CME Group Inc. is promoting the soundness of futures markets to build on growth in contracts linked to the Brazilian and Russian currencies, according to a senior executive with the exchange company. Get the full story »
Inside these posts: Currency
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Illinois looks for savings in currency trades
William Atwood, head of the $11.2 billion Illinois investment board, has taken a crash course in discovering his portfolio’s currency-trading costs — and he doesn’t like what he sees.
A consultant said his fund paid $2 million more than the average of other institutional investors on currency transactions during most of last year. When Atwood tried to figure out the costs on his own, he received a two-foot-high stack of trading documents he didn’t know how to interpret. Get the full story »
Google working on mobile payment technology
Google is joining Citigroup and Mastercard to set up a mobile payment system that will turn Android phones into a kind of electronic wallet, the Wall Street Journal said, citing people familiar with the matter.
Yen surges to record high; intervention risk looms
The yen soared to a record high against the dollar on Wednesday as concerns escalated over a nuclear crisis in Japan, and investors nervously watched to see if Japanese authorities will step in to stem the currency’s rise. Get the full story »
Cotton prices drive up cost of dollar bills
A Bureau of Printing and Engraving employee holds sheets of one dollar bills prior to cutting. (AP/Hillery Smith Garrison)
Sure, packs of T-shirts and socks are getting expensive because of skyrocketing cotton prices. Guess what else is made of cotton? The dollar bill in your wallet. In 2010, the cost of making one note jumped 50 percent from what it cost the government in 2008. Get the full story »
Dollar rebound takes steam out of rally
A rebounding dollar Thursday was a speed bump for a commodities rally that earlier sent copper to a record high and lifted some agricultural and energy prices to their highest since the 2008 financial crisis, keeping inflation fears on the front burner. Get the full story »
Estonia: McDonald’s prices hiked in currency change
Estonia’s Consumer Protection Board said U.S. fastfood franchise McDonald’s Corp. may have used the Estonian changeover from kroon to euro as a cover to raise prices, according to a report from the BNS news agency Monday. Get the full story »
Senators threaten currency bill ahead of Hu visit
A group of U.S. senators, on the eve of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s arrival in the United States, said the time has come for U.S. congressional action on China’s currency policies.
Democratic Senator Charles Schumer said Beijing’s currency practices give Chinese companies an unfair trade advantage and have acted like “a boot on the throat” of U.S. economic recovery. Get the full story »
November trade deficit dips to $38.3 billion
The U.S. trade deficit narrowed unexpectedly in November as exports climbed to the highest level in more than two years, government data showed on Thursday.
The trade gap dipped to $38.3 billion from $38.4 billion in October, the Commerce Department reported. Analysts surveyed before the report had expected the November trade deficit to widen slightly to $40.5 billion from October’s originally reported $38.7 billion. Get the full story »
Geithner says China needs faster yuan rise
China’s yuan currency remains “substantially undervalued” and it is in Beijing’s own interest to let it appreciate more rapidly to ward off inflation risks, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said on Wednesday. Get the full story »
Flawed $100 bill causes billion-dollar headache
(Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
More than 1.1 billion new $100 bills have been put into quarantine while officials search for a solution to a printing problem that has rendered some of the bills unusable, an official familiar with the situation said Monday.
Originally scheduled for a February 2011 release date, the bills were the first run of a high-tech note designed to combat counterfeiting by including a 3-D security ribbon.
The Federal Reserve first acknowledged an issue with the bills in October, but did not specify the scope of the problem. Get the full story »
OECD sees global recovery slowing as U.S. lags
The global economic recovery is losing steam in the face of a slowing U.S. rebound and tensions over currencies, and a debt crisis in Europe could trigger more weakness next year, the OECD said on Thursday. Get the full story »
Evans, other Fed officials react to bonds criticism
Federal Reserve officials, taken aback by stinging criticism of their decision to print money and buy $600 billion in Treasury bonds, are counterpunching to defend themselves and, in some cases, to reinforce their commitment to the policy.
Charles Evans, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and a strong supporter of the Fed’s easing policy, noted in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that the weak economy and low inflation warrants the Fed’s policy and that more such purchases might be needed in the months ahead if the economic outlook doesn’t turn.
“I would continue to want to apply accommodative monetary policy until I had some confidence that that situation was changing,” Evans said, noting that $600 billion is a “good place to start” the easing program. Get the full story »
CME picks exec to run global currency trading unit
CME Group Inc. has hired foreign exchange market veteran Roger Rutherford to head its global currency trading unit from London, according to a person familiar with the situation. Get the full story »
