the candles splutter as the franc freefalls

...not a great week for the candles, however the lion's share of the blame must be placed on my broad shoulders.
I mentioned last week that there was a lot of 'me' in the usd/chf forecast and the market rapped my knuckles as the dollar lost ground in the safe-haven stakes to the tune of 424 pips over the week. that's a forecast rating of -3.6%
gbp/usd fared a little better (if not much) as the dollar weakened acoss the board. sterling saw a 205 pip gain against the greenback (forecast rating: -1.37%). however, sterling's failure to break resistance at 1.50 in a week of particular dollar weakness must point to a weaker pound in the coming weeks.
usd/jpy moved in our direction with the dollar hitting 13-yaer lows against the yen on Friday. I expressed concern over possible Bank of Japan intervention which were not calmed when BoJ governor Masaaki Shirakawa said on Wednesday that he was watching the forex market carefully. By Friday the bank was playing down such speculation when Japanese finance minister, Shoichi Nakagawa said that the country wasn't considering intervention. usd/jpy fell 176 pips, that's +1.93%

This leaves our running total further diminished (but still in positive territory!) at +1.97%