baona/iStock via Getty Images By Elior Manier USD/JPY is one of the most reactive pairs to broader geopolitical movements and technical patterns, remaining one of the most favored major currency pairs in FX trading. But in recent years, it has certainly played tricks on traders. Tending to move lower on rate cuts, the irregular FOMC cycle hasn't seen typical responses in the pair. After all, even ...
baona/iStock via Getty Images By Elior Manier USD/JPY is one of the most reactive pairs to broader geopolitical movements and technical patterns, remaining one of the most favored major currency pairs in FX trading. But in recent years, it has certainly played tricks on traders. Tending to move lower on rate cuts, the irregular FOMC cycle hasn't seen typical responses in the pair. After all, even the Bank of Japan is going through its own irregular hike cycle to levels not seen in 18 years. The yen is also a favored safe-haven currency in periods of turmoil. While the US dollar also plays a similar role, this time the Japanese currency could not even withstand the pressure: during the US-Iran conflict, Japan spiked to April 2024 highs (~160.47). Japan is a major importer of energy commodities, with close to 95% of its demand reliant on Middle Eastern exports. Despite having the largest emergency oil reserves among OECD nations, the country still faces immense pressure due to the lack of movement in the infamous Strait of Hormuz. Japan's Major Energy Partners – Source: EIA Due to this elevated dependency, JPY's pre-existing weakness quickly magnified as Japan's main hedgers and importers faced physical barriers to meeting their high demand – having to convert to the US dollar to purchase oil commodities, the rise in USD/JPY was nothing short of a self-fulfilling prophecy. So what about now? With the war priced to come to an end in the next few weeks, a narrative once again confirmed by President Trump in his many addresses, the US dollar is itself finding heavy selling pressure, with the Dollar Index forming a major double top ; the Japanese yen could be a major gainer from such a pattern. USD/JPY and WTI Correlation. April 1, 2026 – Source: TradingView Despite Japan’s core inflation slightly easing, price pressures from war put the BoJ on center stage for an imminent hike. The issue is that things won't be so easy. With recent Bank of Japan uncertainty, including tw...
PK24/E+ via Getty Images Global manufacturers reported the steepest price rises and supply delays since 2022 on the outbreak of the war in the Middle East, with factories also building safety stocks amid a near-record spike in business uncertainty. Manufacturing prices spike amid energy shock and supply delays The global manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), sponsored by J.P. Morgan and ...
PK24/E+ via Getty Images Global manufacturers reported the steepest price rises and supply delays since 2022 on the outbreak of the war in the Middle East, with factories also building safety stocks amid a near-record spike in business uncertainty. Manufacturing prices spike amid energy shock and supply delays The global manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), sponsored by J.P. Morgan and compiled by S&P Global Market Intelligence, indicated a surge in both prices and supply delays in March following the outbreak of war in the Middle East Average factory input prices rose globally at the fastest rate since July 2022, the rate of inflation accelerating to a degree not seen since December 2009 outside the pandemic months. Supplier delivery delays, meanwhile, caused global lead times to lengthen to a degree not seen since October 2022. The two biggest drivers of higher prices were energy and shipping costs. According to the worldwide PMI survey contributor comments, the impact of higher energy prices was the steepest recorded since December 2022. The inflationary impact of shipping costs was, meanwhile, at its highest since November 2022, both linked to the war in the Middle East and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. However, survey contributors also reported the pass through of higher energy and oil derivative prices to other inputs, such as food and chemicals. The inflationary impact of broader raw material prices also rose to the highest since December 2022 as a result. A moderating factor on producer price inflation was, meanwhile, wages and salaries, which pushed up firms’ costs to one of the smallest extents seen over the past year and a half, helping alleviate the overall inflation uplift during the month. Constrained production encourages safety stock building safety stock building The escalation of supply delays has, meanwhile, caused production problems at increasing numbers of companies around the world. Reports of manufacturing output having been...
primeimages/iStock via Getty Images Introduction As a relatively aggressive investor, I am always searching for ETFs with a long track record of meeting or beating the S&P 500's performance. I came across the Invesco S&P 500 Top 50 ( XLG) that has a 21-year track record of solid performance, and I decided to investigate its structure and benchmarking. My conclusion is that this ETF´s investment cr...
