EU has been hiding its debt for years February 15, 2010 IT is astonishing how short our collective memories have become. It was once well-known that Greece, Italy and other countries had used dodgy tricks to embellish their public finances prior to the launch of Economic and Monetary Union to meet the entry requirements; yet now everybody is pretending to be surprised or even shocked. Even [...]
The truth about the budget deficit April 6, 2010 Bizarre – that is the only way to describe the government’s claim that Britain’s cripplingly high budget deficit is somehow at just the “right” level and that attempting to cut it at a faster rate would jeopardise the recovery. It is one of Gordon Brown’s central claims of the election campaign, yet it has no [...]
Election fears continue to weigh on sterling March 7, 2010 I WAS reading the news the other day and a headline caught my eye: “The Pound Plummets”. I couldn’t help but feel that it is too early to use “plummets” in this context. Since the beginning of this year, the pound is down around seven per cent against the dollar, but we have been quick [...]
Flexible hedge fund strategies perform best March 15, 2010 HEDGE FUNDS managed to post positive returns last month by capitalising on favourable fixed income and foreign exchange positions, a top hedge fund index revealed yesterday. The Credit Suisse/Tremont Hedge Fund index, which is calculated as a total return index on a monthly basis and tracks the asset-weighted average performance of more than 5,000 hedge [...]
Morgan Stanley lands Goldman veteran to help lead equity trading in New York February 4, 2010 Morgan Stanley has hired a 30-year Goldman Sachs veteran to help lead the firm’s equity-trading business, the latest in a series of moves designed to bolster the firm’s sales and trading operations. Anthony Lauto – who left Goldman in 2007 – will join Morgan Stanley’s New York office as a managing director. Morgan Stanley — [...]
Volatile foreign exchange markets are back on the agenda for 2010 February 16, 2010 SIX months ago, it seemed that the worst of the global crisis was over. The markets had calmed down, the economic recovery appeared to be firmly on track and traders seemed to have regained their risk appetite. But just as we thought things were on the mend, a sovereign debt crisis in the Eurozone coupled [...]
Capitalise on bear squeezes to short cable March 16, 2010 IT DOESN’T take a lot to move the pound nowadays. Whether it’s weak data, a policymaker speaking or a ratings agency firing another warning shot over 10 Downing Street – and there have been plenty of all three over recent weeks – sterling is only responding in one way at the moment: down. Against the [...]
The Tipster February 2, 2010 CENTRAL BANK news is dominating the currency markets this week and foreign exchange traders should be digesting these decisions as they are announced. On Monday night, the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) shocked the markets by keeping interest rates on hold at 3.75 per cent. The expectation had been for a 25 basis point hike [...]
Five tips for traders in the second quarter April 5, 2010 THE first quarter of 2010 was a rocky one. We had confirmation that the British economy exited recession in the last three months of 2009 but political polls increasingly pointed towards a hung parliament come the general election. The Eurozone suffered dreadfully from the Greek fiscal crisis and fears grew that its woes could spread [...]
Investors go back to fundamentals as they lose their taste for carry February 16, 2010 IN THE second half of 2009, the dollar-funded carry trade was the primary strategy used to play the foreign exchange markets. The low interest rates set by the Federal Reserve combined with the weakening of the greenback meant that traders were happy to sell low-yielding dollars in search of higher-yielding currencies such as the Australian [...]