Normally I try to keep my posts about trading pretty straight-forward and fact-based. There are facts that support what I'm going to say, but I'm going to be lazy and just write this as a passing thought, nothing more. I don't feel like looking for the sources right now and it's just not that important.

A while back the Fed announced, essentially, they were going to print some money because there was a lack of sufficient inflation at the time to allow the economy to grow at the pace at which it should (in their estimates) be growing. The simple way of explaining the effect that should have resulted is this: More money makes money worth less. Lower value of the dollar makes oil and stock prices go up. Stocks rally. Woooh! Well, when the news came out, the market seemed a little cautious, but we saw predictable results. The dollar traded a little lower, oil traded a little higher. Even the Euro made a small move up.

A few days later (although it felt sooner) Europe released news of more economic woes that sent Euro holders in a selling frenzy. They sold their Euros like crazy and there are two things that they seem to be willing to buy first with those Euros: Dollars or Gold. You'll see the effects on some other currencies and on Silver as well. There is also an effect on the bond market. What happened was that the Euro plunged, flooding the dollar market with buyers and raises the value of the dollar (and gold, which was already increasing in value with the printing of more dollars). This killed oil prices (which was arguably nice for my commute) and created a dip in a stock market that had recently made a small move back upward.

Now things appear to be more in line with what would have been predicted, but there was a definite little hiccup. I don't really have any point it here. It was just funny because it seemed like even when we were going to give the Euro some growing room, the Euro said, "Hell no. You think you're going to make me stronger? Take that, dollar!"

I happened to check the dates. Curiosity got the better of me. From 11/23 - 11/29 the Euro fell after whatever that specific news was. The week before that, you can look at charts of the dollars value or just the major markets and see that there was a slight upswing (which coincided with the Fed's announcement) and then 11/23 send it back in the other direction.

Just thought it was amusing.

11/23 - 11/30