Stay & Play in May

It has been quite some time since I last scribbled and with fear now returning to the markets it is time to try make sense of what has changed during my writers block! At the start of the year, many were worried about financial markets. My own predictions for 2012 were that in the Chinese year of the Dragon market volatility would continue, Europe would still be called Europe, China would neither have a soft nor hard landing but continue with its managed journey and the USA would slowly grind higher. By Read more [...]

The Pause that Refreshes

After 5 weeks of strong gains, equity markets and my blog have been on pause for the past 2 weeks. The S&P 500 index has gained 8 percent this year, however 7 percent of this rally came in the first 5 weeks of 2012. At Fridays close of 1361 it is now just 2 points shy of the post-crisis high in April last year. Crossing that mark would have meant all the losses since June 2008 had been clawed back. It is common that when a market retests a previous high, it often pauses for a while to get rid Read more [...]

Twin Stimulants

Frankly, if you ask me what would be the catalysts for a continuation of the stellar 5% rally in equities in 2012 it would have to be the Twin Stimulants of the Facebook IPO and Ben Bernanke. Facebook has finally filed its long awaited Initial Public Offering which will be the largest Internet IPO on record. The FOMC under the leadership of Ben Bernanke announced last week that they will now extend their guarantee of low interest rates from mid 2013 to the end of 2014. It is going to be hard Read more [...]

Expectations

Equity markets have had a very positive start to 2012, posting YTD gains of 4.5%, and as I have mentioned previously January strength in markets is a good sign for the year . This against the backdrop of the largest inflows into Equity funds in over four months, breaking a trend of nine consecutive weekly outflows 2012 is notable, not only for a positive start in US equities but also for the fact that it is global and synchronized risk-on with higher volumes. It is the first time since 2007 that Read more [...]

In the Black and don’t look Back

We have opened the New Year after 5 trading days in the black and it would be wishful to say we don’t look back. Three and a half years have passed since the onset of the financial and economic crisis of 2008, yet global uncertainty has barely diminished. We have witnessed a record $2.2 trillion of fiscal stimuli, as well as extensive and unconventional monetary policies – from zero-interest rates to billions in money printing, yet global growth is still not on a certain and sustainable Read more [...]