speaks