I’m not much of a wordsmith but I was surprised that I had never heard the Oxford University Press word of the year used in context. The word is ‘Rizz’ an apparent abbreviation of Charisma and a colloquial word defined as style, charm, or attractiveness (not to be confused with Rizo aka Phil Risley our Algorithmic trading guru though stylish and charming he is). Maybe that is me confined to the Millennial bucket forever when this is clearly a Gen Z world we’re all living in. I’m probably using…

Don’t take our weekends from us…. A broadening out of the rally on the surface is good, allows for more companies to share in the higher stock prices, and we are seeing it with the Russell 2k taking the reins from the Nasdaq & SPX (up 4.7% in 2 days is the second best relative performance this year) which seems reasonable. Unless you are of the mind that seasonality rules, and the Mag7 will/should not go down the last part of this 4th quarter. I just wonder how this market will respond to a li…

Rebalances, Rotations, Rolling stones and all… The S&P hasn’t had a daily move in either direction of more than half a percent for 6 days now, so let’s take a closer look under the hood….. Markets continue to rotate in the direction that the peak in yields is behind us – with the most obvious leader being US tech marking all-time high this week – but under the surface in Europe it’s very interesting to follow the flows.. We are seeing (and we would agree with, in this environment), a strong bia…

Well that happened fast… It has been so ingrained in us that inflation is the root of all evil and that central banks will do as much as they can to keep it from overgrowing, and yet, we wake up today with significantly cooler prices for the month in Australia (4.9% CPI vs. 5.2% expected), in Spain (3.2% against consensus rise to 3.7%), the UK November BRC shop price index falling to 4.3% from 5.2% in Oct, and most exciting Germany (CPI drops from 3.0% to 2.3% in Nov, vs 2.6% exp and some regio…

We all need leadership.. 7 Mega-tech companies have proven very reliable, carrying Nasdaq to hefty 10.8% gains mtd – and with yields making fresh lows as I type/send this and the US$ on 10 week lows, we have reasons to believe… Here in Europe, we depend more significantly on China to drive our shares, but with the China Exposed Basket only 1% above its recent November relative LOW – a breakdown of trust may soon be confirmed (we are looking squarely at 12m relative lows from Burberry, Kering,…

I’m going to guess that I’m not the only one who has a Sunday-Evening-Process. All about setting yourself for the week ahead of course and I find a routine helps put me on the right path mentally. My S.E.P involves watching my youngest at her swimming training before we go home for baked beans on toast, a pint of ice cold milk and an hour reading the Sunday Times (me not her). The News section until it gets too depressing into a bit of Sport then a quick rifle through all the Homes I’d buy if I…

Like a super sub I’m being drafted in on Snapshot duty as Courteney has surgery today to replace the cartilage in his knee. It’s unsurprising but we’ve been calling him ‘Court’ recently until they give him his ‘knee’ back, but we wish him a speedy recovery nonetheless.

The macro which has dominated so much of the moving parts in global equities for the second half of this year is likely to take a breather this week given the U.S. thanksgiving holiday and started in that fashion with yields slightly higher, the Dollar slightly lower but nothing really moving with much velocity. All that meant was that European Equities traded within a 35bp range all day and ended the day a smidge better than Friday(Stoxx 600 +10bps), holding onto recent gains but not with any…

Right as readers of the Snapshot will know we are quite keen on our food here on the Sales-Trading desk. So our eyes were of course caught by the Aldi Pigs in Blankets Restaurant pop up in Islington where for 5 pounds (proceeds to charity) you will be able to get a 6 course menu including Pigs in Blankets (well you would hope so) Caramelised onion chipolatas wrapped in bacon, Brie and cranberry candy cane pigs in blanket, and Giant Yorkshire pudding pig in blankets. The bad news is I cant seem…

In my more youthful days at School I was often criticised for doing the very minimum amount of work to get by but there is no better way to describe this morning’s events within European Equities than ‘Please see yesterday’s Snapshot for details.’ Tight ranges, grinding higher, no volume, lack of conviction, not much dispersion and all in all everyone was waiting for the CPI – It was a print worth waiting for judged by the market reaction. Headline CPI was down to 3.2% in October (cons 3.3%) d…