Last week gold and silver changed direction from a downward trend to a sudden steep increase on Thursday and Friday. Could this mean there is some fundamental shift in the bullion market that warrants such a shift?

The US Dollar (ticker: USDOLLAR) remains poised to trade to fresh highs against the Euro, Australian Dollar, British Pound, and other major counterparts as forex options market volatility expectations surge.

Crude oil and gold have scope to recover, the former tracking recovering risk appetite and the latter capitalizing on waning haven demand for the US Dollar.

First we have seen the critical breaks towards risk aversion. Then we saw the emergence of momentum behind the deleveraging. Will we graduate to the next phase: panic?

The Japanese Yen fell amid waning haven demand after Chinese Premier Wen Jiaobao hinted Beijing may introduce new stimulus measures, boosting risk appetite.

Although we have seen a bit of a bounce in risk correlated markets, there is still no fundamental catalyst to speak of that would encourage such a bounce….

First we have seen the critical breaks towards risk aversion. Then we saw the emergence of momentum behind the deleveraging. Will we graduate to the next phase: panic?

There are many comparisons being made to current Euro-region market conditions and those back in the second quarter of 2010 when trouble just started brewing for Greece.

Though the benchmark currency eased back into the final 48 hours of this past trading week, the dollar nevertheless posted another impressive run through the entire period.