Heading into Friday’s release, official and speculative forecasts have clearly taken diverging paths.

The market currently believes that 70,000 jobs were added to US payrolls in the month of January, but if payrolls match this forecast, how much will it really help the dollar?

The Federal Reserve’s rush to slash the federal funds rate along with rapidly deteriorating economic conditions in the US has sparked fears that global expansion is in for a major downturn.

It seems obvious to us that the U.S. middle class needs to reverse course. Stop spending so much, stop working so many hours, focus on quality of output and quality of life. In a word: downsize.

In a little more than one week, the US central bank has lowered interest rates by 125bp, turning the US dollar into a de facto carry trade funding currency.

Todd Gordon writes that the USD/JPY currency pair is nearing his sell zone.

The experts could not imagine that a day would come when we’d be worried about the whole dollar-based financial structure. But here we are, and gold is rising. And people are starting to wonder how high the price will go and where they can buy Krugerrands.

Since the emergency rate cut, traders have become far more realistic and stocks have stabilized. As a result, rate cut expectations have eased significantly.

The gloomy US economic picture may only get worse on Wednesday morning, just ahead of the Federal Reserve’s highly anticipated rate decision.

Futures are pricing in an 86 percent chance of a 50 basis point cut to 3.00 percent on Wednesday, but what if traders are wrong?