Post Tagged with: "sterling"
Berlusconi down – markets up
It’s a damning indictment of what low regard politicians are held in when for the second time in a week we’ve seen markets rally on the resignation of a prime minister (first Greece, now Italy). And not just domestic markets; even US stocks squeezed out a 0.5% rally on the news. From here, it’s a
Run for the hills
For much of yesterday global markets were in a particularly dark mood, amidst both heightened recovery concerns and fears over Greek debt contagion. We even had officials from both the US and China warning that Europe needed to get their act together because the loss of confidence in policy-making was adversely affecting the euro and
Trichet should watch his language
Of most interest today with respect to the ECB meeting is not the decision on monetary policy, which analysts unanimously expect will result in the refi rate remaining unchanged at 1.25%, but the language used by President Trichet in the press conference. Indeed, part of the explanation for the euro’s improved performance in recent trading
Bernanke fails to feed markets
It was clear that after the recent run of soft data, some were desperate for Fed Chairman Bernanke to drop hints about further QE when he spoke yesterday. As it was, whilst he was fairly cautious on the economic outlook (describing the recovery as “frustratingly slow”), he didn’t throw out any bones for commodity, FX
Emerging curriencies in the ascendency
What’s been noticeable over the past week is the weight on developed market currencies. Emerging currencies put in their best performance last week for over a month, as the US and Europe were weighed down by concerns on both growth and also debt. Currency markets are very short-termist, but sometimes the divide between emerging market
The Vienna Initiative starts to receive the attention it deserves
Gaining traction in the myriad of debates being conducted by eurozone finance officials about how to respond to Europe’s sovereign debt crisis is the Vienna Initiative, one of the key features being where lenders to a country are encouraged to roll over existing loans and/or maturing bonds. It was this particular feature of the Vienna
Realism on risk
Monday was all about the re-pricing of risk. That’s not such a bad thing given that there were signs that markets were getting complacent once again. The VIX measure of equity market volatility is perhaps the best measure of this, in light of its liquidity. This was nudging below the 15.0 level towards the end
Worries over Asia inflation pressure increase risk aversion
Sterling suffers on revised rate outlook Portugal agrees aid plan with IMF and EU Asia discusses pooling FX reserves US debt-limit may not reached until early August A more vulnerable Aussie Greek debt restructuring pressures ease slightly Two themes dominated forex markets on the first proper day of trading since before the RW (Royal
Eurozone fudges the fixes
Middle East unrest intensifies Portugal election creates bond market dilemma Fed officials sounding more optimistic on recovery Sterling losing its shine Return of risk appetite hobbles the Swiss franc Events on Friday and over the weekend have perfectly illustrated how the agenda for resolving the euro crisis has been overtaken by domestic politics. Finland
The euro stands its ground
The euro was one of the best performers during the European session on Thursday, despite the looming election in Portugal, the assumed EU bailout and the prospect of a delay to agreement on reform of the EFSF. There were three over-arching reasons for the single currency’s vigour. The first was the weakness of both the