Slappy, John, Ivanovich, David R.,

Where should I start?

The Terrible News About the USD

Unemployment is higher?-- Exactly how much higher would be a concern to you? Is a total of 22k extra unemployed in a counrty where we have 300 million people enough reason to devalue the dollar even a small percentage?

New home sales were disappointing?-- We actually saw an increase of, I believe, 12k homes over the previous month- is that disappointing? True, these figures are below the historical average but they are showing signs of stablizing which is better than making or beating "the forecast."

In my experience, the GDP numbers are more important than these two releases combined and I believe you know that the relatively hot 4.9% is actually darn good during a time when the rest of the world is downwardly revising their estimates.

Further, what good news about the EZ are you talking about? Were you talking about the wonderful-supertastic French consumer confidence or the out-of-this-world German investor confidence combined with the increased inflationary pressure indexes?

The Title of a Great Movie

As I said earlier, the EU has the perfect storm on its way. The ECB has no idea what to do because they have never seen such a scenario before in their short exsistence. Do they sit back and watch the Fed, the bank of Canada, bank of England etc etc cut rates while they increase theirs? Have you noticed the interest rate in America is still higher than that of the EU? Have you noticed how the whole "ECB will raise rates soon" sentiment has disappeared? That's because now they are realizing that storm surge is washing ashore and they have a crisis to advert. They now realize that the overly strong euro which they were so proud of is actually a double edged sword. They forgot that with a strong currency comes responsibility. (The US makes handling a strong currency look so deliciously easy. They must say, "If the US can do it, so can we!" How very wrong. There is an old proverb, presumptuousness is before pride...) Sure, the US was the first to get hit with this whole credit-crunch-subprime-fiasco while the EU was sitting back laughing out loud high and dry until... Well let's just say the strong euro is negativly impacting export growth from the EU. How long do you think that can last?

And what ever happened to the whole "China dumping USD/OPEC ordering euros in place of dollars" thing that was set to send the dollar in triple digit losses and make the whole world reject the dollar? Hell, even Gisele Bundchen doesn't want the dollar any more! (that was a leading indicator to sell the dollar but I must have missed it) Now that deserves a laugh out loud!

Weathering the Storm

The US economy weathered the whole tech bubble-9/11 mess without a hitch and people think this subprime mess (majority illegal immigrants) worth a few hundred billion is going to tank the US economy without impacting the rest of the world? Please! If any country/economy knows how to weather an economic storm, its America.

You may think I am some old, retired, Einstein-looking nut just slightly off his Texas rocker proclaiming his opinion, but rest assured, I have enough experience to know...

Down in by the boarder we say, "a rattlesnake that doesn't rattle isn't worth eating."

Something I would like to highlight especially to slappy- you say you sometimes trade based on fundamentals? If you did you would have a different stance and so would everyone else. This whole wild FX thing is based 90% on technicals which have been identified by 5% fundamentals, which they themselves have been exaggerated 23% by the remaining 5% bull.

Have you seen the riots in Paris? On KWTX 10, an analysts noted that globalization is leading to major problems for many countries but the least affected is America because generally 'the immigrants who come to America are proud to be American, whereas the immigrants who are flooding the Canary Islands, France, Germany, England are just there for the free ride.' Like it or not, but this kind of news plays a larger impact on the economy than you may think.

And contrary to what some say, the Fed IS CONCERNED with inflation; they are only allowing the only self-healing economy in the world to repair itself with time.

In any event, let's just all make some money- buy sell do whatever it takes. Even watching retail go long EURUSD is a turning point you must consider. Just remember when the EURUSD falls back to 1.15ish, you know old retired said it.