Cryptocurrencies have been going through a period of relative stability, which is almost unheard of for the asset class that gained notoriety for its volatile price movements.
The stock market selloff that punished the tech sector in the first half of October coincided with Bitcoin losing 7.5% of its value in a single day. Does this correlation in market movements suggest that as Bitcoin and other cryptos have become more mainstream, and adoption by centralised financial institutions has r
Apple hosting event in Brooklyn today, starting at 2pm UK time. New iPad announcements expected
UK Chancellor Philip Hammond announced plans to implement Digital Services Tax from April 2020
UK government’s “Cryptoasset Taskforce" published its final report yesterday outlining a range of regulatory steps around crypto assets
Bitcoin dropped $200 after two weeks stagnating around $6,400. Having achieved earlier this month a 17-month low volatility rate the perception that i
Written by Kyle Rodda - IG Australia
Asia and Europe’ Monday: Markets were generally experiencing a much-desired bounce for the better part of Monday, enabled by a day light on market moving information and data. The confirmed election of populist Brazilian leader Jair Bolsonaro boosted emerging market indices. News that German Chancellor Angela Merkel would be stepping down as leader of the governing CDU party, combined with a ratings downgrade of by Italian debt S&P, sent minor ripple
Philip Hammond to announce the last UK annual budget plan before Brexit on Monday
HSBC announces a rise in profit before tax of around 28% year-on-year to $5.922billion
IBM to acquire Red Hat for $34billion, buying all shares at $190 each
Jair Bolsonaro wins Brazilians Presidential election with just over 55% of votes
Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union votes falls to 28% from 38.3% from the last election
Economic growth for China fell short of expectations, in
Written by Kyle Rodda, IG Australia
Global price action: The global equity sell-off continued during Wall Street's final trading session for the week, putting an end to a horrid 5 days for markets. True to form, it was the NASDAQ that led the losses in US trade, clocking a loss of 2.07 per cent, while the S&P500 shed 1.73 per cent itself. Volatility remained elevated and underscored the intense selling, maintaining a 24 reading throughout the session, prompting a flight to safety from i
Risk Trends – Monitor Liquidity Closely
Sentiment is turning increasingly septic across the financial markets. This past week certainly wasn’t the first week that signs of trouble were starting to show. However, a clear capitulation by one of the favorite benchmarks of hold-out bulls – US indices – has undermined one of the few reliable backstops left. The S&P 500 and Dow have been in retreat through much of October after hitting their respective record highs. Up until this past week,
Expected index adjustments
Please see the expected dividend adjustment figures for a number of our major indices for the week commencing 29 Oct 2018. If you have any queries or questions on this please let us know in the comments section below. For further information regarding dividend adjustments, and how they affect your positions, please take a look at the video.
NB: All dividend adjustments are forecasts and therefore speculative. A dividend adjustment is a cash neutra
Japan and China sign a bilateral currency swap to improve financial stability
Asia predicted to be more vulnerable than the US in regards to the sell-off in global stock markets, according to managing director of FX strategy for BK Asset Management
US Futures direct more than a 200-point drop for Dow Jones, after seeing a slight recovery on Thursday
Amazon shares drop nearly 9% in after-hours trading, regardless of hitting record profits of nearly $2.9billion in the last qua
The European Central Bank is announcing its monetary policy today, with expectations that Mario Draghi will confirm that the ECB stands by its plan to end its quantitative easing program by the end of the year.
The euro plunges on Wednesday as concerns over the Eurozone growth continue.
Italian government bonds remain at year-highs as the EU has rejected the country's deficit plan. Yields are expected to remain high over the next few weeks as the Italian government says that the bu
Elevated volatility and choppy trade: Volatility is still elevated. It's one moment up and one moment down. Price action and sentiment is shifting all in the space of a single session. The extreme vacillations in price and sentiment are wrung by the twisting fortunes of the global economy's two major forces: the Chinese and US economies. Day-to-day, markets are playing out like a game of pong, with one side rising only to strike the ball in the opposite direction to send the other diving lower.
Deutsche Bank has kicked off the banking season in Europe today as the bank announced a net profit of €229 million, with analysts expecting a profit of €149 million, as the investment bank branch loses ground. Barclays has followed by beating expectations as net income came in at £1 billion vs. £723 million expected, Jes Staley announced he is "very pleased" with the Q3 results.
The EU continues to mount pressure on the Italian government as Valdis Domborvskis, vice-president of the Europ
Flight to safety: There's been a general flight to safety in global markets over the past 24 hours, adding to the bearish sentiment that's been mounting for several weeks. The risks remain the same and there wasn't an event to precipitate yesterday's sell-off. It apparently began in the Asian session, after Chinese equities pared the gains it had added over the previous two trading sessions, then swept through European and North American markets as the day unfolded. Haven assets have caught a bi
Asian stock market retreats as China rally fades a day after Chinese stocks posted their biggest one-day advance in over 2 years. The Hang Seng is down 3.3% whilst the CSI 300 is currently down 3.5%.
