RECOVERY AND INFLATION ARE 2010’S THEMES December 16, 2009 GEORGE TCHETVERTAKOV HEAD OF MARKET RESEARCH, ALPARI UK IF 2008 was the year of the crisis, then the story of 2009 was recovery. Until March, this looked unlikely. Given the losses suffered by financial institutions during the financial meltdown, there were severe doubts whether the world’s banks and economies could bounce back. But signs of [...]
DON’T EXPECT THE YEN TO FALL SHARPLY December 16, 2009 JANE FOLEY RESEARCH DIRECTOR, FOREX.COM DEBTS, deficits and creditworthiness may have reared their ugly heads of late in the Middle East, the Eurozone and the UK but the reappearance of economic growth in most countries by the end of the fourth quarter of 2009 should ensure that the market starts the new year with at [...]
Wall St gains from upbeat forecasting December 16, 2009 Wall Street was set to rise at the open yesterday, after data showed consumer prices did not overheat in November, quelling inflation worries ahead of a statement from the Federal Reserve that will be scrutinised for clues on the state of the world’s largest economy. The Labor Department said the Consumer Price Index rose 0.4 [...]
Financials and US data boost London’s blue chip companies December 16, 2009 Britain’s leading share index rose 0.7 per cent yesterday as US data led to a rise in commodity stocks, and banks firmed on a report that the enforcement of capital adequacy rules would be delayed. The FTSE 100 finished 34.49 points higher at 5,320.26, after closing 0.6 per cent down at 5,285.77 on Tuesday. New [...]
Government’s RBS policy may cost the taxpayer December 16, 2009 ALISTAIR DARLING’S attack on bonuses last week has caused a furore in the Square Mile. However, the pre-Budget Report is perhaps in the long-term not the most important bonus-related event that has taken place in recent weeks. That was when the government acted to limit bonuses at RBS, of which it owns 84 per cent. [...]
M&A outlook is positive for 2010 December 16, 2009 MERGERS and acquisition activity was down 33 per cent in 2009 compared to the year before, but things could be changing in 2010. A survey by the Association for Corporate Growth and Thomson Reuters has found that M&A professionals are optimistic about a pickup of M&A in the next six months. This is heartening news, [...]
New banking body will not improve December 16, 2009 THE regulation of British banks has – to say the least – been in the spotlight since the financial crisis, with the tripartite system coming in for serious criticism. The government says that it wants to change the arrangement and create a Council for Financial Stability, which will co-ordinate the responsibilities and actions of the [...]
The return of the yen carry trade is just hype December 15, 2009 ONE of the big stories of the past six months has been the growth of the dollar carry trade. This trading strategy uses a low-yielding funding currency to purchase higher-yielding assets. For most of this decade the yen has been the funding currency of choice as investors took advantage of Japanese interest rates that remained [...]
EURO’S LUSTRE HAS STARTED TO TARNISH December 15, 2009 BORIS SCHLOSSBERG DIRECTOR OF CURRENCY RESEARCH, GFT AS THE dollar maintains its fundamentals- driven rally for the second week in a row and US economic data continues to surprise to the upside, the story in the Euro-zone is becoming decidedly murky. Last week concerns about the fiscal integrity of Greece weighed on the euro and [...]
FOREX FLASH December 15, 2009 Dovish RBA bad news for Aussie The strong Australian dollar was hit yesterday by the latest minutes from the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), which showed that the decision to raise rates was a finely balanced one. Although there are further RBA hikes in the pipeline, the central bank is aware of the impact that [...]