Wall Street adds to its record-highs: The first day of the financial week has been done and won, and its resulted in another small victory for Wall Street indices. US stocks have added to their record highs overnight, as market participants become increasingly bullish across asset classes. The story wasn’t quite so rosy for markets in other geographies yesterday: Asian equities generally slid amid low activity, while European stocks were positive, yet tepid in their trading. Still, it seems, the
The Fed Finds Themselves in a Market, Economic and Credibility Quandary
There is a lot of high-profile event risk – both data and events – on the docket this week. The distinction of importance for these potential catalysts is defined by their capacity to tap into more systemic fundamental themes. By that evaluation, there is a lot that can further shape our collective interests/concerns through trade wars, concerns over stalled global growth and the inadequacies of monetary policy as a fi
Expected index adjustments
Please see the expected dividend adjustment figures for a number of our major indices for the week commencing 29 April 2019. 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 n
US GDP data capped-off last week’s trade: Trade closed last week on something of a puzzling note. The attention, from a macro-economic point-of-view, was fixed in on US GDP data. Amidst all the fears of slower global growth on one hand and hope for a nascent global economic turnaround on the other, the US growth figures were being viewed as a tangible insight into the cogency of each point of view. Ultimately, the data provided little support for one over the other – and perhaps even deepened th
Amazon's net income for its first quarter more than doubled to $3.6bn, or $7.09 a share, from $1.6bn in the same quarter last year, beating analysts' expectations of $4.72 a share. Revenue rose 17%, in line with consensus estimates, although it was the lowest YoY growth rate since the beginning of 2015. Operating expenses increased by 13%, down from 41% growth in the same quarter of 2018. Amazon plans to roll out one-day shipping worldwide for its Prime members this year, which will likely driv
A mixed day for global stocks: It’s been a mixed 24 hours for global markets. A series of conflicting messages are being delivered to traders, after the release of some major corporate reports in the past 24-48 hours. Market participants are truly in the meatiest part of earnings season now. The trader’s eye has been fixed on earnings from US tech and industrial giants yesterday and overnight; with the former, thanks to Facebook and Microsoft, beating expectations overall, but with the latter, c
UK Competition and Markets Authority have formally blocked the proposed £7.3 billion takeover of Asda by Sainsbury's causing the merger to collapse.
Corporate earnings reports see European stocks set to open slightly higher. The FTSE 100 rising 9 points to 4780. Whereas Wall Street ended Wednesday's session lower following mixed US corporate results.
Despite beating analysts expectations UBS reported a 27% fall in net profit for it's first quarter when compared to the same period
Hedging activities in JPY are building up as the Golden week in Japan approaches. Japanese markets will be shut for 10 days from Friday’s close in occasion of the accession of the new emperor to the throne. The situation could prove risky as this was the sort of environment where we saw flash crashes in the JPY against USD and AUD back in January.
The S&P benchmark was up 0.9% on the day, following strong earnings releases on Tuesday. The performance could be moderate for the rest of
Wall Street clocks new highs: Wall Street achieved a milestone overnight: it registered an all-time closing high. It in some way punctuates one of the more bemusing runs in US equities, following (what felt like) the near-cataclysmic market correction at the end of 2018. The S&P500 closed at 2933 this morning – a mere 10 points from that index’s all-time intraday high. As had been expected, the catalyst for US stocks’ latest burst higher came directly from US reporting season. A series of co
Oil prices have surged as Trump aims to cut Iran's oil exports after the White House announced that waivers from countries buying oil from Iran would end in May, a decision made to slash revenue for the Iranian government. Brent crude futures are trading at $74.29 a barrel, up 0.3%, whilst WTI crude reached its highest level since October last year currently trading at $65.95 per barrel.
