Euro

Euro currency outlook – Euro and Europe up on China Reserve review denials

And we are off, should see a spike and a gap up on market open across indices, markets and oil. The China reserve review rumor yesterday had markets in turmoil on anticipated Euro weaknesses. The China denial today pushed Euro as high 1.2342 in Europe and has pushed all markets beyond the green line. Once…Read more

Trading crude oil volatility – Crude oil future spreads are at it again.

Nauman Khan, Mohammed Bux and Agnes, our three resident oil geniuses, pulled some interesting data and graphs today. The first shows the spread as a percentage of spot price (WTI) for NYMEX CL3, CL6, CL10 and CL12 crude oil future contracts. As we had mentioned earlier in the NYMEX contract specification post, CL3, CL6, CL10…Read more

Euro outlook summary – China review, Euro at 1.2170 in Tokyo, next stop 1.18

Most analysts are now talking about 1.18 as the next new low for Euro. There were rumors of Chinese officials reviewing their Euro-zone debt holdings, more concerns about Spain and Italy and the extent, depth and length of a slowdown in Europe on account of austerity measures. The fall in Euro last night in New…Read more

Crude Oil price outlook – Crude oil crosses $71.45 at 2pm Eastern time, NYMEX higher by 3.9%

Interesting whiplash action today compared to yesterday as crude rises by almost 4% despite an EIA reported rise in crude inventories and a drop in gasoline stocks, an improvement in durable goods orders and the first decline in 10 weeks at the inventory number in Cushing, OK where deliveries for the WTI crude oil contract…Read more

Calculating Value at Risk – Caveats, qualifications, issues

Qualifications to using and Limitations of the Value at Risk (VaR) Metric VaR is dependent on historical data and therefore may never fully capture severe shocks that exceed recent or historical norms. Also if the time period used in the calculation is a relatively stable one then the computed VaR will tend to understate the…Read more