If you’re stuck in a rut, you have to be ready to change care%r October 21, 2009 YOU’RE bored, you don’t feel as though your skills are being used properly, your colleagues seem to achieve more than you do, and worst of all, it’s been this way for months. In short, you feel you’ve hit a dead-end in your career. What can you do about it? If you’re in a rut in [...]
BE DEFENSIVE BY TRADING AGRICULTURE October 21, 2009 NICHOLAS BROOKSHEAD OF RESEARCH AND INVESTMENT STRATEGY, ETF SECURITIES DURING the first half of 2009, exchange-traded commodities (ETCs) in industrially-focused precious metals – silver, platinum and palladium – as well as industrial metals all saw rapid rises in inflows as cyclical indicators rebounded. Although recent months have seen outflows in individual industrial metal ETCs, the [...]
A poor economic backdrop will see UK stocks trail their overseas peers October 20, 2009 IT’S hard to be optimistic about Britain’s economy. It lags behind both France and Germany in exiting recession and a sharp contraction in industrial output in September cast doubt over how positive third quarter GDP data – released this Friday – will be. A slow and protracted recovery lies ahead, according to the Bank of [...]
Don’t be afraid to dip your toe in the volatile forex waters October 20, 2009 OVER recent years one market type more than any other seems to have grabbed the attention of spread betting clients – foreign exchange. At the beginning of 2009, as equity markets continued to plumb the depths and were shunned by investors, our spread betting firm saw forex overtake equities in monthly trading volume. Of course [...]
HAWKISH FED IS BEST HOPE FOR DOLLAR October 20, 2009 BORIS SCHLOSSBERGDIRECTOR OF CURRENCY RESEARCH, GFT THIS Monday, during CNBC’s “Squawk Box” in the US, I remarked that these days it is easier to find a poor Goldman Sachs banker than to meet a dollar bull on Wall Street. But when everyone is so bearish on the currency and the trade becomes tremendously crowded, we [...]
Outlook for major currency pairs to depend on world economic recovery October 20, 2009 DURING the economic crisis, many central banks cut interest rates to near-zero and introduced further monetary expansion through asset purchase policies. With all major economies suffering from recession and little interest rate differential, currency traders looked to daily fluctuations for their profits. But with the global economy showing signs of a more entrenched recovery and [...]
FTSE hits a high but sale of Barclays shares prompts dip October 20, 2009 Britain’s top shares fell 0.7 percent yesterday, led down by banks after Qatar sold shares in Barclays while weaker-than-expected US data added to the negative sentiment. The benchmark FTSE 100 closed down 38.14 points at 5,243.40, having hit a fresh high for the year at 5,298.54 earlier in the session. Barclays fell 4.8 per cent [...]
US housing results bring down stocks October 20, 2009 US stocks retreated from 12-month highs yesterday as disappointing housing and inflation data prompted investors to book recent gains despite strong results from bellwethers including Apple and Caterpillar. New construction of US homes rose less than expected in September and US producer prices posted an unexpected decline, both pointing to an anemic economic recovery. DuPont [...]
A new world of Tesco-style law for all October 20, 2009 SIX artfully stacked cans of baked beans adorn the desk of the Legal Services Board’s first chairman David Edmonds. This isn’t some clever executive desk toy nor is it evidence of a limited culinary imagination. Instead it’s a playful reference to “Tesco Law”, the shorthand for the ongoing liberalisation of the legal profession under the [...]
MANAGING THE NEW BONUS RULES October 20, 2009 PETER TALIBARTPARTNER AT NORTON ROSE LLP The announcement last week that major investment banks will join the big five British banks in agreeing to adhere to the remuneration principles set out by the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh last month is a significant coup for the broker of the deal, Lord Myners, and the Treasury. The [...]