Mind The Gap

The Bank Of Japan Maintains Stimulus Sending USD/JPY Through 100 Barrier As Australian Trade Balance Crashes Into The Red  At its monthly meeting Japan’s central bank, (the BOJ), decided to maintain its stimulus (monetary easing) at the same rate of ¥60-70 trillion, ($600/700bn) per year. The officials at the bank believing that Japan’s economy is […]

UK Services Index Reaches 60.5, The Fastest Growth Rate In Six Years  Similar to many developed economies the UK’s economy is dominated by the service sector which is responsible for up to 75% of the country’s economy and is therefore the biggest contributor to the nation’s output. Service industries, particularly banking, insurance, and business services,

UK Posts More Optimistic Data; UK Construction Rises At Sharpest Level For Six Years In the overnight/early morning Asian-Australasian session the announcement that the RBA base rate was kept at 2.5% was in line with market expectations. The accompanying narrative from the RBA’s governor was bullish the Australian economy. The main conclusion being that the

The European manufacturing recovery continues in August by reaching a 26 month high… Markit economics has published several European manufacturing PMIs this morning, many of which have generated positive market sentiment after reaching recent highs. When analysing the major European economies only France  failed to rise to reach such levels. The UK delivered stunning figures

Oil Spikes As Western Military Intervention In The Syrian Conflict Appears Increasingly Likely. Soc Gen Predicts Price Could Rise To $150 Per Barrel. The Dubai stock market picked up where it finished yesterday by dropping almost 6% shortly after the market open, taking the cumulative losses this week to circa 13%.  The current level is

USA debt ceiling may replace tapering as the new market ‘meme’… There was a time, before monetary easing to infinity was introduced in the first months of 2013, when the market meme concerned the fiscal cliff. In December 2012 you couldn’t move your cursor around a financial headline page without stumbling on the words “fiscal

ECB’s Jens Weidmann states that monetary policy has now entered unknown and dangerous areas It’s not the most obvious statement the ECB, or one of its officials has ever uttered, but it must be right up there with the best. Jens Weidmann appears to have suggested that QE and engaging in a zero interest rate

China’s PMI hits a four month high in August, whilst European markets rally on strong PMIs  China started the encouraging PMI report round-up in the Asian session by printing a better than expected 50.1 reading. The previous month’s reading was 47.7 and the economists polled suggested 48.3 would be this month’s target. The index hit

Markets focus on FOMC meeting minutes published at 7pm UK time  Market commentators, analysts and traders will immediately focus on the Fed minutes this evening to see if there’s any ‘code’ contained therein suggesting the timing and a date for a possible tapering of the $85billion per month stimulus. The crucial clues will be language

In the overnight – early morning session the RBA minutes were published containing the reasons why, in its latest meeting on August 7th, the Australian central bank decided to cut its base interest rate by 0.25% to 2.5%. In the policy meeting notes the bank appeared to be quite neutral, the final paragraph of the