Archive for August, 2011

A year ago, Federal Reserve President Ben Bernanke announced at the Jackson Hole central bankers’ conference that he would embark on a second round of quantitative easing – “printing money” as opponents would call it. He proceeded to spend $600 billion on government and other bonds. With this year’s speech at the same conference...
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Events conspired against the euro last week. A summit meeting between Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy delivered far less than even the most pessimistic investors had been expecting, and economic growth in Euroland during the second quarter of the year fell short of modest expectations. The Merkozy meeting scuppered the idea of a jointly-issued government...
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The lowlight of the week for the dollar spreads was the Philadelphia Fed’s survey of manufacturing firms in its district. The index which it compiles from the responses has ranged between +60 and -40 in the last 15 years. The reading in July was a just-positive +3.2; for August it was -30.7. Whoops. The National...
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European stocks enjoyed a second day of gains but most price rises remained very choppy and open to reversals, a factor influenced by fragile sentiment and low volumes. The FTSE 100, DAX and CAC saw early gains of 2% as traders bought into heavyweight mining stocks on better than expected Chinese PMI data which...
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The FTSE 100 is set to open lower by 50 points and back below the 5000 level on Monday following on from a broadly weaker session in Asian trading. The Nikkei and Hang Seng both traded lower on the day despite muted attempts rally to the upside whilst US markets also traded heavily lower into...
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Following its weekend pledge to buy the government bonds of Spain and Italy, the European Central Bank went on to do so, but only under duress. The ECB president said last Tuesday that “what we need is for governments to do what we consider to be their job” and that “all the decisions taken...
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There was a good end to an otherwise rollercoaster week for stocks markets with the FTSE 100 gaining around 2.2% despite data that showed the weakest Michigan Consumer Sentiment index since 1980. It was in truth a mixed bag of US data today and whilst consumer sentiment data paints a dark picture of confidence...
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The FTSE 100 saw gains for the first time in seven trading days in a particularly choppy trading session as investors moved to make tentative buys into mining stocks mostly on bargain hunting. All eyes however were firmly transfixed on the Federal Reserve tonight for the FOMC’s decision and for what words or action...
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European markets had been extremely choppy this morning opening lower before surging into positive territory as the European Central Bank bought Spanish and Italian bonds, driving yields down sharply. Markets were unable to hold on to the gains as mixed messages about the EFSF continued to emanate out of Europe. Equity markets in Italy and...
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Sterling made slow but steady upward progress until last Friday afternoon, when it shot two and a half cents higher. It fell back from its peak to open in London Monday morning a cent and a half better on the week. The Canadian dollar was unable to share in the success of its New Zealand...
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