REUTERS

Mysterious FX cycle may challenge yen bears in 2015

Dec 30 (Reuters) - Yen bears betting that the Japanese currency will keep declining for a few more years could be wrong-footed based on a mysterious 8-year pricing cycle that has proved accurate over the past four decades.

That cycle calls for a long-term high in the dollar against the yen in 2015. That would run counter to the view of many currency specialists who expect the dollar, which hit a 7-1/2 year high against the yen this month, to keep rising beyond 2015.

Since the introduction of a floating rate exchange system in 1973, the dollar has peaked against the yen every eight years with clockwork precision.

Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/12/29/markets-forex-yen-idUSL3N0UA1RY20141229

BLOOMBERG

Samaras Has Four Weeks to Trump Syriza on Greek Economy

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras failed to convince lawmakers to stay the economic course he's set. He now has less than four weeks to persuade Greece's voters to do the same.

Samaras is due to meet with President Karolos Papoulias in Athens today to request early elections on Jan. 25 having steered the country at the epicenter of Europe's debt crisis out of recession. That gives him a chance to reel in the opposition Syriza party's lead in the polls as it pushes to abandon the austerity measures tied to Greece's bailout that are credited in Berlin and Brussels for the nascent recovery.

Source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-12-29/samaras-has-four-weeks-to-trump-syriza-on-greek-economy.html

THE NEW ZEALAND HERALD

Rocky times ahead as crashing oil prices change geopolitical landscape

The oil price decline of 2014 upended the geopolitical chessboard. Worth watching in 2015 will be who can recover and dominate play - Opec, Vladimir Putin or US shale drillers.

Oil's international benchmark price dropped as much as 49 per cent this year. Those looking for a quick rebound may be disappointed, as world consumption growth slowed to the least since 2009, US companies pumped more than they have since the 1980s and a price war broke out among members of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

"It's a turning point in the way people perceive Opec, that this so-called cartel is not really driving prices," said Jeff Colgan, a professor at Brown University's Watson Institute for International Studies who researches the geopolitics of energy

Source: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/economy/news/article.cfm?c_id=34&objectid=11380065