FOREX ANALYST PICKS January 18, 2011 FOREX STRATEGIST JOEL KRUGER My pick: Buy US dollar-Canadian dollar at Ca$0.9800 Expertise: Technical analysis Average time frame of trades: 1 to 6 weeks The market has been under some intense pressure and, after managing to match the lows of last April on the final day of the year, has now extended declines to fresh [...]
6,000 could be the FTSE’s magic number January 17, 2011 PLATO said: “A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers,” yet we are forever hearing about psychological barriers in financial markets. One of the worst offenders is the 6,000 number on the FTSE 100. Friday saw the index close above it, so almost inevitably the City spent yesterday speculating on whether or [...]
INVESTORS GIVEN CAUSE TO CHEER January 17, 2011 CFD MARKET STRATEGIST, GFT EUROZONE investors had cause to cheer last week as bond auctions in Portugal, Spain and Italy went better than expected. As the auctions approached, their success looked pretty much guaranteed thanks to the efforts of the European Central Bank (ECB), along with promises of support from China and even chronically-indebted Japan. [...]
Running out of time to deal with Spain’s banks’ losses January 17, 2011 AS THE one-time American defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld once so famously observed, it is not enough to say that we don’t know everything. In fact, we can break down the things we don’t know into categories. Some things we know we don’t know: known unknowns. Others, we don’t know we don’t know: unknown unknowns. From [...]
THE TIPSTER January 17, 2011 INDUSTRIAL giant General Electric reports its fourth quarter earnings on Friday. The company is often seen as something of a barometer for the global economy as a whole but the share price still remains somewhat depressed from the highs of 2007. Demand from emerging economies will continue to lend support to sectors such as its [...]
FTSE tumbles to lowest close for a week as bank shares fall January 17, 2011 BRITAIN’S top share index fell yesterday, with declines from miners and banks offsetting a lift from merger and acquisition moves, as finance ministers were gathering to discuss changes to the Eurozone’s rescue fund. Smiths grabbed top spot on the blue-chip leaderboard, up 7.7 per cent, after the engineering firm rebuffed a £2.45bn bid for its [...]
Europe treads water ahead of EU summit January 17, 2011 EUROPEAN shares ended flat yesteday, with banks among the top fallers, as investors traded cautiously ahead of the outcome of a Eurozone finance ministers meeting aimed at discussing changes to the bloc’s rescue fund. The pan-European FTSEurofirst 300 index of top shares provisionally closed flat at 1,156.59 points. Financials were lower, with the STOXX Europe [...]
Getting bigger slower January 17, 2011 THE Consumer Price Index (CPI) and Retail Price Index (CPI) figures are both out today. CPI is expected to hit around 3.5 per cent, while RPI could go as high as 4.8 per cent. That difference may seem fairly insubstantial, but a lot of people reaching retirement should take note. Why? Well because according to [...]
Pensions and Savings Bill effects: a breakdown January 17, 2011 1. THE “default retirement age” is to be scrapped. That means that employers will not be able to force retirement on workers who are older than 65. If workers wish to stay on, they will benefit from all of the employment protection available to younger workers, forcing employers to pay redundancy packages or else to [...]
Chinese torture is holding back the commodities rally January 16, 2011 CHINA was once famous for, among other things, an obscure torture method: reputedly a way to drive suspects insane by slowly dripping water onto their foreheads. Nowadays, however, many commodities traders must feel rather like victims of the technique. The Chinese government has been slowly drip-feeding the commodities markets with hints about monetary tightening. On [...]
