Author: FX

ING economist Min Joo Kang argues that Shin Hyun-song’s nomination as Bank of Korea (BoK) governor points to a more hawkish policy stance, with preemptive rate hikes likely. She highlights persistent inflation pressures and elevated household debt, suggesting the BoK may tighten policy earlier than markets expect.New governor signals earlier tightening bias”On Sunday, the government announced Shin Hyun-Song as its nominee for the governor of the Bank of Korea. Shin, currently serving as an economic advisor at the Bank for International Settlements, has experience in both academia and policy making. Though his views will come into closer view at the…

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The US Census Bureau released its monthly construction spending report on February 27, 2026, covering data through December 2025. The release was delayed from its original schedule due to the 43-day government shutdown in late 2025.Construction spending in December 2025 was estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of $2,168.8 billion, up 0.3% from November’s $2,163.1 billion. This marked the first monthly increase after three consecutive months of declines. Despite the uptick, the December figure was 0.4% below the year-ago level, and full-year 2025 spending totaled $2,164.4 billion, down 1.4% from $2,194.8 billion in 2024.The monthly gain was driven by…

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Federal Reserve (Fed) Board of Governors member Stephan Miran told Bloomberg on Monday that they shouldn’t make policy decisions on short-term headlines.Key takeaways”Premature to judge the current situation.””Traditional central bank view is oil shocks don’t hit core inflation.””The labor market could still use support from monetary policy.””Still not enough clarity to know monetary policy should react to current events.””Expecting higher headline inflation but too soon to say it will hit core.””Higher energy prices depress demand, offsets some of inflation impact.””It would be highly unusual for Fed to react to oil shock now.””Watching for broad based second round impacts from higher…

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It’s looking rough out there and there is not much of any room for shelter. There is a rout in bonds, stocks, and precious metals all put together as surging oil prices and the Middle East conflict drags on. This is when you have to start thinking of margin calls as pointed out last week here.US futures are down in the dumps again today, extending losses as we get into European trading. S&P 500 futures are now down 1.0% with Nasdaq futures down 1.3%. That follows from the Friday dump, which was a significant one in reaffirming the technical breakdown…

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The MT4 horizontal line indicator solves this by letting traders mark exact price levels that persist across sessions and timeframes. These visual reference lines stay locked at specific prices, creating a permanent map of where buyers and sellers have shown interest before. When price approaches these pre-marked zones, traders get clear visual alerts without needing to memorize numbers or keep separate notes. What Makes This Tool Different From Regular Chart Markings The horizontal line indicator isn’t fancy or complex. That’s actually its strength. Unlike oscillators that bounce around or moving averages that shift with price, these lines stay fixed at…

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Commerzbank’s Thu Lan Nguyen argues that despite what is described as the greatest threat to energy security in history, implied EUR/USD volatility remains unusually low. She links expected FX volatility to monetary policy expectations and notes that similar-sized rate repricing in US and Eurozone limits expected differential moves. Nguyen is less optimistic than markets about ECB responsiveness, seeing scope for corrections and stronger EUR/USD swings.Options market underpricing EUR/USD risk”… the implied exchange rate volatilities currently priced into the options market are almost shockingly low. The 3-month implied volatility for EUR/USD is trading significantly lower than it was at the start…

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With war breaking out in the Middle East and an energy crisis ongoing, global economic uncertainty has been through the roof these days. So why has gold been crashing? Gold hit an all-time high of $5,589 in January 2026, then proceeded to fall about 22% below $4,400 by late March. That’s one of the worst weekly routs for the metal since 2011! If you assumed “conflict = gold up forever,” the past week just proved that rule has some very big exceptions. Here’s what actually happened and why it matters for how you think about safe-haven assets going forward. The…

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