The Dow Jones and the S&P closed lower on Monday, currently both down around 1% amidst worries over corporate earnings reports due in the coming week and rising geopolitical tensions.
The Saudi All-Share Index is down 4.4% this month, almost its worse month since October last year,
ASX: SPI futures are indicating an 11-point drop at the open, on the back of a day that saw the ASX200 close just shy of 0.6 per cent. The local session could be characterised as being somewhat lacklustre: the lion's share of the day's losses came shortly after the open, volume was below average, and market breadth finished at 26 per cent. Most sectors finished the day in the red, but naturally it was a pullback in bank stocks that contributed greatest to the markets falls. The materials space m
Recent global sell-offs and the ongoing US-China trade war have caused copper prices to decline to their weakest levels since July 2017. The price of the metal currently sits at around $6300 a tonne after recovering from its slump below $6000 in August this year. The relationship between prices of base metals and future growth has proved to be evident in the past, so much so that this specific commodity is often referred to as ‘Dr Copper’.
Copper is prominently used across electrical appli
Chinese stock have rallied with the Shanghai Composite Index gaining more than 4% as officials attempt to support the market as GDP figures last week fell short of the 6.6% growth target by 0.1%
The rest of the APAC region followed suit with all major indices apart from Australia's ASX 200 making gains.
Dominic Raab has stated there may be some flexibility on the Irish border issue. The Brexit Secretary made the comment in an interview which may allow negotiations continue for a s
Expected index adjustments
Please see the expected dividend adjustment figures for a number of our major indices for the week commencing 22 Oct 2018. If you have any queries or questions on this please let us know in the comments section below. For further information regarding dividend adjustments, and how they affect your positions, please take a look at the video.
NB: All dividend adjustments are forecasts and therefore speculative. A dividend adjustment is a cash neutra
Market sentiment: Markets put in a mixed day on Friday. The results for global equities were generally poor, but absent were any violent swings in market activity. Individual regions traded -off apparently their own idiosyncratic drivers, characteristic of the diverse web of risks plaguing investors. Chinese indices were the stand-out, climbing more than 2.5 per cent, collectively, while European shares were generally lower, and US stocks were mixed. The mood is still edgy and dour for equities
The United States and China Jostling for Economic Supremacy
The world’s largest economies are starting to update on the status of their health. And, though it may not seem to be the case in these speculatively charged markets, financial performance relies heavily on a healthy global expansion. This past Friday, China reported its third quarter GDP reading. The 6.5 percent clip would be an enviable pace for most of the developed world, but for this debt laden country, this is slowing to a pa
China recorded its slowest growth in a quarter for almost a decade. GDP growth year-on-year came in at 6.5% down from estimates of 6.6%, largely down to the continued trade war with the U.S. and high debt levels.
MSCI Asia Pacific Index recorded its worst three week decline since the start of January 2016 with volatility approaching similar levels seen in 2012, mainly due to China's performance and the recent equities' fallout.
US indices further declined on Thursday as market vola
Risk-off (again): Just when it looked like it was safe to jump back into financial markets, it was risk-off again overnight, as market participants dwelled once more on the myriad of risks facing them. There’s nothing entirely new in what has developed during the European and North American session: the same confluence of factors that has weighed on sentiment in markets have simply reared their head again. It’s probably what makes this situation all the graver, if not at the very least, highly g
Following Brussels summit Theresa May hints the UK may consider longer transition period resulting in the UK remaining tied to the Euro bloc's rules for a period of 21 months after the exit day
Trump escalates economic confrontation with Beijing by announcing his intention to withdraw the US from China Shipping Treaty
Cannabis stocks slipped after Canada’s legalisation. Aurora Cannabis Inc posting a 15% slide shortly after market opened yesterday. Popular ETFs ETFMG Alternative Ha
Fed minutes: The week’s blockbuster event dropped over night: the release of the FOMC’s Monetary Policy Minutes. Equity markets have staged a tentative turnaround globally this week, but it has all been occurring in the shadows of what could be gleaned from last night’s Fed minutes release. When all is weighed up, the document reaffirmed the Fed’s hawkishness, revealing in-depth discussions ranging from cutting the word “accommodative” from the central bank’s language, to debating the possible n
Trump announces that the Fed is his biggest threat as they are increasing rates ‘too quickly’
Theresa May is to visit Brussels for an EU summit today to agree on the terms of the UK-EU agreement, in order for a final decision to be made in November
Netflix quarterly results show yet another rise in new subscribers, signing up 6.96 million customers in this quarter, totaling a global amount of 137.1 million
Canada becomes the second country to legalise the use of Cannabis and
Wall Street: It's still early days, but investors appear to have regained their nerve overnight. The Asian session was tepid, to be sure, however a rally in European and US equities reveal a market that has found its appetite for equities again. As the existing narrative would imply, much of this was underpinned by a fresh appetite for rate-sensitive US big tech stocks, which according to the NASDAQ, rallied almost 3 per cent overnight, leading both the Dow Jones and S&P in the realms of 2 p
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