Finger on the trigger then – who is booking where? Portugal? Spain? ‘Murica? Only the quickest of Snapshots tonight because at 5pm Transport Secretary Grant Shapps – the man once described by one of his colleagues as being “not someone you’d buy a used car off” – will be announcing where we can travel to and when. Ibiza for the May half term Grant – there’s a good lad. A rollercoaster end to a rollercoaster week as the Non-Farm Payrolls saw the usual whipsaw in markets but we end it with the Stoxx 600 having ground out another c1% gain.

Did we just see the least enthusiastic rally of the year so far? It feels very possible but it’s maybe the two hour call I had with the EU regulator and assorted others discussing the likelihood of a consolidated tape in Europe that took away some of my zest for life today. Markets trudging their way back to just above where we started out yesterday (Stoxx 600 +1.82% to 441.55 vs Monday’s close of 439.91) after the late rally in the U.S and a lack of much of anything in Asia (Japan and China both closed) meant that any conviction people were starting to feel to the downside fizzled pretty quickly.

It’s going to be a sad goodbye but my 16 year old Volvo and I will soon have to part ways. The ULEZ changes beckon so, on Saturday, I started to scout around for an Ultra Low Emissions Vehicle (very reminiscent of my switch to “cleaner” diesel in 2005 which was also a government led initiative). I don’t know if you’ve tried to buy a car recently but the message is clear – buy what you can now because there’s nothing coming any time soon.

So let’s play May Day Bank Holiday bingo shall we. One point each for “I can’t believe it’s May already“, “isn’t the year going quickly” and “of course it’s raining – it’s a bank holiday” with a bonus point for “shall we clear out the….”. May always a test of nerves for investors and we’re […]

The good news is this is just the first proper week of earnings. We’re very much in the foothills with weeks to go. Something to look forward to isn’t it as another exhausting day comes to a close (Stoxx 600 -0.26%). An absolute barrage of numbers coming through and the only good news is the […]

I can feel the cynicism now. It’s almost palpable. But. I think I’m gonna go with it. I think we have our first theme emerging from the deluge of earnings. You look at a lot of sectors and they’re back to where they were in Feb 2020 before all the Covid nonsense or higher. Banks […]

It’s a funny old game this sales trading lark. It can be lonely one minute and then overly social the next. You can have moments when you think you’re never going to deal again (yesterday at about 4pm) and moments when you get so busy you can’t write your – ahem – end of day […]

So we’ve gone from Mega Move Mondays to Admin Mondays in the last couple of months and while that’s – ahem – slightly less exciting it does allow the sales trading team to check in with our analyst teams. We’ve been doing these on and off through lockdown as a way of keeping in touch […]

Lots of hot air around on World Earth Day as we had one of the busiest earnings day of the year so far but the activity levels unlikely to raise any temperatures as another day of solid to better updates steadied us towards the highs but without much excitement (Stoxx 600 +0.68%). Joe Biden hosting […]

You all strike me as far too responsible to have had to do a speed awareness course but after 28 years of driving without a single speeding ticket a rogue gust of wind as I travelled downhill meant I got caught doing 46 in a 40 the other day. Some pretty amazing stats from the […]