The Euro is certainly under a little pressure against the Dollar, due to the very likely decision of the ECB to increase bond purchasing including sovereign and corporate bonds, while at the same time the Fed is thinking about tightening policy at some stage.
As for the economic development, I would mostly agree with the idea that it should remain rather positive and favourable for the US. The employment figures have proved to be solid and above expectations.
Obviously, corporations have been quite cautious in terms of deploying cash; hence, it would be worth saying that it is not a unique agenda. Statistical data may show that these circumstances are somewhat more common in Canada than elsewhere.
It is reasonably obvious that the Euro Area's economy is struggling to register any growth at all nowadays.
First of all, to my mind, the Swiss gold referendum appeared likely as a short-term momentum, where price for bullion has suffered a decline right after the vote results were out.
Despite the weakness in PMI figures, we do not expect any major downgrade of UK growth, as fundamentally the economy is still moving in the right direction. We target growth of 2.6% and 2.8% in 2015 and 2016, respectively.
New Zealand is a small open economy, hence, it does benefit from international trades and, therefore, if the G20 countries are putting an effort in lifting growth potential, then it is clear that New Zealand would be in advantage.
The US keeps attracting portfolio investment from foreign investors because of two major reasons.
In my point of view, the result of the referendum served as a message to the policy makers within the EU area.
There is an almost equal probability that The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is not going to cut versus its scaling back production. We suppose that the possibility of scaling back production is slightly higher.
I believe there are two predominant drivers for the Yen. The first thing is the domestic situation in Japan, since the BoJ is maintaining a very accommodating monetary policy stance: its balance sheet is already at 57% of GDP, and is going to grow larger from where it is.
I suppose the geopolitical concerns probably will continue to simmer beneath the surface, hence, there are expectations that it is not going to escalate into anything more significant.
I would be somewhat skeptical in regards of the effect coming from the cell phone sales from this particular point of view.
I suppose the momentum will probably carry on over into the current quarter, and we will see fairly solid growth.
To my mind, there is a serious risk that the Swiss Franc could appreciate out of hand, as it did a few years ago.
To my mind, there is a lot of nervousness in the SNB step to the rhetoric.
Industrial production is a volatile measure, however, it certainly points to the fact that we are seeing very weak growth in the Euro zone.
In our view, a weaker Russian currency brings more gains to the overall economy, supporting the country during such ambiguous times.
Basically, if we look at the current situation, we have fallen quite essentially from the highs that we witnessed during the summer, and I suppose there are two factors that have played into this.
In my opinion, the latest data from Canada suggest that there probably is less economic momentum than the consensus had reckoned at present time.
Our evaluation for the Kiwi would be that it is trading rather cheap in terms of the fundamental levels.
Recently, we can see that the USD/JPY has moved upwards quite considerably, although from a fundamental perspective nothing has changed on side of the Yen.
I believe that much of a bigger issue is the effect on confidence of what is happening in Ukraine, rather than the sanctions themselves.
The oil prices remain inflated by fears of potential supply destruction due to the global tension.