Jack the Pipper

A second look at third-quarter GDP today showed the countries that collectively make up the Eurozone escaped that dastardly negative growth thing. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say they collectively escaped recession. Yeah?

Gold may be telling us a story. That story likely goes far beyond the run of the mill US dollar weakness we hear daily; otherwise the US dollar based on pure correlation would be well into all-time new low territory and free fall (not to suggest it can’t get there still).

Thank goodness the Dubai default fiasco is finally behind us. A couple days of global market chaos is enough. Now we can go back to our normal routines – buying dips and selling dollars.

Gosh, it was looking so good. All those buildings, fancy shaped islands, money, and oil wealth. Who would’ve thunk it? Well, not the credit analysts, we know that now.

Say what? Is that a misprint? Is it parallel universe time? Mr. Einstein, please call your office!

Perhaps you saw this morning’s release of Euroland’s economic data.German GDP jumped by 0.7% in the third quarter. Adding to GDP was an inventory build and capital investment; subtracting from GDP was consumption and trade.

John Ross wrote in a recent Currency Currents he didn’t want to rip-off the Milk Board advertising campaign by asking if you’ve “Got Gold.” But it appears more and more have “Got Gold.” Yet another new high was chalked up this morning in white-hot yellow metal. This comes at a very bad time for me and may reflect a lot deeper systemic concerns than we now realize.

I noticed a Reuter’s poll today. All the top banks were asked to provide their guess on just how undervalued the Chinese currency–yuan- was against the US dollar. The average guesstimate was about 20%.

For the past year – since November 4, 2008, actually – I’ve thought about walking around wearing a T-shirt that reads

We are taking a little break today. In place of my usual ramblings, below is an excellent article by Chris Fournier and Yasuhiko Seki of Bloomberg laying out the case for a weak yen based on the very ugly set of economic fundamentals and debt picture facing Japan.