In five minutes we get GDP revisions.  Here is what Brown Brothers Harriman’s currency team says is happening in markets ahead of that data.  Basically, it is a resumption of the weak dollar trade with gold, oil and foreign currencies all benefitting. Let’s see how the GDP revisions change that calculus.
The US dollar is weaker [...]

You have probably seen stocks down today.  The dow is off nearly 200 points and the Nasda is down 50.  But, everything American is getting whacked today. The U.S. dollar, stocks, and bonds.  Look at the chart on Treasurys here – especially the long end.

Something is happening in terms of how investors see the risk [...]

Not to go all bearish on you here, but I do think it is significant that a number of market pros are coming out of hiding and predicting some major turmoil.  The latest in this group is Jim Rogers.  He thinks we are about to have a serious currency crisis, with the U.S. dollar tanking [...]

While the Chinese were adding to their gold stock over the last several years, Europeans were selling – with disastrous results.  Back in 1999, Gold prices were depressed after an almost two-decade bear market.  For some strange reason the Bank of England decided this would be a good time to start to sell its gold.  [...]

This comes via Bloomberg:
Global central banks risk inflation, currency devaluation and a “big consolidation” in bond markets by pumping cash into their economies, the People’s Bank of China said in its quarterly monetary policy report.
The Federal Reserve and the Bank of England this year started quantitative easing, or printing money to buy government bonds, a [...]

I wrote a note regarding the Q1 2009 GDP report which mentioned that the price deflator showed a large pick up in actual inflation. While I don’t think we are off to the races immediately, I do see inflation as a medium-term threat and this was a reminder.

The guys over at Brown Brothers Harriman take a different tack. So, in the interest of giving you a different view, I am posting what they had to say. I will bold the parts that I believe are most important to their argument. While I would point out that the Price deflators have accelerated, it is hard to debate the logic in much of what they say regardless of your medium-term concerns about inflation.

The following is a worthy analysis from Marc Chandler of Brown Brothers Harriman regarding the recent GDP numbers released in the U.S. and their significance for currencies (emphasis mine):
The initial reading of the US Q1 GDP was worse than expected, though the dramatic fall in inventories and the tax cuts that went into effect April [...]

The following is the currency outlook released today by the Brown Brothers Harriman Currency Strategy team:
Swine flu and concerns about US banks may be hitting the headlines but, the European banking sector remains a threat for the euro zone. Indeed, ECB President Trichet, speaking in NY yesterday, highlighted the fact that the European banking sector [...]

After a good run-up in the last month, the Mexican Peso is getting crushed in the currency markets today.  How much of the pullback is a result of the news regarding Swine Flu and how much is technical, due to the prior run up, is hard to identify.  Nevertheless, the outbreak will have a negative [...]

Marshall Auerback here. Yesterday, Ed made a big to-do about China’s increase in gold reserves. I am going to take a different view here.

CLSA is saying that the increase is from purification and miscellaneous transactions since all the way back to 2003 so that it was not a recent open market purchases but accumulation of 6 years of this process. If this is the situation, then this news really is not as significant as people think.