More losses… Currencies rebound… Jumping off the bandwagon…  Slowing renminbi appreciation? And Now… Today’s Pfennig!

‘The economic figures in Spain have deteriorated. Rato proposes reforms, and hopes that the government approves a package of economic measures soon’ says Paola Pecora.

The news on the UK economy just keeps getting worse. Last week’s news was unremittingly glum – from falling house prices to income squeezes, most of us are quite a bit worse off than we were a year ago.

Japan and the US said they would use the World Trade Organization to overturn European Union tariffs on consumer technology items such as computer screens, multifunctional printers and TV set-top boxes capable of accessing the Internet.

“The EU should be working with the United States to promote new technologies, not finding protectionist gimmicks to apply new duties to these products,” US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said to Thomson Reuters.

Fisher talks tough… GDP revision today… A$ remains resilient… Norges Bank keeps rates unchanged… Sounding Like A Hawk…

There’s no two ways about it folks. Inflation is a baaaaaaaaaddddddd thing… And I believe we will all rue the day that the Fed turned its back on inflation here in the United States. But Hey! That’s just me!

Powered by the biggest German expansion in 12 years, the European economy shrugged off the U.S. slowdown to post first-quarter growth numbers ahead of analyst estimates.

Fed Head Hoenig has thrown a cat among the pigeons this morning by stating that ‘inflation pressures may spur a rate rise by the Fed.’ Hmmm, is he serious, or just blabbering some currency intervention.

As I said yesterday, I spent all last week touring Europe, and checking out the local investment scene. And as I traveled from Milan to Zurich, I found the same sort of dangers threatening the Eurozone that have plagued the U.S. economy since last summer.

There is a table in The Financial Times which everyone ought to follow, though it refers to fixed interest securities and moves rather slowly. It is something I regard as a thinking point. It portrays one of the core relationships of global finance, and it is always worth asking oneself why the relationships are what they are, and why they have moved as they have moved.