Blog

Risk Aversion trading takes over again in the Far East as uncertainty over the seriousness of the ‘swine-flu’ proves the driver for market traders. Official comment puts the death toll so far in Mexico at 103 and although there have been no fatalities from the disease in the US, there have been reported cases in several large cities including at a high school in New York City. This really is an example of ‘watch this space’ and the market will be conscious of any adverse developments. Read the rest of this entry »

Mentioning the words “social media” and “marbella” together in the same sentence can and has caused a few raised eyebrows when I speak to people about the work I do and the place that I live. The first question is usually “What’s social media exactly?” and the second part is “Oh never mind! Marbella!? That must be wonderful!”. 

Well guess what.  It is. Read the rest of this entry »

The Market gives Alistair Darling the benefit of some considerable doubt, for now anyway. The numbers that we would prefer to see small and positive are horrendously large and negative whilst the future growth projections seems overly optimistic - especially compared to the expectations published by the IMF this week. To expand further, The Chancellor sees 2009 growth at between -3.25% and -3.75% and Public Sector Net Borrowing for the year at 12.8% of GDP which in number terms is around £175 billion. To fund this, the DMO have scheduled the issuance of £220 billion in gilts for the period 2009/10 up from £146.4 billion in 2008/09. Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday saw some interesting data out from the UK and Europe and a series of official interest rate reductions from around the globe.

Taking the latter first, we got a 0.25 cut from the Reserve Bank of India down to 4.75%, a 0.50 reduction from the Riksbank in Sweden to 0.50% and a 0.25 basis point cut by the Bank of Canada down to 0.25%. Of these 3 Central Banks, the Canadians were by far the most dovish in its accompanying statement, saying that unless there is an unexpected move up in inflation, they expect their interest rates to stay at these lowly levels for at least the next 12-months. They also announced that they will be the latest CB to go down the QE route following an announcement of a framework of measures on Thursday. Read the rest of this entry »

Isn’t this the perfect weather for giving to charity!!

We had another productive Dress Down Friday last week with a Rate Watch Rollover and a few beers being consumed at the end of the day all supervised by the capable Barney while Phil is off sunning himself in South Africa! Read the rest of this entry »

On the face of it yesterday’s Bank of America’s Q1 figures were excellent continuing the recent strong rebound in US Banks’ performances with the organisation reporting a better-than-expected $4.2bn in Q1 earnings, which reflected strong results at recently acquired Merrill Lynch. Read the rest of this entry »