An interesting and timely topic came up on the chat board earlier this week. I typically focus on sectors/asset classes and how the interplay of those markets affects my assessment of the risk environment. Outside of the weekly high yield report (which is kind of a different beast in and of itself), I don’t spend much time talking about dividend investing strategies. The following comment crystallized the need for the discussion.

Every once in a while, there’s something that happens in the financial markets that reminds us that things aren’t always on the up and up. I’m not talking about a retail trader complaining that a stock didn’t go up as much as they thought it would. I’m talking about genuine market manipulation that involves the look of one trader genuinely trying to screw another.

While most of the market’s attention right now belongs to soaring gold prices, the fall of the dollar is just as important as the recent rise in commodities. In the current age of confusing intermarket signals, the direction of the dollar could hold wide implications for a number of asset classes.