Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve told the markets that the reason why they lowered interest rates by 50 basis points to 3 percent was because the labor market is weak.  However, the severity of the problems with job growth was not clear until the release of this morning's non-farm payrolls report.

The release of Australian trade and housing data may encourage the markets to ramp up speculation that the RBA will move to hike rates on February 4.

Lawrence G. McMillan reviews the options market in his weekly column for February 1.

The Federal Reserve lowered interest rates by 50bp on Wednesday and indicated that they will be cutting rates further in the months to come. How much and how quickly they reduce interest rates again will be dependent upon the level of job growth in the month of January.

Another possibility, now, for speculators is the obvious one. One of the surest bull markets on the planet is in gold. And as the dollar continues its decent toward its true value – and indeed the true value of all paper currencies – our Trade of this Decade is one thing that will always be worth having .

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.

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.

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?