2012 will mimic 2011 in Aussie dollar volatility January 3, 2012 MARKETS across the globe are suddenly hinting at the promise of economic renewal. Apart from the earth successfully travelling once more around the sun, to the delight of the planet’s Homo sapiens, has anything really changed from jittery 2011? For a short time at least, confidence is high. “Traders and investors seem prepared to take [...]
GEOPOLITICAL THREATS TO 2012 TRADING January 3, 2012 AS THE currency markets opened for trading at the start of the new year, investors remained in a party mood, bidding up the Australian dollar, after PMI readings from the region printed better than expected. China’s official PMI Manufacturing report crossed back above the 50 boom/bust level, allaying concerns that the Asian giant was heading [...]
THE TIPSTER January 3, 2012 THE last few weeks have been uncharacteristically quiet on the European crisis front – but pessimists may just view this as the calm before the next inevitable storm. The optimistic view could be that surely all of the bad news is getting close to being priced in for the euro and its death has been [...]
Global stocks start 2012 with an upswing but experts are forecasting a New Year hangover January 2, 2012 EUROPEAN stocks ended higher in their first trading session of the year yesterday, led by defensive utilities such as E.ON and GDF Suez, while volumes were anaemic as UK and US markets remained closed for the New Year holiday. The handful of Asian markets that opened yesterday gave a more patchy performance, and analysts warned [...]
Revive your trading with death crosses January 2, 2012 BEFORE the bottom fell out of the S&P 500 last August, alert traders were given a sign in the data that something was about to give. In the last few days, a similar warning has come to watchers of gold price charts, suggesting the yellow metal will decline in value over the coming days and [...]
Analyst picks for 3 January 2012 January 2, 2012 FOREX STRATEGIST JOEL KRUGER My pick: Looking to buy euro-Australian dollar Expertise: Technical analysis Average time frame of trades: Multiweek This market is trading near 20-year lows and is very close to retesting the record Au$1.2500 lows from 1989. Short-term, medium-term and longer-term studies are all looking stretched and we will look for an opportunity [...]
S&P is set to finish higher for the year December 22, 2011 US stocks rose yesterday, putting the S&P 500 on the cusp of finishing out the year higher as another decline in jobless claims pointed to further improvement in the labour market. The S&P rose for a third day in seasonally light volume that has contributed to sharp swings recently. With the benchmark index near break-even [...]
Year-end portfolio reshuffles help to boost the FTSE 100 December 22, 2011 BANKS buoyed the FTSE 100 yesterday as Goldman Sachs analysts said the take-up by lenders of ECB loans should be seen as an “important positive” and market bulls attempted to push the index through important technical levels. London’s blue chips closed up 67.23 points, or 1.3 per cent, at 5,456.97, although the index failed to [...]
Markets hold up yet tech sector hit by slide December 21, 2011 TECHNOLOGY shares slumped yesterday and pushed the Nasdaq down one per cent after Oracle reported results that cast doubts on the sector’s health, even as broader markets closed mostly flat in a thinly traded day. Outside the Nasdaq, the market recovered from early losses as some recent fears over Europe faded. Traders tried to build [...]
FTSE seesaws lower on banks and retailers December 21, 2011 BRITAIN’S top share index fell back after a volatile session yesterday, swinging back from early strong gains in low volumes, with banks seeing gains eroded, although Lloyds was boosted by a broker double upgrade. At the close, the FTSE 100 index was down 29.86 points, or 0.6 per cent at 5,389.74, reversing a chunk of [...]