Author: John Rowa

Earnings season is the US is upon us and off to a rough start. Traders can stay up to date through CNBC’s Earnings Central. Here are a couple of today’s highlights: Alcoa’s report showed profit, but was less...

China unexpectedly increased the requirement of reserves for banks today by 50 basis points. This move is intended to cut back on bank lending due to worries of inflation. China’s growth was helping the global economic...

European Central Bank President, Jean-Claude Trichet, is forecasting global positive growth in 2010, but believes the recovery will be sluggish. The sluggish growth view will cause central bankers to take a “wait and...

Barclays has just won the first foreclosure case in Dubai. Now investors and traders look on to see if this precedent will be followed by a rush of foreclosures. There are already pending foreclosure cases in process. The legal...

CAD Housing Starts came in 175K, beating expectations of 165K. The previous report was also revised more favorably from 159K to 165K. Despite the positive news in housing starts, building permits declined 4.6%, worse than the...

GBP Producer Price Index (PPI) Input rose 0.1% for the month of December 2009. Further, “Input price annual inflation rose 6.9 per cent in December compared to a rise of 4.0 per cent in November.” PPI is seen as a...

AUD Retail sales increased by 1.4% for the month of November 2009, beating expectations of 0.4% and previous growth of 0.4%. Sales increased among all states and all sectors listed. Australian Trade Balance came in at -1.70...

AUD Australian Building Approvals m/m grew 5.9% from October 2009 to November 2009. This beat expectations 3.1%. Building approvals is a good leading indicator of future construction activity. The Australian dollar rose slightly...

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke last Sunday, January 3, 2010 at the Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association in Atlanta Georgia. His speech covered monetary policy and the housing bubble, specifically...

The National Association of Realtors released their pending home sales figure today, posting the worst monthly change in the data’s existence. November 2009 saw a drop of 16%. This put a strong end to 9 consecutive months...