US The week just past us was one of slight gains in US equity markets, with most volume on Tuesday and Wednesday due to the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday. The week opened with a soft print of the US services PMI, then trading became jittery for the S&P 500 as Read more…
Inflation is down – again – to 0.3%, far away from the target of the ECB. Source: TradingEconomics, Eurostat Inflation Expectations are also down. The expected inflation in 5 years dipped last months below the threshold of 2%. This is a major issue for ECB: given its mandate to maintain Read more…
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…
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…
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…
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…
US This week has been really quiet for the US. Two main issues arise: the initial jobless claims surprise on the downside (actual 316K vs expected 330K), and the decline in the durable goods orders. (-2%) in October. With regard to the first data, although it is clearly good for Read more…
Panel 22|11|2013 US This week Bernanke surprised the markets outlining the chance of early tapering of QE (December meeting). For us this is quite surprising, as we still believe the US economy is not performing as well as it was believed this spring. Three main reasons have worsened our outlook Read more…