primeimages/iStock via Getty Images Introduction As a relatively aggressive investor, I am always searching for ETFs with a long track record of meeting or beating the S&P 500's performance. I came across the Invesco S&P 500 Top 50 ( XLG) that has a 21-year track record of solid performance, and I decided to investigate its structure and benchmarking. My conclusion is that this ETF´s investment criteria deliver consistent returns, modestly above the S&P 500 ( SPX ) due to the index weighting methodology. Performance Since its inception in May 2005, the XLG has modestly and consistently outperformed the SPX, as seen in the chart below. When compared with the NASDAQ, it has also performed in line in the last 5 years. In the longer term, the XLG has trailed the NDX due to its portfolio construction. Note that all comparisons exclude dividends to focus on price returns, and historically, the SPX and XLG have earned around 1% annually in dividends. created by author with data from Capital IQ What is the XLG What is interesting about this ETF's portfolio construction is the methodology that allows winners to keep running. The ETF tracks the S&P top 50 index, which selects the top 50 largest companies by market cap from the SPX. This in itself is not very interesting, and one would assume that the top 50 would have a similar performance as the SPX. However, the key to this index is that it does not limit the weight of its constituents; thus, an outperformer such as NVIDIA Corporation ( NVDA ) can continue to produce positive outcomes even when SPX or NDX weights are cut during quarterly rebalancing. This portfolio construction characteristic allows for a higher concentration in the best-performing companies within the S&P 500. And given technology's dominance, the XLG moves towards a hybrid portfolio of SPX and NDX. The majority of the ETF's current holdings have what I consider fortress balance sheets and resilient business models that allow them to weather stagflation an...
In this article @LCO.1 Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Demonstrators hold posters of Ayatollah Khomeini outside the American Embassy which is occupied by 'students following the Imam Khomeini's line on November 16, 1979 in Tehran, Iran. Kaveh Kazemi | Hulton Archive | Getty Images "The hard part is done," President Donald Trump said in his address to the nation Wednesday night abou...
In this article @LCO.1 Follow your favorite stocks CREATE FREE ACCOUNT Demonstrators hold posters of Ayatollah Khomeini outside the American Embassy which is occupied by 'students following the Imam Khomeini's line on November 16, 1979 in Tehran, Iran. Kaveh Kazemi | Hulton Archive | Getty Images "The hard part is done," President Donald Trump said in his address to the nation Wednesday night about the Iran war. The recent jump in gas prices is "short term increase" that should "will rapidly come back down" once the vital Strait of Hormuz is reopened, he said. But there is reason to worry that the conflict and its economic consequences for Americans may get worse before they get better. If so, Trump will struggle to shake off the damaging political legacy of the war . In that he would join a long line of U.S. presidents going back to the 1970s who have seen their tenures defined by energy crisis and inflation — the economic scourge Trump has called a "nation-buster." "The oil shock of the '70s was planted in the maybe subterranean part of our brains," said Jay Hakes, a presidential historian who led the U.S. Energy Information Administration in the 1990s during the Clinton administration. "It was there for a long time because it was just such a jolt. And I think this will be that kind of jolt," Hakes said. Read more CNBC politics coverage Trump to address nation on Iran war Wednesday night, White House says Pete Hegseth lifts suspension of Kid Rock Army helicopter flyby crews after Trump comments Trump signs executive order limiting mail-in voting ahead of 2026 U.S. elections Gas prices on Tuesday rose above $4 a gallon on average for the first time since the war began. Gas has followed Brent crude prices that have risen 27% since the war began to just over $100 a barrel Wednesday. Oil tankers and other commercial shippers that would normally travel through the narrow Strait of Hormuz off Iran's southern coast have been idled due to Iran's threats and attacks. The w...
U.S. stock futures sank Wednesday night as President Donald Trump didn’t offer investors any new indications of de-escalation in the conflict with Iran, but again laid out a timetable of finishing the operation “very shortly.”
