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Expect Yellen to chicken out again on rate rise for September
Will she or won’t she? It seems with Fed interest rate policy remaining the only game in town, strategists are stuck with trying to second guess Yellen’s next move at the forthcoming FOMC on 16-17 September. Of course we’ve been here before and we can look at all the evidence and data under the sun […]
Continue reading“It’s Putin wot’s doin it”.
In a reversal of what happened in Valens’ day, the migrant flow is now going north from the Danube towards Germania rather than south, although there is a new empire that is to be shaken by such a move and that is no longer ruled from the south. Having wagged her imperial finger at the […]
Continue readingGet the oil price right and make the right call on oil stocks
Invest in an oil major such as Exxon or Chevron and there are two over-riding factors to consider. The first and probably obvious one for Groups which traditionally make over three quarters of their income from pumping oil and gas out of the ground is the price of oil. While an oil spill and >$40bn […]
Continue readingTsipras makes Merkel an offer she can’t refuse
How should we interpret this week’s volte-face by Tsipras and the Syriza government in approving austerity concessions to the Troika that had been specifically rejected by Greek voters in a referendum less than a week before? Short term, this would seem to provide an opportunity for celebration for creditors and financial markets in that the […]
Continue readingGreek referendum – all part of the Varoufakis game
Greece votes a resounding 61% “No†to the Troika debt proposals, yet financial markets remain largely unfazed, with European equity markets declining initially by less than 2% and 10 year bond yields for Italy, Spain and Portugal harden by less than 10bps. With traders having been weaned on a succession of last minute resolutions to […]
Continue readingMarket complacency may be its undoing
Welcome to the Q1 reporting season. If you hadn’t noticed yet, Easter came early this year (good for retailers, airlines etc) and there is a minefield of shifting currencies and commodity prices to adjust for as well as some decidedly mixed macro data coming out from the major trading economies. If you’re selling out of […]
Continue readingNovember non-farm payrolls – Bah Humbug!
I can hardly contain myself with excitement. US non-farm payroll data for November is out and the headlines are that the +321k MoM additions (+314k for the more relevant Private sector jobs) “smashes forecasts†(Guardian) and that “The dollar has gone through the roof†(City AM). With another month of unemployment at only 5.8% (try […]
Continue readingAirlines and oil prices
With fuel costs representing 45-50% of an airline’s operating costs and 35% of its revenues, it would seem self-evident that a significant movement in oil, and therefore fuel prices, would have an equally dramatic effect on margins; in particular when the industry’s margins are often the wrong side of 5%. The oil price however is […]
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