US This week we have seen almost only positive data about US economy, which explained dollar strength with respect to all major currencies (EUR, GBP and YEN). Gains were relatively small against Euro and Pound. The substantial advance with respect to the Yen was mainly due to Yen’s weakness during Read more…
I. OPEC and price trends Oil prices have been declining since last summer on concerns about production outpacing demand: the Brent slid by almost 30% from $115 in mid-June to the recent low of $76. Will prices carry on falling? Or have we hit the bottom? Next Thursday’s OPEC meeting will Read more…
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…
The latest weeks have been full of news for the UK economy. Some of the news, like the dovish stance of the Bank of England, were on average expected by the financial markets, whereas others, such as the latest inflation figure of 1.2% for September, were not expected. Actually, the 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…
On normal market days, the (positive) correlation between gold and silver is quite high. Looking at the chart below, it looks like silver gives chase to the movements in gold and follows them quite closely. One thing we can observe though is that downside changes in gold reflect more heavily 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…
There’s a famous saying among financiers : either stress tests are done correctly and banks fail miserably, either they are poorly done in order to make them a success. It is very likely we are in the second situation. Victor Constancio, vice-president of the ECB, declared that not only the Read more…
Oil has been completely crushed after peaking this summer: much has changed since our last article earlier this year (https://bsic.it/oil-quo-vadis/). Weakness in the price of crude was triggered by fear of a global slowdown: China growing at its lowest rate since 2009 (only 7.3%), together with cuts in economic forecast 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…
The Story Adidas Stock has been totally crushed since July, losing more than 20%, underperforming the sector. The down trend was triggered by a profit warning due to Russian Ruble instability and the restructuring of its Golf Brand “Taylor Made”. In particular Ukraine political instability in late summer led to Read more…
This week, we are proud to publish a full report on GoPro, one of the best performing tech stocks of the year. In order to analyse and evaluate properly the Company, we thoroughly studied its most recent financial results and its business. We shortlisted the Company’s competitors, considering both the Read more…
US US equities experienced a significant correction in their value during the week just past us. The S&P 500 went down by 3.14%, the Nasdaq Composite by 4.45% and the DJIA by 2.74%. No significant pieces of economic news were released during the week apart the minutes of the FOMC Read more…
After such a long period of quantitative easing, we have come to the close. The Fed will most probably end its asset purchasing programme this month, and the markets are trying to understand what will come next. The results have been barely rising real wages, quite low inflation, but a 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…