An uneventful day on Wall Street: A flat, somewhat mixed, and low activity day on Wall Street, market participants seem to be eyeing events later on in the week. After Friday’s Non-Farm Payroll induced rally, traders have apparently looked-down below their feet, realized how far this market has climbed, and decided a fresh-wind is required before scaling to new record-heights. Such a milestone stands only 1-and-a-half per cent away for the S&P500; and sensibly, the market is in no rush to ge
Asian Pacific markets were mixed on afternoon trading, edging off seven-month peaks as investors digested a rebound in U.S. jobs data and reports of more progress in the trade negotiations between Washington and Beijing, but still cautious on the outlook of the global economy and the U.S. earnings season.
The U.S economy added 196,000 jobs in March, beating economists' expectations of a figure of 175,000.
Chinese blue chip stocks climbed in the initial session, however slipped sl
Please see the expected dividend adjustment figures for a number of our major indices for the week commencing 8 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. Specia
A “Goldilocks” end to the week: Sentiment was nicely boosted to end the week last week. US Non-Farm Payrolls printed as closely to a so-called "goldilocks" figure for risk assets as you're ever liked to see. The data revealed the US economy added 196,000 jobs last month, against an expected figure of 172,000. It was enough to keep the unemployment rate to its very low levels of 3.8 per cent. But the real kicker for market-bulls was the earnings component: wage growth missed estimates, revealing
Donald Tusk has proposed a 12-month "flexible" Brexit extension date which would allow the UK to leave once a deal has been approved with the 12 months. The proposal would first need to be approved at a summit next week.
US-China trade talks have reached "new consensus" following yesterdays talks between Chinese Vice Premier Liu He and Trump. Could the end of the trade war be in sight? Trump has suggested that that question may be answered "over the next four weeks".
Asian stocks
Positioning for the week’s climax: A little water-treading, as all eyes turn to Washington this weekend. And for two-reasons, really: highly anticipated trade-talks between the Trump Administration and Chinese officials – which includes Vice Premier Liu He; and the release of US Non-Farm Payrolls data by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. Both promise to be potentially market moving events. Fundamentally, both events come in one-and-two as the week’s most significant macro-economic stories. How
Bitcoin’s chart is finally generating some interest in technical traders as prices are slightly down from Wednesday’s record highs. April last year saw a “short squeeze” that had the price of Bitcoin jump from $6,700 to $8,000 in a single move. Other cryptocurrencies are following the trend as investors look for the drivers in the volatility surge.
Gold prices edged higher after steadying on Wednesday. The yellow-metal keeps rotating around the mean as the effect of the rally in global st
Growth fears ease; risk taking subdued: Risk appetite wasn't terribly high overnight. But in saying this, the persistent, vexatious concerns regarding the global growth outlook has continued to abate. Markets have become used to modifications in the growth outlook manifesting in a powering of risk-on behaviour. Given the economic backdrop, the reasons for this are pretty intuitive. Just as far as last night's trade, though, this relationship didn’t hold quite so strongly. There were clear signs
The price of Bitcoin jumped 23% on Tuesday, surpassing the $5,000 line and hitting its highest level in almost 5 months in just under an hour. This sudden surge caught investors off guard as Cryptocurrencies' volatile sessions, which were popular at the beginning of last year, have now become a rare occasion. The trigger of this rally is unknown, which is common with unregulated assets, but other digital currencies followed suit, as Ethereum surged 12% and Ripple gained 6.5%.
The US and
The biggest day of the (economic) year: The Australian economy garnered significant attention yesterday. Arguably, it was the biggest day on the economic calendar we’ll see this year. Insights into both the future of monetary and fiscal policy don’t often come on the same day. But yesterday it did: the RBA delivered their monthly decision on Australian interest rates; and the Federal Government handed down its latest budget. The price action in financial markets has thus far been limited – thoug
Lyft, the most recent high profile IPO, shares have seen huge trading activity over the first two days of trading as over 41.5 million shares were traded, well over the 32.5 million offered in the IPO. However, the ride-hailing company saw it's shares slump 12% on its second day of trading down to $69.01, below the official IPO price of $72. The downturn comes after the stock rallied to a high of $88.60 on Friday.
US equities surged on Monday due to strong manufacturing data as factory ac
The US Yield Curve Flipped Back to Normal, Is the Recession Off?
