The one thing that is turning the world upside down

What happened in the span of three weeks that enabled the market to lose its confidence in a global recovery? For some months there, things were going well – numbers out of the US and Europe were promising, they did not give a clear cut date for when things will be back to normal, but they did leave many with a glimmer of hope that it will be soon.

I know I have been mocking all of those optimists in the past, and I am – but really? What is the turning point on the market sentiment, that has caused things to go south in Forex land?

It is not the Jobs numbers out of Europe and the US, if it were, then there would have been no hope in May or April either as jobs still fell hard – just not as hard as in June. It could not be the constant ramblings out of the BRIC’s about a new reserve currency for global consumption - this story has been playing out for six months and has been etched on every Forex online trader’s mind ever since – simply, it has been traded out already.

It cannot be the yapping from ECB president Trichet about how things are getting better later than expected – he did this twice and people expect it already from him.

So what can it be? The easiest answer is buried thousands of feet below us – the black gold, oil. I read an article on Sunday in the New York Times that spoke of how the ups and downs in the price of oil has really hurt the financial sector and its ability to stabilize.
As oil prices fluctuate up and down, losing more than 2/3rds of its highest value and then doubling from there and then dropping off 10% in a week, we see the lack of a pattern and hence - the problem.

Most thriving economies rely on energy to move, when the price of the primary energy source is uncertain from day-day, it makes planning for the future quite difficult. Forex traders and those in the Online Forex arena are not too familiar with this level of volatility.

While currency prices do fluctuate up and down, there are never these massive swings – but lately things have been changing, and I am not so sure this is a good thing for the overall Forex market.

One of the things that made the Forex great was the relative stability, and now it seems as if this era is over. Perhaps China, Brazil, India and Russia can make black gold their new reserve, perhaps this will help stabilize the price.

The idea that something like grease can affect change all over the world is humorous – I just don’t know if I should laugh or cry about it.