IT’S STILL TOO EARLY TO STOP THE STIMULUS February 8, 2010 WE ARE two-thirds of the way through the US fourth-quarter earnings season and 74 per cent of S&P 500 firms that have already reported have beaten analysts’ estimates. A further 9 per cent were in line while 17 per cent of companies fell short. The earnings season has not been good enough so far to [...]
Tullow hangs on for Uganda oil approval February 7, 2010 TULLOW Oil is edging closer to gaining full approval from the Ugandan government to snap up $1.5bn (£959m) worth of oil fields in the country, as it remains locked in discussions with two separate oil majors over the structure of a future partnership to develop the assets. Tullow’s path to buying the fields from Heritage [...]
WHAT THE OTHER PAPERS SAY THIS MORNING February 4, 2010 FINANCIAL TIMES UNION “NOT MILES APART” FROM BA The broad outlines of a settlement in the dispute between British Airways and its cabin crew are emerging in informal talks between the two sides, the Unite union said yesterday. “We’re not miles apart,” said Steve Turner, national officer for aviation at Unite, which represents BA’s 12,000-plus [...]
INVESTORS FLOCKING TO SAFE HAVENS February 3, 2010 SENTIMENT in the foreign exchange market has changed dramatically over the past week as investors increasingly question whether the strong performance of risk assets in 2009 can be sustained in 2010. Monetary policy tightening in both China and India have made investors much more wary. As Greece’s debt problems have come to the fore in [...]
JOBS ARE KEY TO AMERICAN 2010 GROWTH February 2, 2010 CHINA was the biggest market surprise in 2009 as the country’s GDP growth almost single handedly rescued the world from the worst economic recession since the war. The continuation of the recovery trade will be dependent on whether G20 economies can take the baton from China as its economic growth slows to a more natural [...]
In these markets, you should defend yourself February 1, 2010 DESPITE strong US and Chinese growth data and a solid – if not stellar – US earnings season, it has not been a good fortnight for global equities Since the start of the year, the S&P 500 has lost 4.6 per cent, the FTSE 100 is down 5.2 per cent and the MSCI World index [...]
RETHINK YOUR VIEW ON GOLD AND SILVER February 1, 2010 CFD Market Strategist, GFT After a strong start to the New Year, equities finished January on a very weak note. With China beginning to tighten policy, investors have become twitchy. The prospect of a drop in Chinese demand and a world with less liquidity has rattled financial markets. There was hope that the US earnings [...]
HSBC strategists fly east to drive growth in Hong Kong January 31, 2010 HSBC has underlined its focus on the Chinese market by moving a team of around a dozen strategists to Hong Kong along with its global head of strategy, Antonio Simoes. Simoes will work closely with chief executive Michael Geoghegan, who received a hero’s welcome on his first day at the bank’s far eastern office last [...]
Boost your trading toolkit by watching moving averages January 31, 2010 FUNDAMENTAL traders have been speculating for some time about two trends: a resurgent greenback and an asset price bubble in China. And, if the technical analysis is correct, confirmation of both these moves came at the end of last week. On Wednesday, the US dollar index – which is a measure of the US dollar [...]
Ford is finally back to black January 28, 2010 FORD raced back to black as it announced full-year earnings of $2.7bn (£1.7bn) yesterday. The result is the first profit the troubled car maker has reported since 2005. The business now expects to make a make a “solid” profit over the next two years despite a slow recovery in US car sales. Revenue for the [...]