Moral hazard meets Greek tragedy for EU January 27, 2010 MOORAD CHOUDHRY HEAD OF TREASURY, EUROPE ARAB BANK THE public sector deficit issue in Greece appears to be heading for a dénouement with the market getting jittery about Greek government bonds and wondering whether the country will default, or even withdraw from the Eurozone. A sovereign default is a serious issue at the best of [...]
Only the severest policy can restore confidence January 27, 2010 IN ALL the furore surrounding Greece, it has been easy to forget about the other Eurozone members struggling to stay afloat. Portugal, Spain and Ireland have all been suffering from ballooning deficits and rapidly rising unemployment, to the extent that all three have experienced government debt downgrades by at least one ratings agency. But while [...]
Not all tracking is equal, and it can pay to know which your ETP uses January 27, 2010 ONE of the biggest attractions of exchange-traded funds (ETFs) is that they track indices such as the FTSE 100, giving investors exposure to the performance of these benchmarks without requiring them to hold actual shares. In order to replicate the performance of the underlying index as closely as possible, the fund has to include exposure [...]
Defensive shares lift FTSE but banks and miners weak January 26, 2010 BRITAIN’S leading share index added 0.3 per cent yesterday, as support for defensive issues, and a modest early rally on Wall Street, offset weakness in heavyweight miners and banks. At the close, the FTSE 100 index was up 16.54 points at 5,276.85, snapping a four-session losing streak, having earlier reached an intraday low for the [...]
Political fears cast shadow on earnings January 26, 2010 US stocks slipped late yesterday due to trepidation over churning political and regulatory developments, offsetting solid earnings and improved consumer confidence data. Gains faded late as investors turned cautious before the Federal Reserve’s policy announcement and President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address today. US stocks fell 5 per cent in a three-day span [...]
Chinese actions shape Asian currency moves January 26, 2010 ASIAN currencies can be tricky for an investor to navigate. They have long been seen as a tangled web of fixed, floating and managed exchange rates. On top of that, political risk abounds. Some investors were caught off guard after a coup in Thailand in 2008 caused a steep fall in the value of the [...]
US POLITICAL TURBULENCE HITS DOLLAR January 26, 2010 DIRECTOR OF CURRENCY RESEARCH, GFT DURING times of stress in the markets, the dollar generally rises as risk averse investors flock to the safety of the world’s reserve currency. However, that dynamic could be reversed if the political problems in Washington are not brought under control. Last Friday, news that Fed chairman Ben Bernanke may [...]
Eastern Europe currencies will suffer as Greek crisis unfolds January 26, 2010 OBSERVERS of the Greece’s fiscal crisis might be forgiven for thinking that there has been little impact on other countries. The credit default swap markets – which measure the perceived risk of a sovereign debt default – have been remarkably well behaved, with the unsurprising exception of Greece. But if you look more closely at [...]
FX INVESTORS ANTICIPATE BAD NEWS January 26, 2010 MARTIN ARNOLD SENIOR ANALYST, ETF SECURITIES SENTIMENT in the foreign exchange markets has changed dramatically in recent days as investors increasingly question whether the strong price performance of risk assets in 2009 can be sustained in 2010. Indeed, of the major currencies, only the Japanese yen has appreciated in recent days as investors have unwound [...]
FOREX FLASH January 26, 2010 CHAVEZ ORDERS £93BN SALE OF DOLLARS Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez has ordered the first sale in six years of $93bn of dollar reserves in an attempt to shore up the recently devalued bolivar. Chavez has given the central bank orders “burn the hands” of speculators betting against the currency. Chavez said last week that he [...]