ForexLive's  Instablog

Cisco shares are up 11.6% today after quarterly earnings.

CEO John Chambers has been there since 1995 -- in tech industry terms that's like leading a company for a century. In that time he has navigated CSCO through some incredibly difficult environments and made it into one of the biggest companies in the world.

But solid leadership and blockbuster quarterly results aren't why he's my favorite CEO -- it's because his company has a great view of the global economy and he isn't afraid to share it. He also has a track record for honesty on the economy, rather than talking his book.

Here is what Chambers said after earnings:

• "I like the trends in the United States" and he expects a "continued slow, steady recovery"
• "Barring a surprise, the U.S. economy is going to continue to recover at this pace"
• Demand was weak in southern Europe and China
• Business in Northern Europe is starting to "bottom out"
• China should remain sluggish for several more quarters
• Q3 orders from the Americas grew 7% y/y, orders from Asia up 1%, Europe, Middle East and Africa little changed

Short version: Strong dollar, possibly stronger Canadian dollar, weak euro, weak Australian dollar.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

AUD/USD sank below 0.9950 to the lowest since June 2012 as speculators abandon the one of the great trades of the past 6 years.

AUD/USD is down 80 pips to 0.9944 after tripping stops below 0.9950. A larger cluster of buy orders is around 0.9925 with others at 0.9900 (stops below) and 0.9885.

Weekly CFTC futures positioning showed Aussie longs at the lowest levels since mid-2012.

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Technically, the AUD/USD daily chart has completed a long-term sideways consolidation with a breakout to the downside. The simple measured target of the move coincides with the June 2012 lows around 0.9600.

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Generally, I prefer to sell on a re-test of the old range. That would mean a sell order around 1.0100.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.

Traders are a bit frustrated with Draghi at the moment because his prepared comments (which were released to news organizations and translated) were tame but he decided to ad lib in Italian when it came to the market-moving portions.

The headlines that crossed were vague at first - they were old news - but his comments on negative rates are more interesting. Here is how Bloomberg translated them:

"The Governing Council has decided for the first time to look openly at the possibility of reducing the interest rate on the deposit facility to less than zero," he said today. "There are many complications. There are many consequences that we must take into account and study closely. The Governing Council has decided to analyze these consequences in order to be ready to act if needed."

On Friday, the Nowotny said the ECB had "no plan in this direction" regarding negative rates. He added that discussions had taken place and that the ECB is "open minded" about it.

For Draghi - who said the ECB was "open minded" about negative rates on Thursday - the difference is that today he says "look openly", "study openly" and "analyze these consequences". That could be interpreted as a slightly-more serious, more definite tone but the ECB still hasn't decided if negative rates are even possible. Given the speed at which they study things like this, I take it as a signal that negative rates are more than one month away, if ever.

Others see it as bold attempt to talk-down the euro.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.