Weekly review: markets are like casinos this week

It seems that market participants switch off their brain when it comes to raising interest rates by the Fed. The recently released U.S. economic showed almost no signs of sufficient recovery of the U.S. economy. A slight rise in U.S. core consumer price inflation was enough to support the U.S. dollar, although this week released U.S. economic data was mixed. It is possible that the movement was driven by profit-taking before the long weekend.

I think that markets will remain vulnerable until the Fed really starts to hike its interest rates. But it could be a long way to this step.

The most awkward event occurred on Monday as European Central Bank (ECB) Executive Board Member Benoit Coeure informed only a selected number of persons about further steps of the ECB. These persons made use of this information and made profits. Coeure said that the ECB plans to expand its asset purchases in May and June due to low market liquidity in July and August.

Someone should say that there is no market manipulation.

Five banks (Barclays, UBS, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan Chase и Royal Bank of Scotland) agreed on Wednesday to plead guilty to market manipulation. Barclays, Citigroup, J.P. Morgan and the Royal Bank of Scotland admitted to illegally distorting foreign exchange prices of U.S. dollars and euros from December 2007 to January 2013. UBS AG pleaded guilty to manipulating the London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor).