FXIS Market Insights

Noteworthy... 
• US Dollar traded near a 15-year low versus the Yen, reaching a low of 85.00 on Friday (Reuters)
• US 2-year Treasury yields fall below 0.5% for the first time on record (Bloomberg)
• US jobs declined by 131,000 in July, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.5 (BLS)
• Berkshire Hathaway's profit fell 40% on derivatives losses (FT)
• Industrial producer prices up by 0.3% in Euro area (Eurostat)
• 10-year government bond yields in Japan fell below 1% for the first time in seven years (FT)
• The European Central Bank held interest rates at 1% as expected (Reuters)
• Australia posted a trade surplus of A$3.54 billion in June (Australian Bureau of Statistics)
• Average rates for fixed 30-year mortgages fall to 4.49% in the US, lowest level on record (AP)
• US personal income in June 2010 increased less than 0.1% from May 2010.  (ESA)
• Australia's central bank kept interest rates steady at 4.5% (WSJ)

Weekly Market Barometers

Chart Of The Week
Employment numbers in the US have been disappointing with payroll jobs declining worse than expected.  As the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports:

Total nonfarm payroll employment declined by 131,000 in July, and the unemployment rate was unchanged at 9.5 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Federal government employment fell, as 143,000 temporary workers hired for the decennial census completed their work. Private-sector payroll employment edged up by 71,000.

Slightly more concerning is the persistently high number of  long-term unemployed - those who have been jobless for more than 6 months).  That number remains at 6.6 million and is now an alarming 44.9%  of all unemployed persons.  The only slightly encouraging sign is that the overall hiring picture, subtracting the numbers of ex-Census hiring, has been improving slightly.

Source: www.calculatedriskblog.com

Good luck and good investing!

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