The closely watched June U.S. non-farm payrolls employment data will be released at 1.30 pm UK time, with expectations that the economy will add 100,000 jobs. The data disappointed markets when it missed estimates in April (+77,000 jobs) and in May (+69,000 jobs), sending the global stock indices down signficantly over the following days. Yesterday,…
Another day, another bout of stimulus into the UK, European and Chinese economies. The Bank of England today announced a £50 billion increase in quantitative easing (QE) to £375 billion and it left interest rates at a record low 0.5%, a level maintained since 2009. The BOE will continue to buy more Treasury bonds…
After months of waiting it looks like Xcite Energy share holders can finally look forward to some of the black stuff from the Rowan Norway rig on the Bentley North Sea field in the next few days (be nice for some blue stuff from the share price too!). The 9/3b-7 well was spudded on the 18…
Last Friday morning Kurdistan focused oil explorer Gulf Keystone Petroleum hit 141p as the euro zone crisis rumbled on. It is now up 40p to 216p. A tidy 53% profit for those brave (or foolhardy!) enough to buy at the lows. In common with many other AIM and small cap oil and gas stocks (Bowleven,…
After the trials and tribulations of Egyptian gold miner – Centamin Egypt over the last few months, it is the turn of fellow small cap gold player, Avocet Mining, to fall back to earth on production issues. Avocet is a focused West African gold mining and exploration company with its primary operations in Burkina Faso…
An interesting AGM on Friday for South Falkland focused oil explorer Borders and Southern. Thanks to Gramacho, Flying mule, stayhungry, fadilz on the iii.co.uk bulletin boards for some insightful posts as well as the AGM presentation (http://www.bordersandsouthern.com/media/pdf/AGM2012.pdf) from which I’ve summarised some of the key points. The company announced that the Stebbing drill and the gas…
Research in Motion, maker of the Blackberry, fell 19% yesterday to finish the US session at a new 12 year low of $7.39 making its market capitalisation now less than $5 billion. The company has remaining cash of $2.2 billion. In 2008 the company was trading $150 and its 52 week high is $33. The…
After the despondency of Thursday, there was a significant snap back in stock indices and commodity prices yesterday after a last minute deal at the EU summit in Brussels to reduce the debt burden on Spain and Italy. The €440bn European Stability Mechanism (ESM) will be able to directly give loans to banks and buy…
When will the pain end for AIM oil and gas investors? The falls have been staggering over the last few weeks. The charts are all looking like an Alpine down hill race over the last 6 months, which presumably means the same for many holders bank accounts! Chariot Oil and gas is the one exception to…
Commodities of late have had a pretty rough time with the S&P GSCI Index Spot commodity index down 10% in the last year. Oil has suffered even more with Brent Crude dropping 15% in the last 12 months to $91.5 and from a 12 month high of $125 in February 2012. Courtesy FT.com The spread…
