Market Commentaries

The confusion and arguments over vaccinations from AstraZeneca and Pfizer between the UK and EU, negatively affected overall sentiment in all European equity markets. France’s CAC index ended the day down -1.26% while the UK FTSE 100 closed out the day down -1.37%. Germany’s DAX index plunged to a five-week low during Wednesdays’ sessions. The […]

On Tuesday, European equity markets rebounded after some impressive earnings reports combined with a positive global growth report from the IMF to improve investor sentiment. Germany’s DAX index closed out the day up 1.66% while France’s CAC was up 0.93%. The euro experienced mixed fortunes during the day; EUR/USD traded up 0.19% at 8:30 pm

The German Ifo Business Climate indicator fell to 90.1 in January from the revised 92.2 recorded in December 2020, coming in below the market forecast of 91.8 as German companies voiced less optimism about the current domestic conditions. The reading appeared to impact Germany’s leading index, the DAX 30, which closed the European session out

It’s a busy week for economic calendar events and data releases from the USA. The Fed announces its interest rate decision on Wednesday evening. There is no expectation that the key interest rate will change from 0.25%. At the same time, investors’ attention will turn to the monetary policy announcement made by Jerome Powell (the

As expected, the ECB announced that the key interest rates for the Eurozone region would remain unchanged on Thursday. During the press conference that followed the announcement, the ECB president Christine Lagarde revealed that the current QE/asset-buying programme would not get altered unless economic conditions worsened. The recent commitment by the ECB is 1.85 trillion

Global markets roared back into life during Tuesday’s sessions as US equity markets reopened after the Martin Luther King Day national holiday on Monday. By the time the London-European markets opened, Asian equity markets had experienced mixed fortunes; the leading Chinese index CSI 300 closed -1.47% down the day after China posted better than forecast

During the Asian trading session on Monday morning, China’s latest GDP figures became available for analysis. The economy grew by 6.5% during the final quarter of 2020, beating the consensus forecasts of 6.1%, rising from the 4.9% recorded during Q3 2020. Industrial production grew by an impressive 7.3% year-on-year up to December 2020, the best

US equity markets closed the week out down during last Friday’s New York trading session. Investors and analysts took on board data revealing that both US consumer sentiment and retail sales are falling. Retail sales in the US slumped by -0.7% in December, after the -1.7% fall in November. The highly respected University of Michigan

Germany’s economy contracted -5% during 2020 according to the final GDP statistics published on Thursday morning. The contraction beat the news agency forecasts which predicted a metric of up to -5.7%. The negative reading is entirely due to the COVID-19 virus, and for context, Germany only chipped in with 0.6% GDP growth in 2019. The

Two high impact economic data affected the value of USD during the trading sessions of Wednesday 13. Inflation (CPI) came in at 1.4% annually due to a 0.4% rise month on month, an 8.4% gasoline cost rise for consumers was the main driver for the increase. The Federal budget balance beat the forecasts made by