Is the Fed that junkie that keeps on promising to kick the habit because they know the dire consequences if they don’t, but just want that last fix because it feels so good and they’re frightened of cold turkey? How many times has the Fed now signalled it will come off the QE juice but […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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WPP :Â Â The group is tightening the screw on hiring and staff costs to absorb slowing net sales growth while maintaining the public forecasts of rising GDP and advertising expenditure into 2015. The hitherto growth engine markets of BRIC however, are looking increasingly wobbly, while the contraction in margins at the digitally heavy specialist communications […]
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Am I missing something here? No sooner than central bankers on both sides of the pond had impressed upon us the importance of managing expectations and newsflow for fickle markets, than Bernanke throws us a very curved ball. Was this the same person that has for months been sending out signals of tapering QE, that […]
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Benanke does some back-peddling on tapering and we’re back to the ‘good’ times again. More easing of course spells a weaker dollar, which after its recent surge, was ripe for some profit taking. On the other side of this trade, Â equities and commodities rose, including at last gold. Â – nice to see life is now […]
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