Remember, the markets discount the putative future, and the world view of most is that everything on your side of the pond is more or less toast.
However, recently the issue has been repatriation of Euros due to liquidity issues (if you can believe the analysts), which is temporarily boosting the currencies in your proximity.
For the moment, the dollar is seen as safe haven -so it goes up whenever there's a scare (vs other currencies, not so much real things). It's been so ridiculous our bonds are going for stupid-low (negative real) interest rates, helped along of course by us monetizing our own debt via printing. I don't expect that to go on forever, though, as we are losing "petrodollar" status slowly but surely - some think the wars and saber rattling in the middle east are all about that more than anything else - could it be a coincidence that every country that mentions wanting to go off the dollar as the world's reserve currency sees bombs falling shortly thereafter?
At any rate, the way the system works worldwide, there is NO, and will never be, a safe, mid term (much less long term) one way bet. This is the old supply and demand thing along with price discovery. If everyone jumps on the same trade it must eventually fail, as all prospective buyers are "all in" and the first seller topples the house of cards. These days, the game goes only to the nimble. For example, I just closed a very green short trade on AAPL - just before earnings. Had I reversed course completely (gone long instead) yesterday, there'd have been another almost 10% in one day! You'd have to look at the charts I see all day every day, but things going "one way" more than a few days at a time aren't really common anymore.
http://www.zerohedge.com/search/apaches ... patriationI myself have been playing the swings on EUO, a synthetic instrument that tracks dollar/euro, but you're in and out again in a couple days tops.
What it comes down to is you have to disagree with the markets, and be right - to make much money. I just did shorting "the stock that only goes up and defines the entire consumer market".
Posted: Fri Mar 23, 2012 12:15 pm