The Markets The Chinese stock market suffered its largest fall in over six years this morning after regulators began to clamp down on high risk investment strategies. Margin trading came in for particular punishment, with three large brokers banned from opening new trading accounts for three months after they allowed customers to roll-over margin trading…
When businesses lose sight of their core strengths in an attempt to be all things to all men, this is usually a recipe for disaster. In many cases, Tesco (TSCO) is a classic case of corporate overstretch, but it is also one which has been exacerbated by what appears to be a structural shift in…
I have been sitting on a couple of charting patterns since the start of the week on two stocks which may be familiar to many fans of speculative situations. The first is Quindell (QPP) the troubled – allegedly, insurance outsourcer, and heavy metal free quantum dots maker Nanoco (NANO). But for the sake of this…
2015 came in like a lion and has stayed that way. Oil prices, bond yields and stock crashes in China are just some of the factors we’ve struggled to get our heads around. Already it’s proved pretty brutal for many market players, wrong footed by volatile markets in the first week of the year and…
FTSE 100 Centrica (CNA) – British Gas is to reduce household gas prices by 5%, cutting annual energy bills on average by £37. FTSE 250 Balfour Beatty (BBY) – has been appointed as the sole contractor to a new UK-wide civil engineering and infrastructure framework for public works. The framework is valued at up to…
The Markets The European Commission issued a preliminary finding that Amazon’s tax arrangements in Luxembourg most likely constitute state aid, saying that there was “no indication” that the arrangements were compatible with the common market. The firm uses a system of transfer pricing and royalties to shift profits between its companies. Luxembourg’s deal with Fiat,…
by Dave Evans of binary.com Markets stabilised on Friday after the Swiss National Bank dropped a large boulder in the calm waters of the EUR/CHF, with ripple effects across the FX world. The move was completely unexpected and with other fears dominating trader’s radars, the SNB action is an archetypal “Black Swan” as made famous by…
It may be said that from King Canute onwards we have seen history littered with examples of hubris losing out to forces beyond its control. For the financial markets the best example in recent history was of course the pound been kicked out of the ERM in 1992. This came as a result of an…
The Markets The Swiss National Bank has stopped maintaining the Franc’s peg against the Euro and has also reduced interest rates by 50 basis points to -0.75%. Following the news, the Euro dropped dramatically, bottoming out at 0.80 against the Franc before seeing a partial recovery. The decisions had not been expected in many quarters,…
FTSE 100 Associated British Foods (ABF) – revenue for the 16 weeks ended 3rd January 2015 was 3% ahead of the same period last year at constant currency, and was 1% ahead at actual exchange rates. Expects a marginal decline in adjusted earnings per share for the group for the full year. Tullow Oil (TLW)…
