December 28, 2019 - Financial Occultist

USD/JPY was entirely unchanged

USD/JPY closed last week at 109.44 and closed today at 109.44. The week before was essentially flat as well.

However elsewhere there were some decent-sized moves in a week that’s normally a dud but has included some big moves for the second year in a row.

On Friday it was the euro that led the way, stealing the top spot from the pound with a late-day rally. The US dollar was the laggard.

S&P 500 edges higher by the slimmest of margins but gains for the week were solid

28-Dec-19 09:46 am

Anirudh Sethi

Closing changes

The S&P 500 was up 0.07 points to 3239.98 on the day. The Nasdaq was down 0.17% and the DJIA up 0.08%. The decline in the Nasdaq snapped an 11-day winning streak.

The larger action was outside of equities with some substantial moves throughout FX and a decent rally in fixed income.

On the week:

S&P 500 +0.58%
DJIA +0.67%
Nasdaq +0.92%

A look at some of the worst market calls of 2019

28-Dec-19 09:44 am

Analysis

Anirudh Sethi

We all had a few, here are some big ones

The FT takes a look at a few big global trade ideas that were popular at the start of 2019 and turned out to be far off the mark. One that isn’t on the list is cash. I can’t count how many analysts were saying to be in cash for early 2019 and had anyone followed that advice, they would have missed out on rallies in bonds and stocks.

At the start of this year, one of the most popular calls in currency markets was for the Norwegian currency to climb. The country’s central bank was set for multiple rate rises, the economy was performing well and the krone was cheap. Bank of America Merrill Lynch analysts predicted that it would appreciate more than 7 per cent by December 2019.

That one didn’t turn out so well with NOK falling to a record low against the euro.

Here is the full list.