A dismal week for the Dow Jones Industrial Average and broader risky assets should have sunk the risk-sensitive euro against the US dollar, but late-week news that the European Central Bank could start buying Italian and Spanish bonds left the EUR/USD roughly unchanged.

A cloud of uncertainty hangs over the financial markets after a tumultuous week of breakneck volatility was crowned by news that Standard and Poor's has lowered the United States' prized AAA sovereign credit rating.

British pound traders will certainly turn their attention to the Bank of England quarter inflation report on tap for the following week, and the central bank’s assessment of the economy should heavily influence the sterling as the MPC maintains a wait-and-see approach for monetary policy.

The past week was particularly rough for the Australian dollar, sliding across the board as the Reserve Bank of Australia downgraded its assessment of the global economy, leading to decreasing interest expectations, deflating the high yielding currency’s appeal to the broader market.

The latest news shows the US economy is practically dead in the water.

A quarter of the people asked by Gallup pollsters said they thought the economy really is in a depression.

Gold is fundamentally a bet against America. It's a bet that, over the long run, America's experiment with a pure paper money system will not work.

The fate of every country that has tried to run a pure paper money system, with currency not backed by gold, has been disaster.

The GDP numbers for the second quarter came in, and there is no way to spin them as anything but ugly.

So many traders get caught up on how much they are making per day instead of focusing on the risk they are taking.