Despite some extremely positive data from the USA, in the form of services PMI rising to a level not seen since September 2011, the USA markets refused to turn bullish and stayed on a downward trajectory, albeit the selloff was not as severe as experienced in the latter part of last week. The Markit flans […]
UK RBS bank still losing money whilst USA markets fail to react to positive PMI data Read More »
Fears of a China-led global slowdown and uninspiring U.S. data caused a selling frenzy on Wall St and throughout Europe on Thursday that ended with equities closing with their worst loss of the year. Major stock indices, such as the DJIA, closed down more than 1 percent in a sell off; the dollar fell, whilst
As the Davos World Economic Forum gets into full flow it’s tricky to keep up with the appearance schedule. Moreover, it’s increasingly difficult to understand why some ‘delegates’ and guest speakers are given so much air time. The legendary UK entrepreneur and founder of Virgin, Richard Branson, gave a speech suggesting that the “war on
As the USA markets stumbled into action (after the long bank holiday weekend) it was the Canadian loonie that took centre stage in early FX trading, by reaching a low point versus the dollar not seen since 2009. Looking at the commitment of trader’s report of last week there did seem to be a ‘telegraphed’
The USA markets were closed on Monday due to their bank holiday in recognition of Martin Luther King. As a consequence the markets were relatively quiet throughout the day as the two main trading sessions concentrated on Europe singularly. However, despite there being very little in the way of high impact news events published on
A very interesting study, regarding the state of many European banks, was published across several of the wires during Thursday. Reuters were citing academic research from Berlin suggesting that, in order to survive the upcoming stress tests the ECB will subject banks to, the banks might need up to one trillion USD in order to
Optimism was in evidence on both sides of the Atlantic in Wednesday’s trading sessions with Europe particularly bullish as Germany’s main DAX index once again posted a record high. The reason for European bullishness was for two reasons; the Euro area posted a very encouraging trade surplus of €17.1 billion in November 2013, in November
Tuesday witnessed a bullish mood enveloping both European and USA markets, with the main USA indices gaining much of the ground lost over recent days. The USA markets were not only buoyed by thin positive data, but by the narrative contained in a speech from a member of the FOMC, Plosser, who stated that the
The countdown to the monthly anniversary of the QE taper on December 18th 2013 begins Read More »
USA markets slumped on Monday as the dollar fell to its lowest level in three weeks versus many of its major peers. The reason for the selloff is that analysts are expecting retail sales for the USA to be disappointing when they’re printed today, Tuesday January 14th. The knock on effect is that (as a
Employment and unemployment numbers were the big news events on Thursday for the USA and the news was very positive, particularly the ‘Challenger Report’ which announced the lowest level of layoffs since 1997, a quite incredible and very welcome bullish statistic. Further the USA weekly unemployment numbers came in slightly better than forecast, with 15,000
