What is the Hu-Gang Tong? On November 17, China took another leap in opening its markets to foreign investors with the establishment of the Hong Kong – Shanghai Stock Connect program. The so-called “Hu-Gang Tong” program will for the first time ever enable mainland residents to trade shares in Hong Read more…
US US equities continued to trade sideways in the last week due to the lack of news catalysts. The only major pieces of news out were the number of initial and continuing jobless claims diffused on Thursday and the retail sales figures released on Friday. The anticipation of the former Read more…
US It has been a busy week for US markets, filled with plenty of data and the outcome of the midterms on November 4th. The result of these was a Republican takeover of the Senate, and in all the expression of dissatisfaction or anger at Mr Obama’s performance. The S&P Read more…
US After turmoil in the recent weeks US equities are back to all-time highs. Very solid data on consumer confidence and a Q3 GDP growth rate print of 3.5%, above a lower forecast of 3%, propelled the S&P 500 to 2018.05. Not even the completion of tapering on Wednesday stopped Read more…
US Last week’s losses were followed by some more, as the S&P 500 lost 0.75% to close at 1967.9 and the NASDAQ Composite and DJIA went down 0.81% and 0.6% respectively from their values at the end of last week. Stocks took a beating on Tuesday and Wednesday especially as Read more…
US Equity markets in the US lost ground this week, ending short of the fresh highs touched in the previous one. Macroeconomic data came in mixed, as a solid manufacturing PMI and positive data on new home sales on Tuesday and Wednesday were confounded by disappointing durable goods orders and Read more…
US US equities enjoyed significant gains in the week just past us after trading sideways for most of the summer. The S&P 500 was 1.25% above its closing value last Friday, closing now firmly above the 2,000 level at 2,010. The index clocked in its largest gains mid-week, on the Read more…
[edmc id=1778][/edmc] US Equities closed at record highs in the week just past us; the S&P 500 in particular closed above 1,900 for the first time, gaining 1.29 percentage points from the week’s open. Such good performance, which was also echoed by the Nasdaq Composite (which retraced some of its Read more…
As we write this, the EUR/USD exchange rate has fallen to $1.3713 from about ~$1.4 when Draghi first gave his speech at the regular board meeting more than a week ago. The market seems to be pricing in possible monetary easing to be announced by the ECB in June at Read more…
The sharp increase in UK property prices-predominantly but not limited to the London area- over the last year has led many to believe such a trend has become unsustainable. According to Nationwide Building Society, Real estate prices registered an 18% annual change in London since 2013, while the average UK Read more…
Two days ago, during its regular policy meeting, the ECB left interest rates unchanged and Mario Draghi said the “council was comfortable acting next time.” He signaled that there was a unanimous belief that the current inflation rate of 0.7% is unacceptable. He also stated that the strength of the Read more…
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[edmc id=1641][/edmc] US This week has been full of economic data. The most relevant are the following: – Final GDP growth for 4th 2013 quarter q/q is 2,6%, still mainly driven by inventories. – Flash manufacturing PMI is at 55.5, a bit lower than expectations. However, this suggests a manufacturing Read more…
[edmc id=1589] [/edmc] US Another volatile week for the markets and for the U.S. ended on Friday amid concerns over Russia. As was expected, Crimea voted for annexation to Russia on Sunday 16th and this led to further sanctions to a group of Russian wealthy individuals that rattled Russia’s economy Read more…
[edmc id=1554][/edmc] U.S. At the end of a week dominated primarily by uncertainty, markets mostly closed in negative territory. Signs of the week that’s past can be clearly seen in the VIX index which has been on a constant hike path since the beginning of 2014. The VIX is seen Read more…