As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, the March 2017 meeting of the Federal Reserve could prove to be an odd affair. Indeed, it turned out to be so. The central bank raised interest rates by 25 basis points from 0.75% to 1%, in its second rate hike in 4 months and its third since the…

At 6pm this evening, the US Federal Reserve is expected to raise interest rates for only the 3rd time in the past decade. Yet to call this raising of interest rates in itself a market moving event might be a misnomer. Instead, many investors are instead likely to focus on forecasts, including the Fed’s famous…

Macro observations Possibilities and probabilities headline this week’s foreign exchange forecasts, as three major events will keep investors busy right the way through until Friday. We begin with probabilities, something that the US Federal Reserve has been playing with for the past fortnight. The FOMC, the committee in charge of setting monetary policy in the…

Resources sector engineer AMEC Foster Wheeler (AMFW) is the winner this morning, +15% thanks to a £2.2bn all-share offer from peer Wood Group (WG). This offsets a poor (albeit in-line) set of 2016 results, trading profits hit by lower oil prices weighing on the key Oil & Gas market. The deal appears beneficial for both…

The UK’s Banks may not be among this week’s UK Index winners but technical signals and supportive messages from some major financial institutions means we can find reason to be bullish on the sector’s near-term prospects. What is it we are focusing on? What makes us consider Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, RBS and Standard Chartered as…

We’ve been hearing about it non-stop for months on end. First the Supreme Court case, now the House of Lords. But finally, next week should see the end of the debate as Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to officially announce the UK’s intention to leave the European Union. Looking back, the day after the…