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Graphing the %change of the Dow Jones and the US Dollar

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ThreeTrees Posted: Mon, Mar 14 2011 1:46 AM

 

I decided to do some hella basic spreadsheeting to try and illustrate for myself some of the current monetary phenomena, the above is what I came up with.  It is a plot of the rates of change over time of the Canadian Dollar and the Australian Dollar against the US Dollar and the Dow Jones priced in USD. I have not manipulated or "lagged" the timelines in any way, aside from calculating the period-to-period percent change this is raw price data.  The Canadian Dollar dataset my source had was severely truncated for some reason but meh.

I chose the two currencies as my benchmark for the value of the US dollar simply because they are extraction economies who's currencies are in demand because they supply the current "growth" paradigm where eager consumers from developing economies will be the saviour of falling aggregate demand, ie: decoupling 2.0.  Perhaps I'll update the chart later with gold (I imagine it'll show a similar tendency as the currencies) but for now the two currencies benefit from being less actively depreciated by their controlling governments while still being treated as capital rather than an investment as gold currently is.  The CAD and AUD are just the best looking of a generally ugly bunch.

That said, against a backdrop of Austrian monetary theory I find the increasingly tight correlation between the currencies and the Dow Jones as we approach the present to be absolutely fascinating.  Just thought I'd share

"...I feel, for instance, that I have the right to do anything I please. But, if I do something you don't like, I think you have the right to kill me." -George Carlin
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5 Stars.  I watch the Dow regularly.

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Clayton replied on Mon, Mar 14 2011 2:20 AM

Please provide a legend. But yes, I've spent some time shaking the myth of "ever-rising stock prices" as somehow a natural consequence of progress. This is pure silliness. There is no reason in the world why the price of stocks should generally rise over time except that money is becoming less valuable. Any other explanation is pure bullshit and the person making it should be closely examined for ties to the Fed.

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My apologies on the chart sizing.  Looks like this forum doesn't allow content to resize the tables.  Kinda fixed it, but a bit of the legend is still cut off.  Right click and open in a new window if you need to.

"...I feel, for instance, that I have the right to do anything I please. But, if I do something you don't like, I think you have the right to kill me." -George Carlin
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