The U.K.’s political and Brexit situation is causing investors’ concern. News that certain major international U.S. banks will put London exit plans in place, unless favorable “soft Brexit” progress is made on the negotiations by January, added to ministers resigning, or being accused of the most sinister and grave forms of harassment, combined with the […]
Trump’s Republican Party are facing tough opposition from the Democrats, to push through their tax cut agenda, who have described the fiscal policy as a “total mess”. It must be noted that the DJIA and SPX have risen circa 22% since Trump was inaugurated and 30% YoY, not due to increased earnings or spectacular company
Having fallen consistently versus several of its peers last week, as the BoE’s dovish monetary policy statement failed to satisfy investors, the U.K. pound recovered much of its lost ground on Monday; GPB/USD rose by circa 0.7%, whilst EUR/GBP fell by a similar amount. The gains, versus the majority of sterling’s peers, came despite Brexit
Last week ended with the U.K. pound left reeling from the battering it took on Thursday, after the BoE announced a base rate rise of 0.25%. It wasn’t that the highly anticipated interest rise was already priced in, it was the accompanying dovish, forward guidance narrative, issued by the deputy and the governor of the
The standard economic orthodoxy works like this; when a central bank raises its interest rate, the value of the domestic currency rises, even if the rise has been telegraphed through the media and forward guidance is issued by the central bank some weeks earlier, warning of the rate rise. Whilst the rate rise can often
As forecasted by certain economists, who were polled by news agencies, the FOMC decided to keep the U.S. key interest rate on hold, at 1.25%, with a view to revisit the issue in December. The market reaction was subdued; EUR/USD and GBP/USD maintained similar levels to that seen before the announcement, with USD/JPY and USD/CHF
The Eurozone delivered positive economic calendar news in the form of hard data on Wednesday, which caused the euro to rise versus many of its peers, with the notable exception of EUR/GBP, where the currency lost ground. GDP figures for the EZ beat both the Q3 and YoY forecasts, coming in at 0.6% and 2.5%
USA equities fell back on Monday due to a variety of reasons, most notably the vague threat of impeachment versus USA president Trump, if fresh accusations to Russia interfering in the USA general election, are proven to have direct links back to Trump’s election campaign team. Naturally, any threat to Trump’s commitment to lower corporate
Last week saw the three main indices in the USA reach new record highs. In the tech/NASDAQ index, the results/earnings from companies such as Alphabet (formally Google) and Amazon, helped to propel prices in the tech index to its highest daily gain (2.2%), since March 2016. The week ended with USA GDP coming in at
The ECB announced on Thursday, that the key Eurozone interest rate would remain unchanged at zero percent, whilst the APP would be cut from €60b to €30b a month, beginning January 2018 for nine months. Despite this significant development, the euro fell sharply versus several peers, as despite a reduction of 50%, the taper was
