Providers should bring a platform for change November 8, 2010 WITH spreads pulled as tight as a drum and trading platforms becoming ever more sophisticated, it is clear that competition between contracts for difference (CFD) providers is heating up. A price war has been waged over the last year – much to the trader’s benefit. WorldSpreads even daringly began to offer zero point spreads on [...]
DON’T BET ON THE FED’S QE2 SHELL GAME November 8, 2010 CFD MARKET STRATEGIST, GFT We’ve just seen an incredibly significant week for the financial markets. Following the US mid-terms, the Republicans have control of the House of Representatives and have cut the Democrats’ Senate majority. While the new Congress won’t be in place until January, the Republican gains will influence the debate over the Bush [...]
Stay bold and hold your gold: the peak is yet to be reached November 8, 2010 In 1931, as Great Britain crashed off the international gold standard, John Maynard Keynes was joyous. “There are few Englishmen who do not rejoice at the breaking of our gold fetters”, he wrote. Yesterday, Robert Zoellick, the head of the World Bank, an organisation that Keynes founded, seemed to be asking for the fetters back. [...]
THE TIPSTER November 8, 2010 The Bank of England’s quarterly Inflation Report should provide some excitement for the currency markets this week. All market participants will be eagerly awaiting what the report has to say about growth prospects in the UK and whether further quantitative easing remains a real possibility. Capital CFDs quotes a price of €1.1590-€1.1594 for sterling-euro. Walt [...]
Quantitative easing risks stoking a bubble in emerging market equities November 8, 2010 EXPECTATIONS of another round of quantitative easing in the US had been riding high for several months and last week Helicopter Ben gave the markets exactly what they had been clamouring for. Investors across the world wildly applauded the Federal Reserve’s decision last week to pump $600bn into the US economy and needed little excuse [...]
Drop in mining stocks takes a toll on the FTSE but Rolls-Royce begins to recover November 8, 2010 BRITAIN’S top shares fell yesterday as mining and energy stocks tracked lower commodity prices, while financials eased on Basel III and sovereign debt concerns. Rolls-Royce rose 2.7 per cent after the engine manufacturer announced progress in understanding the cause of the failure of a Trent 900-powered A380 Qantas flight on 4 November, adding the incident [...]
Wall Street falls as banks and strong dollar weigh November 8, 2010 WALL Street retreated from a two-year high yesterday, weighed down by financial stocks and a stronger dollar. The broad S&P 500 has risen five straight weeks, supported by the Federal Reserve’s plan to buy $600bn of treasuries to lower interest rates and reinvigorate a sluggish economy. With those gains, traders said most S&P sectors were [...]
Silicon Valley was not built in a day November 7, 2010 DAVID Cameron has announced his vision for an “East London tech city – a hub that stretches from Shoreditch and Old Street to the Olympic Park”. Cisco is signed up to establish a supporting innovation centre, and McKinsey and Qualcomm are promising advice on strategy and intellectual property issues, but can a package of new [...]
There’s still no such thing as a free lunch November 7, 2010 MILTON Friedman said that there is no such thing as a free lunch, but even he might have been surprised by the cost of a meal today. World food prices have soared back up to levels last seen in the crisis of 2007-2008, leading some to warn of renewed food riots. Russia recently extended its [...]
Face it, trader: Santa does not exist November 7, 2010 THERE is consensus among sane-minded adults that Santa Claus does not exist. We have – just about – come to terms with the fact that there is no jolly red-suited fellow that wriggles down the chimney and fills our stockings each year. Yet strangely there are still traders who believe in his stock market rally. [...]