Mind The Gap

One of the most respected credit agencies in the USA, Standard & Poor’s, has downgraded Greece’s credit rating this morning to that of an emerging market. S&P Dow Jones states that Greece no longer classifies as a developed market. Instead, the indices provider gives it “emerging market status” for the following reasons; the Greek equity […]

Eurozone retail PMI data from Markit showed a steeper drop in sales at the start of the final quarter of 2013. The Markit Eurozone Retail PMI remained below neutrality and declined to 47.7, from 48.6, indicating the fastest monthly rate of decline since May. In contrast, the average reading over the third quarter was the

Japan’s government authorities published several reports in the overnight/early morning session. All came in positive and ahead of economists’ expectations. Retail sales improved by 3.1% year on year, household spending increased by 3.7% and unemployment fell to 4%. All things considered it’s an excellent series of results adding belief that the unprecedented monetary stimulus Japan

Hot on the heels of the UK chancellor’s decision to provide 15% deposits for home buyers, to buy any property up to the value of £600K, last week the UK saw asking prices rise 10% in a single month, way beyond the house price hysteria experienced in the UK in 2006/2007. Not to be left

The UK’s latest GDP figure came in as predicted by many of the economists polled, but growth at 1.5% annual is still lower than the 1.6% Q2 2010 figure the coalition government. in the UK inherited from the previous government. Despite the 0.8% rise in activity in the last quarter, Britain’s economy is still 2.5%

Despite the optimistic forecasts for improved service and manufacturing PMIs across the Euro area many of the prints published in the early part of the trading session have disappointed. However, this hasn’t deterred the European markets from rallying. Looking towards the USA market open, equity index futures are currently positive, suggesting that the DJIA, SPX

The timing couldn’t be more coincidental or ironic, just as Chinese banks announce significant write downs due to bad debts, The European Central Bank has announced details of a new ‘stress test’ assessment of the region’s key banks, in an attempt to assess the true quality of the banks’ balance sheets in the run-up to

We’ve mentioned several times that the NFP numbers will be published lunch time UK time today, 8:30 eastern time in the USA, as opposed to the usual Friday. The 18 day delay is due to the temporary govt. shutdown. We’ve also mentioned that the number for the jobs created might be an ‘outlier’, a rogue

Sentiment improved across Asian markets in the overnight/early morning trading session, extending the relief rallies that began late last week on the belief that the US Federal Reserve will continue its monetary stimulus until past December into the New Year, March being the favored month by many. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index of stocks added

Despite the figures for China’s growth coming in line with expectations the data published by the national bureau of statistics wasn’t all good. The GDP readings keep China on track to achieve the government’s 2013 growth target of 7.5%, stronger than other major economies, but it’s still the worst performance for the country in 23