Nasdaq up despite bad day for banks July 22, 2009 THE Nasdaq rose yesterday for the 11th straight day, buoyed by solid profits from Apple and Starbucks, while disappointing bank results and declining energy shares weighed on the broader market. The Dow Jones industrial average declined, halting a seven-day winning streak, as investors sold some of the market’s recent winners to take profits, and the [...]
Post-crisis, the carry trade is a new beast to contend with July 22, 2009 IT WAS once the most popular trade in the foreign exchange market and helped fuel the boom in global asset markets until 2007. But with the advent of the sub-prime, and subsequently the full-blown, financial crisis, the carry trade was unwound as investors became risk-averse and piled into safe-havens such as the US dollar and [...]
Pharmaceuticals inject more life into the FTSE 100’s rise July 22, 2009 THE FTSE 100 added 0.3 per cent yesterday, extending its winning streak to eight sessions thanks to modest gains on Wall Street and solid second-quarter results from drugs giant GlaxoSmithKline. At the close, the index was 12.56 points higher at 4,493.73, up 8.2 per cent over the past eight sessions. Drug maker Shire was the [...]
Correlations prove a useful guide in trading the FX market July 21, 2009 MIXED macroeconomic data over recent weeks has seen investors’ risk appetite rise and fall on an almost daily basis, making it difficult for foreign exchange traders to take anything other than a very near-term view on a currency pair. If you’re not a short-term trader looking to jump in and out of the market, then [...]
CHINA’S GDP THREATENED BY US SAVERS July 21, 2009 BORIS SCHLOSSBERGDIRECTOR OF CURRENCY RESEARCH, GFT LAST week China released its GDP figures for the second quarter of 2009. While it missed the vaunted 8 per cent target, the country’s economy did expand at an impressive rate of 7.9 per cent. Compared with the miserable results from the G3 universe (US GDP -2 per cent, [...]
Adjust your tactics to the time horizon July 21, 2009 MARKET volatility during the financial crisis meant that traders shortened their time horizons and looked only to trade in the very near-term. Massive swings in the markets, currencies included, meant that it was impossible for investors to make long-term trading decisions and hedge them appropriately. But with conditions calming considerably to pre-Lehman levels, medium and [...]
MAKE SURE YOUR WILL IS SHIP SHAPE July 21, 2009 WYNNE THOMASSENIOR PARTNER AND A PRIVATE CLIENT PARTNER AT DAWSONS LLP THE death of Michael Jackson has, predictably, turned into something of a circus, with doctors, hangers-on and family members all keen to get across their side of the story. What has added to the interest and drama in this sad case is the fact [...]
The champagne days are over as firms cut costs July 21, 2009 ONE OF THE less visible casualties of the credit crunch has been the corporate and press hospitality industry. Legal journalists wistfully recall the days, now gone, in which they were magically whisked away by a fleet of chauffeur-driven cars to take first class transatlantic flights to check out Linklaters’ New York office or when they [...]
Supermarket sweep pushes FTSE to seventh rise in a row July 21, 2009 BRITAIN’S top share index rose for a seventh-straight day yesterday, boosted by supermarkets after a trading update from Wm Morrison, and after strong US quarterly results, with miners also lending support. The FTSE 100 closed 37.55 points higher, or 0.9 per cent, at 4,481.17, following a gain of 1.3 per cent on Monday. The index [...]
Bernanke warning fails to curb cheer July 21, 2009 THE Dow rose yesterday as a solid profit from Caterpillar eclipsed unease about the company’s outlook for the current quarter, while both the Nasdaq and the S&P 500 clung to tiny gains after a round of profit-taking. Trading was choppy, with the broader market initially charging higher after the open and the benchmark S&P 500 [...]