What a time to be alive – sun shining, 26 degrees on Thursday, summer within touching distance, pubs heaving all over the city and a real sense of optimism in the air when you’re out and about. Alas, there is one thing missing however… and that is volumes! We put down another sluggish day in this stop/start period with spotlight firmly on the micro. A wave of corporate earnings to get through earlier, which proved to be a bit of a mixed bag as the SXXP advanced for sixth consecutive day althoug…

Congratulations to anyone completing the London or Manchester marathon’s this weekend, any Liverpool fans that are readers, or really anyone who managed to do anything remotely constructive in that glorious weather this weekend. I did not… a remarkably sluggish weekend for yours truly taking all the rest I could get as the last 6 weeks take their toll. A sluggish start to the week too with much of the day feeling and looking a bit like any of the days from last week: Volumes down considerably,…

There is no guaranteed ‘rally formula’ for Equity markets but you’d think most iterations would look something like today: Improving macro with the Trump administration softening stances on China and Powell overnight, which helped concerns about the US haven status wane, Yields fall and Dollar strengthen. What was needed to aide that and help the rally was strong corporate earnings and so far this week that has been abundance. Beats from SAP, BE Semi, Croda, Valmet, Eurofins, Randstad, Akzo Nob…

I organised four separate, but identical, easter egg hunts for my daughter over the weekend as different family members dropped in and out of Sunday lunch and wanted to partake. Same locations of eggs but still the same bit of joy each time at finding them. That’s similar and opposite to current situation in markets as we run into the same issues, same headwinds on a daily basis and it does sadly still bring daily struggles for investors. It feels slightly strange to be right in the heart of ea…

Limping into Easter is the only way to describe markets right now. A down day post some more Trump comments last night, but it was a down day on very little volume. Most of the down days of late (which there have been plenty) have been on elevated volumes so to see a pull back post the week’s tepid climb on weak volumes really did feel like the countdown was on to tomorrow’s close. Plenty of traps to avoid with corporate earnings coming and a -25% move from Bunzl wiping out 3years worth of ste…

A lovely interlude of a weekend was as I hosted my mum who was visiting, watched the boat race, went to Kew Gardens, ate well and broadly speaking forgot about the mayhem that April has been thus far. The Snapshot today in place to let you know that unlike the past few weeks, not a great deal happened, and whilst the April mayhem certainly isn’t over, it does feel like its having a small hiatus. The Stoxx 600 managed a quite unassuming +2.8% and everything does feel a little fatigued – the Equ…

Markets are up (in Europe), the Masters is on the TV, the sun shining….this is more like it. After a few double and triple bogeys Trump (who had called markets Yippy) finally stuck one close to the pin and tapped in a birdie. An easy win; do what the market wants you to do, because you know (thanks to Tuesday) what the reaction will be. There was definitely a sense that, being a very keen golfer himself, he might have fancied a couple days respite watching the rounds at Augusta rather than fre…

Unless you’re an Arsenal fan, it doesn’t feel like there’s much to cheer about at the minute…. Who knew Rice had that in his locker? A 3-0 win over Madrid in the Champions Leage – definitely not the result I was backing. On the other hand, the direction of today’s session felt a little more predictable, overnight we had White House officials confirm the rollout of global levies, with Asian markets feeling the brunt of this earlier although China managed to finish higher with a late session rall…

An honesty call here…how many times did you refresh Trump’s Truth Social this morning? I think I did 30 odd times before I saw him post and unlike the past few days it wasn’t an aggressive attack on a trading partner and that was taken well. That was the real theme for the day as fear of tariffs switched to hopes of successful negotiations and we heard from both Stephen Miran and Scott Bessent along those lines too late morning. We did know the set up was there for a bounce: Oversold, VIX at di…

When I spent the morning commute searching for circuit breaker rules in Europe whilst spotting the Hang Seng having its worst single day fall this century (it was closed Friday so a bit of catch up), it was clear that any bounce we may be hoping for wasn’t going to be immediate after a very tough end to last week. The opening lows did mark the lows of the day (down -13.5% since liberation day), and we saw the first signs of a fight back from the European and U.S. Equity spectrum at various poin…