New Gold's Coup of the Decade

John Lounsbury submits:On Thursday November 18 Federal Reserve Governor Elizabeth A. Duke will predict that there will be four million addition foreclosure filings in 2011 and 2012, equally divided between the two years. This will be part of testimony before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Housing and Community Services in Washington. The complete transcript of the testimony can be read here.

Marc Chandler submits:The US dollar is broadly higher to start the last full week of the month. The pre-weekend short-covering of the euro has been reversed and with today’s more than 1.5% loss has retraced more than 50% of its gains scored in the second half of last week.News that Spain rescued a savings bank over the weekend contributed the undermining of sentiment. Sterling traded up to almost $1.4530 before being set back in the European morning. Support was found ahead of $1.4400.

Threats by Japan's Prime Minster Abe to changed the BOJ's charter faced broad criticism for threatening the independence of the central bank. Some officials reacted more strongly to this than to the bilateral exchange rate targets some officials were suggesting.

Trimming short-term interest rates further would be one tool the Federal Reserve could use to support the economy if threatened by a renewed downturn, said Federal Reserve Board Governor Elizabeth Duke on Monday. We still have tools.

Even if we have often reported the presence of the F-22 Raptors at Al Dhafra, satellite imagery showing five radar evading planes parked at the main airbase in the UAE has been made publicly available for the first time

Marc Chandler submits:Canadian dollar: The US dollar is recording an outside down day against the Canadian dollar. That is, it has traded on both sides of yesterday's range and the US dollar looks likely to finish the New York session below yesterday's low of ~CAD1.0420. The BOC hiked rates as was widely expected and traders searched high and low for all sorts of reasons for its weakness.

Ralph Shell submits: A lack of consumer confidence was credited as the catalyst for a stronger dollar today. In Germany, business sentiment fell for the first time in almost a year, as a Munich-based survey of 7,000 firms fell to 95.2 in February compared to 95.8 in January. Some attribute the modest decline to the severe winter that has caused the consumer to cut back. This modest decrease put a little upward pressure on the dollar.