Shares in the US were muted on Monday as the market braces for a busy week of corporate earnings, more
Amid Extreme (Low) Volatility, Determine Your Approach and the Eventual Change
Volatility continues to sink into extreme levels of doldrums – and this is a theme that all traders should take time to appreciate at regular intervals. Low volatility is a defining feature of a financial landscape. Whether fundamentals catalyze a cascade of value repricing or a technical cue is capable of triggering an avalanche of entry/stop orders is predicated on the conditions first laid out by the depth an
Expected index adjustments
Please see the expected dividend adjustment figures for a number of our major indices for the week commencing 22 April 2019. 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 neutral
Traders have plenty to catch up on: As one might expect after (effectively) four days-off, there’s plenty of macro-economic news for Australian market participants to catch-up on following the Easter-holiday break. Chinese and Japanese markets have traded without interruption; while the US jumped back in to action overnight. And although price action won’t be the cause of any conniptions across trading floors this morning, there’s still enough information there to inspire a few novel ideas in th
The African swine fever disease has reached Southeast Asia and parts of Europe, including the world’s biggest producer of Pork, China. A prediction from the Japanese bank Nomura, is that this could cause prices to rise by 78% in China by 2020, to 33 yuan per kilogram from 18.5 yuan
Senior US and China officials to organise more face-to-face trade talks, aiming to reach a deal by early May and to sign at the end of that month
North Korea claims it has test-fired a new weapon with a
China’s data inspires relief: The Middle Kingdom was at the centre of financial market focus yesterday. Informally dubbed the “monthly economic data-dump”, market participants were granted the opportunity to test the thesis that the global economy’s Q1 malaise is turning around. And though it was only one set of numbers, the answer received from the Chinese data to this quandary was to the affirmative. China’s GDP figures beat economist’s estimates, printing at 6.4 per cent against the 6.3 per c
The Dow was up 0.11% as positive news from Boeing boosted the index, the Federal Aviation Administration said that the software update to the 737 Max aircraft is "operationally suitable". The S&P increased marginally by 0.05% whilst the Nasdaq gained 0.3%.
Netflix shares have dropped 1% after its earnings report yesterday, after announcing a weaker than expected guidance for Q2 as well as its CMO, Kelly Bennett, announcing her retirement this year. Although, Q1 earnings per share were
ASX to keep trading on its own themes: SPI Futures are presently indicating an 18-point jump at the open for the ASX200. Once again, Australian equities look as though they’ll march to the beat of their own drum today. It comes on the back of a reasonably solid day for the ASX yesterday – though admittedly it was another day of relatively low activity. A general driver for the session’s activity was hard to pinpoint, perhaps fortunately, with the market trading much more on the basis of the myri
Wall Street ended in the negative on Monday as investors digested mixed results from the latest batch of bank earnings. Goldman Sachs reported better than expected earnings, however its shares fell 3.8% due to first quarter numbers showing net profits fell by 21% YoY. Citigroup earnings also beat expectations, although saw a 2% fall in overall revenue.
The S&P 500 slipped 0.1% to 2,905.58 after having three consecutive weeks of gains. The Dow Jones ended the day down 27 points at 26,
A Return to Extreme Volatility and Realization It Won’t Stay This Quiet for Long
Any way you cut it, the markets are experiencing extreme levels of inactivity. And, for those that are satisfied with the superficial and textbook interpretations of the mainstream measures, this seems like a cue to leverage exposure and commit to the decade-long bull trend which blossomed under the controlled conditions. Previously, traders would have been readily satisfied by the readings and thrown in with
Earnings optimism tempers the markets’ mood: Financial market participants curbed their enthusiasm yesterday. Friday’s brief excitement on Wall Street relating to a handful of earnings beats from some of the US’s big banks failed to translate into meaningful momentum to begin the new trading week. Such a dynamic was also evident throughout the Asian session. The ASX200 closed flat for the day, and Chinese stocks rallied and retraced all in the space of a few hours. The Nikkei was higher for the
Tiger Woods achieved his fifth Masters victory. The victory is worth around $22,500,000 to his sponsor Nike (according to Aprx Marketing data).
Asian shares crept towards nine-month high after US treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin reported a positive outlook on trade talks. The Hang Seng rose 1.2% and the Nikkei climbed 1.4% to reach it's highest level in 2019.
USD/JPY dips from 112.09 high this morning (following mid week rise last week).
Volkswagen unveiled the ID Roomz
Please see the expected dividend adjustment figures for a number of our major indices for the week commencing 15 April 2019. 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 neutral adjustment on your account. Speci
Activity lifts to end last week: A risk laden week has ended with a pop. Asian and European trade was solid, albeit dull. However, it was a clear-cut-case of risk-on during the North American session. The new fuel to the S&P500s fire came as US earnings season kicked-off in earnest. JP Morgan, and a handful of America’s other big-banks, reported and generally surprised to the upside. The catalyst served two purposes: one, it supported (granted prematurely) the view that assumed earnings grow
Uber has officially filed paperwork for the company's imminent IPO after observing rival Lyft's share price surge on opening only to fall below its IPO price later on. The ride-hailing company will be listed under the ticker "UBER" on the New York Stock Exchange. You can see how you can trade Uber's upcoming IPO on the IG website here.
It was a muted day for US equities on Thursday as the major indices remained little changed ahead of JP Morgan and Wells Fargo earnings announcements later
A week that’s (so far) under-delivered: Anything can happen in the space of 24-hours in financial markets. But as we enter the final day of trade in global markets for the week, activity today is shaping up as being just as tepid as that which we’ve experienced in the week’s first four days. It was hoped some new, market-moving information may have been delivered in what was a back-loaded week. Afterall, there was no shortage of event risk. However, thus far, despite a litany of risk events, man
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