Opinion – Friday 9 May 2014

The ECB took centre stage in yesterday’s markets. It kept policy unchanged but President Dragi gave a strong verbal commitment to action next month in conjunction with the next set of economic forecasts. This ensured that the Euro dropped sharply and peripheral...

Opinion – Thursday 8 May 2014

Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s testimony to the Joint Economic Committee yesterday was on the dovish size where she again highlighted that very accommodating policy was still required given the considerable slack in the labour market and low inflation. She is also...

Opinion – Wednesday 7 May 2014

Equity markets lost ground yesterday with the S&P and Dow closing down 0.9% and 08% respectively whilst European Bourses averaged a 0.3% fall. Earnings reports weighed on markets, most notably Twitter which fell an incredible 17% whilst Financial stocks were...

Opinion – Tuesday 6 May 2014

Yesterday was another day which had two halves to its trading session. After I posted in the morning European stock markets started to fall hard on news of fighting in Slovyansk in Eastern Ukraine and reports of casualities and the shooting down of another military...

Opinion – Monday 5 May 2014

The theme of last week has been one of good but not good enough. The US data has seen a lot of positive surprises but the markets still like to believe that the Fed will have to wait in order to raise interest rates. This was the focus post the US Payrolls on Friday...

Opinion – Friday 2 May 2014

Yesterday was a very quiet trading session for markets as news content was light and most moves were small. The US equity markets were lacklustre, etching out a very small decline and seeing small but mixed performances across Europe in the markets that were open...