The Weak Dollar policy has obvious negative aspects. As the $USD falls, which supports US exporters, inbound tourism and business travel, domestic real estate sales and sales of US Treasury debt, and so forth, the flip side of the coin is that the prices of all imported commodities and manufactured goods rise.

Price inflation is now the issue. As higher costs spread through the economy, there is only so much income, savings and borrowing capacity to pay. Americans, due to the layoffs in the high skilled jobs, and in financial losses taken in real estate and SIVs, have now reached the point where, in the aggregate, they are tapped out, the result of which is that the economy is quickly slowing.

The current economic situation is called Stagflation, last seen in the 1970's. Stagflation is a killer of stock and bond markets. Prices fall, volume of trading is low.

Good traders will manage to get through this period, as they did in the 1970's.

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ADDENDUM

I don't know why there was a bug in the code of this morning's report. I'll get it fixed.

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Links & Charts

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International Economics Review

US Economic Calendar.

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International Equity Markets Review

Europe

Here is the latest session data for the bourses of Europe.

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Here is the latest session data for the London stock exchange FTSE.

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Here is the latest session data for the German DAX.

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Here is the latest session data for the French CAC 40.

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Here is the latest session data for the Milan Italy stock exchange MIBTEL.

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Here is the latest session data for the Swiss market index.

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Asia-Pacific

Here is the latest session data for the Asia-Pacific stock exchanges.

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Here is the latest chart for the Japanese Nikkei 225 index.

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Here is the latest chart for the Singapore index .

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Here is the latest chart for the Shanghai Composite index .

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Here is the latest chart for the Hong Kong Hang Seng index .

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Here is the latest chart for the India BSE 30 index .

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Here is the latest chart for the Australian All Ordinaries index .

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US Equity Markets Review

DJIA (interactive) chart

NASDAQ Composite (interactive) chart

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Oil Review

Here is the e-miNY Jan-08 Crude Oil chart.

Interactive Chart of Daily Crude Oil:

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Gold & Precious Metals Review

Spot gold chart for the week

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Spot silver chart for the week

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Forex Review

Here is the chart of the week's trading in the $USD.

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