[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…
Brent and WTI are the two most largely traded qualities of Oil. We will see that they are different not only in the quality and price, but also in the main drivers of their performance. Brent is a relatively light and sweet quality, originally extracted in the Northern Sea and Read more…
Let’s give a short insight to what has happened in the past months in Ukraine. For the second time in six years Mr. Putin has led his troops across an internationally recognized border, and it does look like the situation won’t be changing soon. All of this happened as a Read more…
Moleskine is the manufacturer and distributor of numerous branded accessories, including the famous notebooks used by several writers and artists, like Hemingway and Van Gogh. In particular, the company operates three business lines: a) Paper products b) Writing, travelling & reading collections c) Digital services. Paper items have been the Read more…
[edmc id=1492][/edmc] US Positive data for the US economy has come out this week. Manufacturing PMI of February (53.2) showed a significant improvement with respect to January (51.3) and beat expectations of 52.0. The most interesting indicators, however, concern labour force. On February 175k new jobs were created in the Read more…
Since the last time we covered Apple in late November, the situation has changed dramatically, with new factors affecting our recommendation on the stock. Among others, we think that the recent appointment of a new CFO may be significantly relevant. Indeed, according to some analysts cited by the Wall Street Read more…
When we analysed luxury stocks, we stressed that the industry has faced a downturn, probably due to a kind of sector rotation. The same phenomenon has affected European banks and utilities in the opposite way. In this article, we focus on banks, proposing some ideas on how to trade them. Read more…
[edmc id=1406][/edmc] US The economy grew at a slower pace than it was first estimated. Indeed, the fourth quarter GDP growth estimate was revised down to 2.4%, in contrast with the initial estimation of 3.2%. This revision was attributed to lower consumer spending growth. As this data adds to a Read more…
The Emerging Markets boom has been driven mostly by easy money and commodity exports. As the Federal Reserve continues to retreat its massive bond-buying programme, and China shows signs of a slowdown, Emerging Markets are taking a hit. We’ve seen their currencies depreciate dramatically and their stock markets plunge. The Read more…
[edmc id=1325][/edmc] BSIC MARKET RECAP 22/02/2014 U.S. Stocks in the U.S. edged lower on Friday after quite a good week data wise: producer and consumer price index coming in as forecasted but better than expected on a monthly basis, markit’s manufacturing PMI scoring the highest variation in nearly four years. Read more…
In our previous semester, we repeatedly stated our bearish position on Pandora Media (P). Our analysis focused mainly on three key points: – Growing competitors – Slowing users’ and revenues’ growth – Unprofitable Business model Since our first report the stock is up 50,6% and 218.88% YoY: investors feel confident Read more…
Since the last time we wrote, many things have happened on the markets. The Fed has finally turned on its tapering programme in mid-December and said it would unwind its asset purchasing by another 10 billion in February. This long expected event has provoked what news broadcasters all over the Read more…
Since the beginning of the year, a sector rotation seems to have started: cyclical stocks, especially those that are more exposed to Europe, have taken advantage of the improvement of the general feeling, while non-cyclical securities have experienced a general downturn. Among the latter category, luxury stocks (that have outperformed Read more…
[edmc id=998][/edmc] BSIC MARKETS DIVISION MACRO VIEW US This week’s US data releases showed improvement in the economic sentiment: GDP and labour market confirmed our view on US Economy. The second estimate of third-quarter GDP was revised from 2.8% to 3.6%. However, we must point out that positive GDP growth Read more…
The investment banking industry is expected to announce lacklustre returns for 2013, despite an improving global economy, soaring asset prices and abundant liquidity. According to Deutsche Bank, the overall revenue pool is forecasted to be down by 6% (FICC down by 18%, Equity up by 28% mostly driven by equity Read more…