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Wishing all my chinese friends, colleagues, partners, god-pa & acquaintances a Happy & Prosperous Lunar New Year!!!
Gold prices posted the biggest weekly gain in 18 months as turmoil in European currency markets spurred demand for the metal as a haven.
Aggregate open interest in gold futures on Jan. 15 surged 5.6 percent, the most since October 2009, following the Swiss central bank’s surprise move to abandon the franc’s cap against the euro. Assets in the biggest exchange-traded product backed by the metal rose the most since August 2011.
Gold climbed to a four-month high on Friday, while call options for the right to own February futures at $1,300 an ounce soared sevenfold in two days. Signs of cooling expansion in Europe boosted speculation that policy makers will add to stimulus, increasing demand for a store of value. Muted inflation and stagnant foreign economies may prompt the Federal Reserve to delay an increases in interest rates.
Citigroup Inc. (C), the world’s biggest currencies dealer, lost more than $150 million after the Swiss central bank’s surprise decision to let the franc trade freely against the euro, according to a person briefed on the matter.
The losses occurred on the New York-based bank’s trading desks and aren’t tied to its relationships with FXCM Inc. and other retail trading platforms, said the person, who asked for anonymity because the information hasn’t been disclosed publicly. Citigroup’s head of European investor sales, foreign exchange and local markets, Alex Jackson, left the firm this week, another person said earlier today.
Deutsche Bank AG and Barclays Plc (BARC) also incurred losses after the Swiss National Bank scrapped its three-year-old policy of capping its currency against the euro. The franc soared as much as 41 percent versus the euro, while climbing more than 15 percent against all of the more than 150 currencies tracked by Bloomberg. Deutsche Bank lost $150 million and Barclays less than $100 million, people familiar with the matter said.
For Citigroup, a loss of $150 million equates to about 7.5 percent of the $1.99 billion the bank generated from fixed-income markets in the fourth quarter. Financial results at firms across Wall Street this week disappointed investors as earnings from that business fell short of analysts’ estimates.
Citigroup rose 0.8 percent today to close at $47.61 in New York. The shares have tumbled 12 percent this month, compared with the 5 percent drop for the Standard & Poor’s 500 Financials Index.
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The yen approached a seven-year low versus the dollar before Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda speaks today, as policy diverges from the Federal Reserve.
The euro maintained gains from yesterday versus its major peers after European Central Bank Governing Council member Jens Weidmann said expanding bond purchases to government debt would face “legal hurdles.” New Zealand’s dollar held its first decline in three days before a quarterly Reserve Bank survey of inflation expectations. The BOJ today releases minutes of its Oct. 31 meeting, when it surprised markets by expanding stimulus two days after the Fed ended its bond-buying program.
The yen slipped 0.1 percent to 118.43 per dollar at 8:47 a.m. in Tokyo from yesterday, when it fell 0.4 percent. It reached 118.98 on Nov. 20, the weakest since August 2007. The yen was little changed at 147.26 per euro, after yesterday’s 0.8 percent slide. The euro traded at $1.2434 from $1.2442.
The BOJ last month lifted the annual target for enlarging the monetary base to 80 trillion yen ($675 billion), from 60 trillion yen to 70 trillion yen. The policy board voted to retain the plan at the end of a two-day meeting on Nov. 19. Kuroda is scheduled to speak at 10 a.m. in Nagoya today.
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