In the first phase, the policy of cheap money helped financial market to gain a huge amount of liquidity demanded by banks due to interbank market freeze and deep distortions in other segments of money market.
In my opinion, the figures that we got through executed close of above $1,415 per ounce was the detriment to gold prices, as that would have been a key turning point.
We believe that the Canadian Dollar looks a little bit stretched at these levels. Overall, we have been bullish on the U.S. Dollar, and we expect that the Canadian Dollar is likely to lag behind general Dollar strength throughout this year.
Yes, to a certain extent that is true as Syria as a country does not directly impact oil flows and hence would unlikely affect oil prices unless the unrests spread to other oil producing countries in the region.
All measures of unemployment are problematic in that they depend on whether or not an individual, who does not have a job professes to be looking for work or not.
I do think that hiking interest rates can be done much sooner than expected; as I believe the market is susceptible to any sort of tightening from any central banks.
I do not consider it to be a warning sign as if we look at the Euro's performance broadly, it is still tending to outperform. Thus, looking at anything other than the U.S Dollar, the general trend is still being on the strength of the Euro.
Yes, I expect the German economy to expand steadily for the next few years. I believe that we will continue to see robust growth of export industry.
Obviously, rising yields and improving economic activity in the world's largest economy are positive drivers for the U.S Dollar.
I do not expect this trend to continue in the long term. Actually, we believe that the Euro will weaken against most of its major counterparts, especially the U.S. Dollar.
I expect oil prices to continue to be impacted by global events including the turmoil in the Middle East, which continues to get worse, keeping oil prices inflated by supply concerns.
If the Japanese government can make the path through the cutting corporate-tax by raising sales-tax, and the BOJ can prepare next action of qualitative and quantitative easing, I agree to the thought of the BOJ Governor Haruhiko Kuroda.
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.