NO FIREWORKS ON 4 JULY, BUT US LOOKING UP July 5, 2011 THANKS to Independence Day on 4 July, America’s week began a day late, and currencies remained in a state of suspended animation, with euro-dollar hovering around the $1.4500 level for the past 48 hours. With Greece now a distant memory (at least for the time being), the market’s attention has turned to economic matters rather [...]
Muted market reaction to the ending of QE2 July 5, 2011 AFTER months of speculation surrounding the end of the Federal Reserve’s second round of quantitative easing (QE2), Fed chairman Ben Bernanke finally announced a fortnight ago that the US central bank’s program of buying Treasuries on a massive scale was going to draw to a close. But, despite the forex markets being overshadowed by the [...]
THE TIPSTER July 5, 2011 THE Canadian loonie has come off a 3 per cent gain on the US dollar, as the suspicion from traders is that the currency has become overbought. Another factor is that the loonie isn’t exactly a safe haven currency, and after comments from rating agency S&P about Greek default, traders fled to the safer US [...]
FOREX ANALYST PICKS July 5, 2011 FOREX STRATEGIST JOHN KICKLIGHTER My pick: Remain short sterling-dollar and dollar-Swiss franc Expertise: Fundamental analysis with risk management Average time frame of trades: 1 day to 1 week My mix of trades from last week have whittled down. The short kiwi dollar-dollar was stopped and offset by the long Canadian dollar-yen from ¥83. I’m still [...]
Jeep’s… back July 5, 2011 Us Brits should be forgiven for thinking Land Rover invented the luxury 4×4 with the Range Rover brand. In fact it was Jeep with its Wagoneer that created the segment, and by the mid 1990s, its successor, the Jeep Grand Cherokee, was just about everywhere in the US and ubiquitous in London too. Then sales [...]
CAR TALK July 5, 2011 CHEVY’S ELECTRIC OFFERING Chevrolet’s extended range EV Volt will cost £28,545 (including £5,000 government grant) when it arrives in early 2012. Thanks to its E-REV powertrain, the car has an electric-only range of 50 miles after which an on-board generator kicks in to prevent the battery going flat. This means you could commute using electric [...]
FTSE digs in after gains July 5, 2011 The FTSE started solidly today after breaking the 6,000 barrier yesterday but bleak service sector data cast a shadow across European markets. Growth in the eurozone’s service sector slowed for a third straight month in June — sending negative signals to investors. The UK Markit/CIPS services PMI came in at 53.9 for June, down from [...]
Eurozone retail sales fall July 5, 2011 Retail sales in the euro zone slipped in May from April with a sharp fall in economic powerhouse Germany, data showed on Tuesday, as the single currency area prepared for a likely interest rate rise. The European Union’s statistics office Eurostat said month-on-month volumes of retail sales fell by 1.1 per cent in the 17 [...]
Service sector growth remains weak July 5, 2011 Britain’s service sector performed better than expected in June but growth was still not strong enough to generate jobs, a purchasing managers’ survey showed. The Markit/CIPS headline services PMI index nudged up to 53.9 last month from a three-month low of 53.8 in May. That was above the 53.5 that economists had forecast but below [...]
BoE demands banks join payment system July 5, 2011 The Bank of England wants more banks to join the inter-bank payment system to increase financial stability and may take action if not enough lenders sign up, a top Bank official said on Tuesday. Britain’s payment structure has proved resilient so far but the financial crisis has highlighted the risks if banks are not direct [...]
