I missed the lively start to the quarter/half but I was at least slightly hopeful that the tape would resemble the eventful scenes at The Palio di Sienna more than the tranquillity of the Uffizi but I was wrong. Obviously I’ve had to put in the only two cultural things I actually did on holiday in the first sentence because most of the holiday was spent drinking wine by the pool and watching the Ashes! Not too many things to blame for the lack of action today but it falls into the ‘Monday in Ju…

Ah this is more familiar. The old seat-of-the-pants Snapshot. Zero time to prep. Far too much going on. The temptation to let one through the slips then the realization that we’ve had a Major Move in the Market and you told your friend and colleague Courteney that you wouldn’t let him down and with 10 minutes to go you tumble it all together. Was it actually a big move though? Well the main message is no damage done YET. This was a flesh wound of a day (Stoxx 600 -2.34%) but only Month Python f…

I may be showing my age here, but in my latter teens I went on a few holidays where, to keep the cost down you didn’t choose your accommodation, you left it to the tour operator upon your arrival. They were called ‘allocation on arrival’ and I guess to footloose & fancy free teenagers it added to the excitement of the whole event. Ultimately, you didn’t know which reception you were going to get. With the tit-for-tat political shenanigans between the US & China of late regarding tech sensitivit…

Major US holidays such as Independence Day can render that day’s global trading futile. Thankfully ‘Sales Traders’ are a rare breed and can become ‘experts’ (in the loosest sense of the term) in a multitude of subjects very quicky depending on the circumstance or season. Whether its hurricane experts in September, epidemiologists during covid, or plane tracking experts when Yellen was heading to Taiwan, today was a good day to turn our attention to a new subject, rare metals. The protectionist…

It’s all a bit breathless at the moment isn’t it. No sooner has the Glastonbury / Ascot / Lords bonanza finished than Wimbledon and July 4th BBQs rear their heads. Throw in weddings (Johanna on our team is getting married this weekend – we’ve vetted the groom – he seems to measure up) and end-of-school festivities and it is no wonder that thoughts start to turn to the peace and quiet of a holiday. Today felt as though it was going to be a bit “holiday-ish” with a half day in the US ahead of the…

Sometimes I wish I could wind back the clock and be a year younger, I’m only 31, look 47 and act 25 but it would be nice to go back a year and have that spring in my step. For an entire nation that is the reality today. South Korea’s traditional age-counting custom considers every person 1 year old at birth and adds another year when the calendar hits Jan 1st. A child born on Dec 31st would actually be 2 years old just 2 days into their life which really doesn’t seem that fair and so they have…

Behind Politicians, who don’t do themselves any favours, Central Bankers can’t be far behind given some of things that they have said in the past year. Yes it’s the first time in 10 years that they have been relevant and maybe enjoying this moment in the sun but seeing back-to-back headlines from ECB’s Vujcic saying “No reason to say now what we do in September” followed swiftly by – “ECB’s Vujcic: There’s a good chance of September rate hike” certainly doesn’t help. All the major Central Banke…

I was tempted to take a leaf out the Fed’s book today and ‘skip’ the Snapshot today but, having been on calls with Melissa the message is definitely that the decision was unwise for the Fed to do so, I’ve taken that advice to be inclusive of the Snapshot. Europe just isn’t that exciting vs the rest of the market right now which is at least showing a few hints of life, movement, positional shifts, sentiment changes. We tend to close flat or very close to (last 6 sessions have been within 60bps o…

I promised readers an interesting week with month and quarter-end likely to be quite pivotal for how we start Q3 and what it spells for the rest of the year but 20% into the week and we’re none the wiser. It was a typical Monday (which isn’t a good thing!) with the Stoxx 600 flirting between gains and losses and closing broadly flat on volumes that offered hope early on but ended up disappointing once again. It did allow me to spend some time booking transfers, researching ‘best SPF 50 suncream…

Oh there was a lot going on today wasn’t there! So much so that I’ve not been able to start early only just managed to get my head around it all. A drifting equity complex was the backdrop for what was largely a macro day but it is worth saying that all the goings on didn’t really change what continues to be a bad week for Equities and the Stoxx 600 -50bps. Firstly to central banks and step up to the plate first Norges Bank who surprised to the upside with a 50bp raise of their interest rate wh…