A lot of attention was paid this past week by the financial media to the inversion of the yield curve. To understand the signal, it is important to define the circumstances. The yield curve is a comparison of the yield – in this case, on US Treasuries – of different durations. Normally, the longer the duration, the higher the yield should be owing to the longer tie-up of exposure. When a curve inverts, we have an atypical circ
Today was a good day: The term risk-on can be a little overused in financial markets at times. When short-on-time, and confronted with something complex, suggesting it’s been a “risk-on” or “risk-day” is a simple way to say market participants feel pretty good. At the risk of oversimplifying: the first day of the new quarter was certainly a “risk-on” day. It’s likely given the context of yesterday’s trade that makes this so. Concerns about a global economic slowdown have been their most sensitiv
Confidence returns to the markets as Asian stocks rallied on Monday over positive Chinese factory gauges and signs of progress in US-China trade talks boosted investor sentiment. Manufacturing activity in China expanded at its fastest pace in eight months in March, reading 50.8 and beating analysts' expectations of 49.9.
Bloomberg has announced that Chinese government bonds will be included in its Bloomberg Barclays Global Aggregate index, a global benchmark of government securities. This
The start of something new: A new day, week, month and quarter today; and what a difference a little time can make. 3 months ago, at least for some, global financial markets stood at the brink of ruin. It was December 24 last year that the S&P500 hit its low, but it wasn’t until the start of January that something resembling a turnaround in US stocks transpired. Fast forward to now, and Wall Street is over 12 per cent higher, and though at stages has looked extremely vulnerable to turnaround
Expected index adjustments
Please see the expected dividend adjustment figures for a number of our major indices for the week commencing 1 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 a
US-China trade talks have restarted in Beijing as U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on Friday that he had a "productive working dinner" the previous night. Investors are hopeful that progress will be made to resolve the bitter trade dispute between the two largest global economies, amid growing concern of a slowing economy as the bond market signals a possible incoming recession.
Theresa May is set to make a third attempt to pass a Brexit deal today, as the MPs are asked to vot
Relief-on? It’s a trifle difficult to describe last night’s trade simply. On the surface, risk assets are being reasonably well supported, and there are a few signals suggesting market participants are in a slightly more bullish state of mind. Rather than “risk-on” however, one might describe the last 12 hours in markets as “relief-on”. This is mostly due to the fact that, at least for now, the global bond market rally has stalled. Markets had worked themselves into a frenzy this week, fretting
As per the Bloomberg article, the market for Turkish Lira is in dislocation. Volatility in the Lira has posted the biggest four-day surge since 2004 as officials adopt measures to create a scarcity of the currency to prevent a slump in its value days before local elections this weekend.
The cost of borrowing Lira overnight on the swap market exceeded 1000% because local banks are under pressure to not provide liquidity to foreign investors who want to bet against the currency.
Conseque
Gold prices edged higher after falling on Wednesday. Globally declining treasury yields could increase demand for the yellow-metal if a stock rout were to take place. Spot contracts hit $1311.54 at 6:00am GMT on the IG Web Trading Platform.
Palladium slumped 6% on Wednesday on concerns of slowing demand from the automotive and electronic appliances sectors. Slowing global growth could drown the metal, which hit a record $1620.52 last week.
Oil slumped on Wednesday on reports that
The see-sawing market: The one-day-up, one-day-down pattern of trade on Wall Street continues. It’s playing-out so elegantly, it’s almost absurd. Yesterday was a “down” day, as market participants evacuated equity markets to seek shelter in safe-haven government bonds. In contrast to the day prior, breadth has been universally low, with practically every sector in the S&P500 trading lower. The same simple binary that’s driven market activity for weeks is behind this dynamic: a competition be
A three-year legal battle has concluded with the EU enforcing stricter copyright laws that could affect the business models of tech giants like Google and Facebook. The new reform plans to protect artists and publishers whose work has been widely spread on the internet, by making the tech firms responsible for detecting and removing content that infringes copyright law. Google will has been very critical about the new reform saying that it will restrict freedom of expression, as its video-sharin
Broad-based based bounce in stocks: It was a buy the dip day yesterday, judging by price action in global risk-assets. As has been the theme this week, there wasn’t any meaningful macro-news to change market participants behavior. So: an explanation for the (almost) universally solid day for global equities ought to be chalked-up to internal market mechanics. What this may imply for the longer run is a touch obscure. This market is trading much in the way a plane rights-itself after some brief,
In the latest round of voting in the House of Commons, MP’s voted to set up a series of votes on Wednesday to see which approach to Brexit has the most support. Later, am amendment on whether another extension could be requested if no progress is made on a deal by the 5th of April.
European indices finished the main session down with the FTSE losing 0.42% and the DAX losing 0.15%, 17 points down from the previous day. Meanwhile, US indices traded relatively flat with less that 0.1% change
In the Aftermath of the Fed
The baton has been dropped. The Federal Reserve was by far the most aggressive major central bank through this past financial epoch (the last decade) to embrace ‘normalization’ of its monetary policy following its extraordinary infusion of support through rate cuts and quantitative easing (QE). Over the past three years, the central bank has raised its benchmark rate range 225 basis points and slowly began to reverse the tide of its enormous balance sheet. As of
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