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Daily Archives: 29 July, 2012, 07:54, CEST+1

From Natural Resources to Currency Wars

Must watch weekend video with Laureen Lyster.

On Draghi, Weill and the always interesting Rickards.

Video below.

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At least three banks seen central to Libor rigging

With Draghi managing taking the focus away from the great LIBOR scandal, we shouldn’t forget about the LIBOR situation. As we all know, there can’t be only one bank involved in the scandal. Reuters brings some more clarity on the subject.

New details from court documents and sources close to the Libor scandal investigation suggest that groups of traders working at three major European banks were heavily involved in rigging global benchmark interest rates.

Some of those traders, including one who used to work at Barclays Plc in New York, still have senior positions on Wall Street trading desks.

Until now, most of the attention has involved traders at Barclays, which last month reached a $453 million settlement with U.S. and UK authorities for its role in the manipulation of rates. Now, it is becoming clear that traders from at least two other banks – UK-based Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc and Switzerland’s UBS AG – played a central role.

Among them, the three banks employed more than a dozen traders who sought to influence rates in either dollar, euro or yen rates. Some of the traders who are being probed have worked for several banks under scrutiny, raising the possibility that the rate fixing became more ingrained as traders changed jobs. (Full article here).

Will Bernanke Match Draghi Firepower?

Last week was all about the mighty Draghi and his determination to do “whatever it takes”.

What about Ben and the Fed? Weekend video worth watching on what the Fed should be doing.

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Currency Positioning and Technical Outlook

Guest post by Marc Chandler of marctomarket.

Last week was of two halves.  In the first part, the dollar remained strong as the European crisis dominated other considerations.  In the second part, the dollar had its recent gains pared as the seemingly bipolar market shifted its focus to the increased risk of a policy response.  In addition, evidence continued to mount that the world’s largest economy is off to a sluggish start of Q3.
Next week is jammed with key events, back loaded, if you will.  The keys will be the FOMC meeting that concludes on Wednesday and the ECB meeting on Thursday.  In addition, the US reports the market sensitive employment data on Friday.  The poor clue from the ADP estimate last month will make short-term participants less likely to give it much weight and, hence, it is unlikely to steal the thunder of the government’s report.
The Bank of England meets but as it is currently engaged in QE and the “Financing for Lending Scheme”, this will likely be a non-event. And unlike other central banks, when the Monetary Policy Committee doesn’t do anything, it doesn’t say anything.  The monthly purchasing managers surveys will also be released but are unlikely to provide much fresh insight or challenge current views.

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