Ironically It May Be Mother Nature That We Need To Watch More Than Any Other Major Report.

This has been a relatively quiet week as far as the major economic reports affecting currency pairs in the Forex market goes, but on the other hand there was plenty of other financial news throughout the week that could have a huge impact on many of the world’s economies. In the United States, the other economic stories in the news may have been as of much, or even more, interest than the released reports. The housing market started with a major setback as foreclosure rates jumped to their highest in 5 years. Reports from the government had the SEC accusing Goldman Sachs bank of civil fraud, while a Senate panel released a reports saying lax regulators basically allowed Washington Mutual Bank to doom itself. One bank that actually had good news was Bank of America, which earned nearly $3 billion in the first quarter.

The other major news report in the US showed a split where 33 states gained jobs, but 17 states lost jobs. However nature seems to be affecting the world business climate in ways no one anticipated. China’s massive earthquake has claimed over 1,000 lives and decimated the area’s infrastructure, making even relief efforts difficult early on and having a major impact on every part of life in the region. Iceland is also back in the news negatively affecting other economies, but not in the way expected. The massive volcano’s eruption in Iceland has completely shut down air travel in multiple countries in Europe, and as the ash continues to travel and the volcano erupts, there are major worries that many economies are going to get hammered extended downtimes - especially businesses requiring air freight, and the airlines themselves.

What happens there, and seeing if the volcano either quietly calms down or decides to erupt large one more time can end up having a huge impact on the Euro and domino effect to the rest of the world’s economies. That’s definitely a bit of Mother Nature to be keeping an eye on.

So with everything crazy going on in the news, it might be a bit of a surprise to find out that this week is relatively quick and quiet when it comes to the major economic reports. So without any further ado, and with one cautious eye on Iceland’s volcanoes, here is this week’s installment of the week in review.

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