Feb
3
Mixed signals in the eurozone
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Hopes of an imminent agreement between Greece and its private bondholders were dashed on Thursday due to the opposition of some of the Greek political leaders towards additional spending cuts demanded by the lenders as well as a disagreement between the IMF and Germany on the involvement of the ECB in the bond swap.
Greece’s creditors [...]
Feb
2
A rise in global manufacturing PMIs has helped shore up investor sentiment overnight and we enter a world in which risk looks to be very much ‘on’ again. But gains could be limited by reports that the IMF and Germany have yet to reach agreement over the size of the Greek haircut. While the Greek [...]
Jan
31
Despite the approved ESM the Euro is still under pressure
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EU leaders managed to agree to set up the €500 billion European Stability Mechanism (ESM) fund overnight while pushing through the fiscal compact (despite the UK and the Czech Republic not ratifying the agreement), but there is still little sign of progress on the second Greek bailout. While finance ministers are supposed to have agreed [...]
Jan
30
The European leaders meet yet again today to try and agree on the new fiscal compact agreement and to set up the new €500 billion European Support Mechanism. We’ll no doubt see European leaders insisting on further commitments from the Greek government in exchange for a another bailout package. Rumours over the weekend suggest that [...]
Jan
27
Portugal weakens the Euro
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This morning the Euro has fallen against the Pound as the news from the Portuguese bond market was released. The 10-year bond yield has hit a new high at 15.25%, with investors growing their concerns on a possible contagion. Many analysts believe Portugal will need a second bailout. Meanwhile, the markets expects to hear from [...]
Jan
26
Market Update
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Equity markets are broadly higher this morning with investors seeming taking some comfort from the Fed‟s decision to hold interest rates at „exceptionally low levels‟ until the end of 2014 rather than mid-2013. Although interest rates are now on hold for longer, the decision looks to have slightly pushed back expectations of further Quantitative Easing.
The dollar [...]
Jan
25
Poor start to the day for GBP
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Big events of the day are the release of the Bank of England (BoE) minutes from their last rate decision meeting, which have already been released. UK GDP figures for Q4 2011 and the US interest rate decision this evening (UK time).
Whilst there are likely to be no surprises with the US certain to keep [...]
Jan
24
GBP/EUR has regained some ground after the increment to £10.8bn in the UK’s Public Sector net Borrowing in December, coming in lower than expectations (£12.2bn). The UK budget deficit in December rose to £13.7bn against a forecasted £14.9bn. In the April-December period the deficit was also lower than expected, rising to £103.3bn vs. £114.6bn.
In a [...]
Jan
23
Market Update
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The Chinese lunar New Year holiday has effectively shut down most of the Asian stock markets today, which could be seen as a positive given the ongoing failure of Greek debt restructuring talks. Discussions are believed to have failed over the weekend, but there is due to be a teleconference with investors today. Those close [...]
Jan
17
No great surprise
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Having European markets open on a firmer footing after a positive Asian session following slightly stronger than expected Chinese GDP, retail sales and industrial production data. GDP expanded by 2% quarter-on-quarter and 8.9% year-on-year against consensus annual forecasts of 8.7%. This was the slowest pace of growth in over two years. Both exports and imports [...]