It is a sad state of affairs when, after a terrorist incident such as yesterday’s events in Belgium, how quickly the markets have accepted it and within a few hours priced out! This is both a reflection of what is becoming “a horrible accepted norm” and also the lack of market participants. Even though Asian […]
Shortly after the European open news broke of the Belgium terror attacks and we saw the usual flight to quality. Treasuries rallied, as did Gold and the US Dollar while stocks fell and in particular airlines and travel companies. At one stage we saw the DAX down over -1.5% with CAC, IBEX and FTSE not […]
With Japan on national holidays it was left to Shanghai and Hang Seng to show the rest of the world the way forward. With the help of the PBOC, adding ample liquidity and fixing the Yuan rate at 6.4824 (compared to 6.4628 on Friday) stocks saw a healthy 2%+ gain for the day. HSI closed marginally firmer. In […]
The strong Yen continues to weigh on the Nikkei even though other core Asian Indices performed. Minutes from the Jan BOJ meeting were released which showed that additional stimulus were discussed, including the possible expansion of QE. However, having opened unchanged and after a long week the Nikkei closed down -1.25% on the day and 2.5% lower […]
The Asian markets responded quite positively to the FED’s unchanged decision yesterday with HSI and China Main trading a little over 1% higher across the board. The Exporters did not fare so well, as such, Japan closed a little lower (-0.22%) on the back of a stronger JPY (+1%). China moved the yuan mid-point from 6.5172 […]
With both Asia and European markets were in pretty much a waiting station ahead of the FED, so it is probably worth us heading straight to where the action started! Even the events of the UK Budget were almost removed with talks of, “It could all change come June 23rd anyway” so why get too hot under the […]
Asia closed mixed in a session dominated by central bank thinking and with the uncertainty of holding recent gains. The BOJ was vocal only in that they stated it was too early still to monitor the effects of the recent negative move. The JPY returned to previous highs and in late US trading Nikkei futures have dropped […]
Quieter equity markets across the globe today with gains decreasing as we move from east to west. Core Asian markets saw returns today of around +1.5% each but the week is to be dominated by central bank activity. Today sees the start of the BOJ’s two-day meeting, but no change in rate is expected by […]
Asia performed across the board with gains of between +0.5% to +1.1%. We have seen that carried forward into US trading with futures adding 1.5% to the cash closes. I want to move-on quickly to Europe today as this is where we are receiving many questions. The first thing we need to highlight is the why stock […]
The surprise rate cut by the New Zealand Central Bank earlier this morning spooked a few markets especially ahead of the ECB later in the day. The Nikkei liked the news which resulted in a +1.3% rally but that has been reversed after the wests reaction to the ECB this evening. In late US trading […]
