I agree that Bitcoin is "the world's fastest growing currency". Bitcoin is an attempt to create an electronic currency that is not controlled by a government.
I believe that it is quite possible. We expect China's GDP growth to be around 7, 5%, which is in line with the target set by authorities for 2013.
I believe that the tax hike is necessary, since the Japanese do not have confidence in Japan's fiscal position and budget. Young people are wondering whether they will receive pension and benefits in the future.
Australia and New Zealand have experienced sharp increases in their arrival rates (per thousand population) in recent years (from 8.2 and 6.1 per thousand residents in 1979 to 21.7 and 14.9, respectively in 2008).
We have indeed seen quite good economic numbers out of the U.K; and the run of positive data has been quite persistent over the last month or so.
Nominal exchange rates are always going to move. But the position of the Euro against the other global currencies mostly depends on what happens in other countries and central banks – at least as long as the ECB remains very conservative about supporting money growth.
Given that we have had a weaker data out of China and Australia, we expect that there will be a rate cut in August.
The Swiss economy has probably performed better than analysts had expected, given the Swiss Franc has stayed so strong.
The U.K is not yet on a sustainable path to recovery. It is true that growth is returning, with annualized GDP rising 0.3% in the first quarter, and is likely to be at least as good in Q2 and perhaps in Q3 as well.
It is creating a very challenging environment, because the question for the market is whether we are going to see some tampering of QE and when it would occur.
Our economists are looking for a slight improvement in the Eurozone's activity.
At this moment there is no indication that Mr. Bernanke will want to be reappointed. However, I believe it would depend on the overall environment.
When we are trying to predict how far the price of gold can drop, we have to look at the average cost of gold's production.
I do not agree with the argument that Mark Carney`s main aim is to weaken the Pound. His main goal is to fulfil his mandate of price stability with perhaps slightly more focus on improving underlying growth.
Obviously, it increases discussions in the market whether the Fed can really move along tapering so far as Mr. Bernanke put ahead.
We actually believe that it is quite likely that the Dollar appreciation is not a result of the financial market stress, but actually due to the cyclical factors as that U.S. rate are increasing and there is a potential of QE tapering starting later this year.
We still see room for a further rate cut as the Australian economy is still quite soft, labour market indicators, in particular, seem to continue to indicate some pressure on the unemployment rate, whereas inflation appears to be very well contained allowing room for more stimulus to be put in the economy by the RBA.
I believe Europe can expect a slow recovery and a gradual improvement over the coming weeks. On the other hand, there is a wide concern that recent floods in Germany can hit its growth once again.
However, the OPEC will continue to be a significant player at least until the end of 2013, while in 2014 and beyond the importance of the organization will decrease. At the last meeting in Vienna, a decision was made to keep the OPEC output unchanged till December.
I believe that the U.S growth picture is much more secure than most of us think.
Not only it has deteriorated, it is still deteriorating. That is particularly true in the Northern Europe, in the core countries like Germany etc. Nevertheless, the situation might begin to improve in some of the Southern European counties, but if we consider the Eurozone as a whole, the situation is certainly worsening.
I believe that there is a decent possibility of the Australian Dollar falling further.
As a matter of fact things are getting somewhat better.
I believe that it is a combination of both. There are some economic issues that lead to the Eurozone crisis in the sense that private debt in some countries, and especially in peripheral countries like Spain and Ireland, either exploded or rose very substantially after the start of the monetary union.