Non-farm Payrolls? Non-event payrolls more like. We already have all the information we need to make predictions about US monetary policy. Janet Yellen already yelled something along the lines of this at her hawkish upstarts last week: “While any future rate hikes remain data dependent, what’s going on in the rest of the world is…
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing when one investor told me the financial markets were doing nothing at the moment. My response was to ask him what his ideal stock market looks like and suggested a few options: Stocks that appreciate by 60% year to date by the end of Q1? Stocks trading within 2% of multi-year lows?…
It may have been one of the toughest (and exciting) starts to the year for financial markets in a long time, however, those brave enough to call a bottom on certain stocks in Jan and Feb will have done very nicely indeed. In fact, as we write the UK Index index is sitting only 2% from…
The UK Index ’s Oil Majors are weighing on the index this morning, accounting for 11pts of the index’s 65pt drop. This comes as oil prices languish around recent pull-back lows, US and Brent Crude a whole $3-4 a barrel (circa 10%) off their Q1 recovery highs. After a near 50% bounce from 12/13yr lows…
Warren Buffet has contributed little to the planet bar income tax. That said though, his deceivingly simple and much quoted line about contrarianism is actually quite well founded. The VIX Volatility Index (VX) is essentially a measure of uncertainty. When it’s at highs, the inference is that market volatility is also high. Volatility is caused, at least in…
Miner stocks are topping the UK 100 this morning. This is thanks to more dovish than expected dollar-weakening words of wisdom from US Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen which have given a fillip to the dollar-denominated and stimulus/low-rate sensitive commodities space. UK-listed Miners are benefiting from an increase in risk appetite on expectations of lower global…