U.S. stock futures sank Wednesday night as President Donald Trump didn’t offer investors any new indications of de-escalation in the conflict with Iran, but again laid out a timetable of finishing the operation “very shortly.”
Liudmila Chernetska/iStock via Getty Images Retail sales soar in December and collapse in January and February every year to varying extents. Huge seasonal adjustment factors are used to reduce December sales and to increase January and February sales to roughly level them out. And that was on full display today in retail sales for February, reported by the Census Bureau today. Seasonally adjusted...
Liudmila Chernetska/iStock via Getty Images Retail sales soar in December and collapse in January and February every year to varying extents. Huge seasonal adjustment factors are used to reduce December sales and to increase January and February sales to roughly level them out. And that was on full display today in retail sales for February, reported by the Census Bureau today. Seasonally adjusted, retail sales in February jumped by 0.6% from January to a record $738 billion (red line in the chart). Not seasonally adjusted, retail sales plunged by 3.1% in February from January, to $653 billion, the lowest since, well, February last year (blue in the chart). But year-over-year, both metrics of retail sales rose by about the same solid rate: by 3.7% seasonally adjusted (SA) and by 3.6% not seasonally adjusted (NSA), a decent growth rate, not spectacular, outrunning by a pretty good margin the inflation rate of goods that retailers sell ( most inflation is in services that retailers don’t sell ). The seasonal adjustments attempt to account for seasonal variations, such as weather, pre-holiday gift-buying, post-holiday gift-returning, differences in the number of “trading days,” and other factors. The Census Bureau’s X-13 ARIMA-SEATS software program calculates these seasonal adjustment factors based on numerous historical data points. But over a 12-month period, seasonal adjustment factors sum up to zero, so an over-adjustment in some months leads by definition to under-adjustments in other months. So we’re looking at the longer trends. The biggest categories of retailers Ecommerce and other nonstore retailers (18% of total retail sales) continued to relentlessly gobble up market share, growing year-over-year at about twice the rate of overall retail sales. SA: +0.7% month-to-month, to $133 billion. NSA: -5.8% month-to-month, to $118 billion. Year-over-year: +7.5%. Auto & other motor vehicle dealers (16% of total retail sales): SA: +1.2% month-to-month, to $128 billion...
Activist Mayor Of Boise Forced To Take Down Pride Flag Flown For A Decade Conservative states across the US have taken action in recent months to begin the arduous process of removing the stain of the woke movement from America's streets and public buildings. For the last decade, the far-left ideological crusade has left its mark everywhere while using "marginalized" identity groups as a moral shi...
Activist Mayor Of Boise Forced To Take Down Pride Flag Flown For A Decade Conservative states across the US have taken action in recent months to begin the arduous process of removing the stain of the woke movement from America's streets and public buildings. For the last decade, the far-left ideological crusade has left its mark everywhere while using "marginalized" identity groups as a moral shield. Though they claim to be acting as a civil rights movement, the reality is that "Pride" and LGBT activist groups are entirely political. The pride flag is a political, ideological and some would argue religious symbol of cultural dominance planted across the country as a means to claim ownership. The State of Idaho is no longer tolerating this insurgency. On Tuesday, Mayor Lauren McLean was forced to remove the Progress Pride flag from display in Downtown Boise after Governor Brad Little signed HB 561. The bill, brought by Rep. Ted Hill, R-Eagle, limits local governments to flying only the American flag, state flags, official military flags, recognized tribal flags, and the official flag of an Idaho university or college. The response from Democrats has been dramatic, to say the least, with a somber proclamation of "Transgender Day" to mourn the loss of the pride flag. Idaho also recently passed one of the strictest laws in the nation against transgenders using incorrect bathrooms and public facilities. Initial laws passed by the state in 2025 required that only "official flags" be flown on public land and government buildings. However, McLean and city officials attempted to bypass the law by making the pride flag an "official" flag of Boise. Governor Little closed the loophole and instituted fines of $2000 per day for those cities that refuse to cooperate. Leftist officials held a bizarre ceremony for the removal of the pride flag, which once again shines a light on the cult-like nature of the woke movement. BREAKING: Boise mayor forced to take city hall's LGBTQ+ flag ...