Oh, the Joys of writing the Snapshot when the Nasdaq changes the shape of just about everything (nice late day rally SXXP) amidst big news that the House of Representatives passed Trump’s signature tax bill (215-214, with one abstention, where it now moves to the Senate). The multi-trillion-dollar package aims to prevent a year-end tax increase but will raises concerns about ballooning deficits, especially after Moody’s downgraded the U.S. government’s credit rating. Long bond yields moved high…

A streak of misfortune this morning began with a torrential downpour on my way in, quickly followed by some widespread Bloomberg outages which was definitely less than ideal… The first issue cleared up faster than the second, although it seemed a few (and rightly so I might add) took advantage of the break in the rain to get away from the desk, as volumes never really picked up from a pretty brutal start. The main story first thing came on the geopolitical front, with Oil higher overnight on re…

Today is World Bee Day, a fact I was reminded of by my father who’s dabbled in the art of beekeeping in recent times (something which caught us all off guard) and his reminder earlier brought back a hilarious memory from his early days, when a faulty zip and swarm of bees inside his mask resulted in the sort of slapstick visuals that belonged on TV! Chaotic scenes for sure and a memory we try to remind him of as much as possible and although markets have lulled somewhat from recent chaos, it di…

“Sleepless in Sweden” was the headline from this Statista survey which revealed that 1 in 2 Swedes have struggled with sleep over the past year. 37% of UK participants admitted the same, and this leads me on to the concept of ‘grounding blankets’, a product which supposedly improves your health by connecting the body to the earth’s natural electrical charge and has been all over my targeted ads recently. I’ve heard others sing its praises but would be keen to hear if anyone else has purchased o…

11-a-side footie is on the cards for tonight, and thankfully, the weather has cooled to temperatures I’m more accustomed to playing in (the west of Ireland isn’t exactly known for its tropical climate), and this is a welcome change particularly given that some strong sun made it difficult to see the ball in recent games (or at least that’s the excuse I’m sticking with). This ties in somewhat with a snippet from our latest midweek charts, which includes a stat that the phrase “my eyes hurt” beca…

Today is National Decency Day (as I’m sure you’re all aware), and in the spirit of decency, I’ve spared you from my usual ramblings and will get straight to the point that it’s feeling increasingly difficult to be short this market at the minute. Trump is determined to keep U.S equities higher, and yesterday we saw the S&P 500 erase all its year-to-date losses which is quite incredible really and especially considering that the last time which the index recovered from a 15% decline in under six…

A real kick to the shins last night as I left the office… having just written about the amazing sun we’ve been blessed with here in London, the heavens promptly opened on my cycle home. A brief but perfectly timed downpour left me drenched to the bone, seemingly lasting the exact duration of my commute. Sods Law for sure and perhaps this quick turn in the weather may have set the tone for this morning, as early signs pointed to optimism around that US-China truce talk beginning to fizzle somewh…

Tidy snippet from our chart’s gurus earlier on recent flow data which showed this year, retail investors have been buying at record pace while simultaneously both hedge funds and institutional investors have been selling at a similar pace. Brings me on to a recent paper from NYU which states that the median retail investor spends approximately six minutes on research per trade on traded tickets, mostly just before the trade. This sort of dynamic hasn’t really set the market alight in recent tim…

The markets a bit like the weather as after 10 gloriously hot up days for Europe, things have cooled down a bit in both senses. Back at levels last seen pre the whole ‘liberation day’ panic and that makes the move all the more justified. No panic though as the Stoxx 600 closed down 20bps on no volumes too, and even if there weren’t a few causes for the sell off today it might have given some of the recent ascent back anyway. Two steps forward….two steps back at the moment in European politics a…

“Myself” was the response which Trump gave last night when asked who he would like to see succeed Pope Francis, hardly a surprising answer, but one that did make me laugh and felt like a good segue to share an interesting fact: The Vatican City has the highest number of both CFA charterholders and Bloomberg terminals per capita of any country. A tidy snippet for sure and with volumes like these, you’ll forgive me for spending a large portion of the day hunting for something interesting! That be…